Hey, I thought I’d post here about my recent trip to Sri Lanka. First off, I loved it. I met some great people and scored some great waves.

Normally, I spend most of my time surfing in wave pools in Bristol, in the UK, so what I found really hard was actually the line-up in the ocean — and most of that difficulty was just in my head. My mind was getting in the way.

To explain this better: I was surfing the best point break in Sri Lanka, and because of that, the line-up was rammed — maybe 50 people in the water, all sorts of abilities, people dropping in all over the place — but very long rides.

For the first session, I kind of just sat on the shoulder a bit and watched. I could see who was getting the most waves and where the take-off point was. It was a fairly small area, but I just didn’t have the confidence to sit there. I was so bothered about the people around me, and whether I was even good enough to be in that spot.

Anyway, even after knowing all this and having a good talk with myself in my room the next day, I still couldn’t find the confidence to sit in the right place in the line-up — even though I knew what I should be doing. At that point, I was catching about one wave per hour!

It was only when I found the ‘Surf Psychology’ course on the OMBE app that I was able to reframe what was going on in my mind. The next day, I sat in the take-off zone and caught a load of waves. I just had to get my mind out of the way.

Below is a clip of my surfing in Sri Lanka. It’s not my best surfing, and there’s plenty wrong with my technique on this wave — but that’s not really the point of this post. It’s more about understanding that sometimes, it’s what’s going on in your mind that matters more than how your body moves