(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/k9s7S)
This is really irritating. Really irritating.
A few weeks ago someone on the Standup Zone (http://ping.fm/5JCGD the best forum for Stand Up Paddle Surfing around, including the little forum here on Ke Nalu) mentioned the book Fierce Heart: The Story Of Makaha and the Soul of Surfing. My friend Kaweeka pointed out some local Hawaiian controversy about the book, which was enough to pique my curiosity. I went to Amazon and ordered a copy. So far, I'd have to say it's everything a book should be--fearless. I'll get to Gerry in a minute. But here's my take on writing.
Everyone has their own unique view on the world. That usually doesn't matter much until you sit down to write something. But a book, or any writing for that matter has to reflect the writer's view of the world, or it's worthless pap. You can't write a book that your Mom won't be embarrassed by. You can't write a book caring that your friends might consider you a perverted whack job. You have to write fearlessly, or you're a hack and your book is crap. Stuart Holmes Coleman wrote both this book and "Eddie Would Go". Both are fine books. Eventually the people he wrote about will understand that he loves and respects them, and wanted to tell their story the best way he could. I think he did that. I haven't finished it yet, but so far, so very, very good. They have warts, he talks about them, but they are all HUGE people, and if I'm very lucky I'll get to meet them.
On to Gerry. While I was on Amazon I noticed Gerry Lopez's book, and bought that too. So here's the short version. If you care about great writing, stop reading this and buy this book. If you care about surfing, stop reading this and go buy this book. If you'd like to see how life should be lived...well, you get the idea.
But I'm pissed about this book, really pissed. I can live with the fact that Gerry Lopez is an infinitely better surfer than me, and an infinitely better Stand Up Paddle Surfer than me. But I'm a relatively new surfer and he's been surfing all his life--that's understandable. But I've been writing all my life, made my living and my fortune writing stuff. And he's a far better writer than me. That pisses me off.
Pick someone you think has a modicum of sensitivity and an appreciation of elegance. Your significant other will probably do. Read them this passage:
"The summer wave off the little point of the bay at Pakala still spins perfectly around it's arc of shallow reef, just as it did before my grandparents lived there, or later when a child looked up to notice its ample grace."
Damn.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
[Blog] Grumpy About Gerry Lopez: This is really irritating. Really irritating.
A few weeks ago someone on the St... http://s3nt.com/g8qu
A few weeks ago someone on the St... http://s3nt.com/g8qu
[Blog] Grumpy About Gerry Lopez: This is really irritating. Really irritating.
A few weeks ago someone on the Standup Zone (http://ping.fm/szHYt the best forum for St... http://s3nt.com/g8qu
A few weeks ago someone on the Standup Zone (http://ping.fm/szHYt the best forum for St... http://s3nt.com/g8qu
Dolphin Rings
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/0qhbM)
One of the best things about being on a Stand Up Paddle board is the marine life you can see. It's always a privilege, even just looking at a little school of fish, or a nice reef. But when you get sot see something big in the water--a shark, a whale, a turtle--it seems really special. And certainly one of the most exciting and wonderful animals to see are Dolphins (or more precisely, porpoises). All you have to do is look at their clear curiousity to understand how smart they are. Given how limited our understanding of intelligence is, I can't help but think we might be looking at our intellectual equals or superiors.
This video is simply astonishing. In some ways it's even more interesting to listen to the people talk about the "animals" and the "behavior" as if they were simply parroting a learned response. I have no idea how to make a ring like these dolphins do, and no idea how it could be manipulated like this. I don't understand the physics.
Simply astonishing. Here's some Beluga whales doing the same thing.
The YouTube comments are pathetic as usual. For some reason YouTube always seems to show people at their worst. Or maybe I'm just an optimist.
One of the best things about being on a Stand Up Paddle board is the marine life you can see. It's always a privilege, even just looking at a little school of fish, or a nice reef. But when you get sot see something big in the water--a shark, a whale, a turtle--it seems really special. And certainly one of the most exciting and wonderful animals to see are Dolphins (or more precisely, porpoises). All you have to do is look at their clear curiousity to understand how smart they are. Given how limited our understanding of intelligence is, I can't help but think we might be looking at our intellectual equals or superiors.
