The waves for the first six heats of Round 3 of the 2006 Billabong Pro at Jefferies Bay were, according to Aussie Joel Parkinson “definitely the worst WCT conditions I’ve surfed in a long time.”
The two to three foot crumbling onshore waves were a world away from the big, pristine barrelling waves surfers are used to competing in on the WCT.
The changed conditions presented a new set of challenges, as surfers had to make the physical, mental and tactical shift from the “usual” - clean, perfect glassy waves - to what Peterson Rosa described as “very tough, very difficult” conditions.
Those surfers who made the necessary adjustments, and went on to win their heats, provided some important lessons for all contest surfers who face ordinary conditions for their heat.
Adjust Your Attitude
Sure, it’s great to turn up to a contest and surf good waves. But, if the waves are crappy for your heat do you get a crappy attitude to match?
South Africa’s Greg Emslie demonstrated the professional attitude that’s required to get winning results - “At the end of the day it’s a job you’ve got to do. You can’t always have perfect waves and you’ve still got to play the game no matter what the conditions are like.”
Adjust Your Tactics
For Rd 3 Heat 1 winner, Mick Fanning, and eventual contest winner (see the vid above), the smaller conditions presented a new, far more dog eat dog situation than the usual reasonably gentlemanly exchange of priority in the Dream Tour’s typically perfect condtions. “It was really tricky out there. When you had priority you found yourself kinda getting stuck up the point. I actually got my best waves out of priority”
Fanning monitored his performance and made the tactical shift required to win the wave fight.
Adjust Your Surfing
As conditions change, it’s important to make the right kind of technical changes to your surfing.
Big wave and small surfing require different approaches and you need to know exactly what it is YOU need to focus on as conditions shift.
For Parko, he tried to amp his surfing up“It’s really easy to look kinda boring in them little waves, so you really gotta try and spark them up a bit. You gotta spark your turns up and make it look like you’re energised and you’re hungry
.
So, do you know what you are going to focus on next time it goes from small to big, from onshore to offshore? If you do your ready to join the winners circle.
Dr Mike Martin is widely acknowledged as the leading expert insurf psychology. He is author of Six Steps to Surfing Success:How to Create Heat Winning Strategies, and Head Honcho at SurfSuccess.com, which specialises in teaching contest surfers how to structure their contest thinking to convert 15%, 25% -- even up to 50% of their heat results into wins. SurfSuccess.com is a first-of-its-kind heat strategy development website that delivers sure-fire high performance thinking strategies for contest surfers to dramatically boost their heat win ratio in as little as six weeks. Go here now for details: http://www.SurfSuccess.com/new-member-info.html