This video is simply astonishing. In some ways it's even more interesting to listen to the people talk about the "animals" and the "behavior" as if they were simply parroting a learned response. I have no idea how to make a ring like these dolphins do, and no idea how it could be manipulated like this. I don't understand the physics.
Simply astonishing. Here's some Beluga whales doing the same thing.
The YouTube comments are pathetic as usual. For some reason YouTube always seems to show people at their worst. Or maybe I'm just an optimist.
[Blog] Dolphin Rings: One of the best things about being on a Stand Up Paddle board is the marine life you can see. ... http://s3nt.com/g7vb
[Blog] Dolphin Rings: One of the best things about being on a Stand Up Paddle board is the marine life you can see. It's always a privilege, even just looking at a little schoo... http://s3nt.com/g7vb
Monday, May 11, 2009
Hydration = Balance
(My Original Blog Post: http://www.kenalu.com/2009/05/11/hydration-balance/)
When you perform any exercise it makes sense to have your body operating at optimal levels, and hydration is clearly necessary to achieve optimal performance. But proper hydration is even more critical for Stand Up Paddle Surfing, because hydration has a profound effect on balance. Try this simple test. Next time you are thirsty, before you drink water balance on one leg, close your eyes, and count how many seconds you can remain balanced. Then drink as much water as you can comfortably hold, wait a few minutes, and repeat the test. You'll find you can balance much longer.
Not a very scientific test, but it should bring home the message that hydration is important to balance. Dehydration slows muscle response and detunes the fine muscle control that is critical to maintaining balance. There are other reasons too--physical performance, both intensity and endurance, falls quickly as athletes become dehydrated. In the longer term, operating in a dehydrated state is bad for your immune system, hard on your kidneys, and bad for your heart and lungs.
Here's the kicker--sedentary people don't have a big problem with hydration. They generally get enough fluids: Roughly a gallon of fluids for men and three quarts of fluid for women per day. It's the folks that are physically active that are frequently dehydrated to the point of substantially decreasing performance and compromising health. This has been well understood for a long time, most of the data still quoted in journals is from the 1960's. In random weighings of people working out in gyms with water freely available, more than 40 percent were dehydrated 3 percent or more; for bicycle riders it was more than 60 percent, runners more than 70 percent. A dehydration level of three percent is serious. Here's the standard dehydration scale:
0% -- normal performance
1% -- thirst occurs, heat regulation may be compromised, balance compromised
2% -- dry mouth, worsening performance
3% -- Heat regulation is compromised, strength and endurance performance declines 10-20 percent
4% -- discomfort, performance declines 20-30 percent
5% -- headache, fatigue, disorientation
6% -- weakness, severe loss of heat regulation
7% -- collapse
How Much And How Frequently
So when you've been paddling for an hour and you feel a little thirsty, your balance is probably reduced by 50 percent and your strength by at least 10-20%. Even if you take along a camelbak and drink from it while you paddle, you may not be getting enough fluid to maintain hydration. Slaking your thirst is just turning off the alarm.
If you'd like to be a little scientific about this you can do some fairly accurate and simple measurements. Before you go for a paddle empty your bladder and record your weight naked ___________ lbs.
Do a typical paddle or surf session and drink as you normally would. Record the volume of fluid you consumed ___________ fluid ounces
Towel dry, empty your bladder and then record your weight naked ___________ lbs.(B)
Subtract your post-exercise weight from your pre-exercise weight to get the number of pounds you lost during exercise. To find out how many fluid ounces of water you have lost, multiply the weight you lost in pounds by 16. That amount of water plus the amount of water you drank is how much water you needed to drink to maintain normal hydration. You can remember the conversion factor for ounces to pounds easily with this mnemonic--a pint's a pound the world around.
To find out your dehydration percentage, divide the amount of weight you lost by your original weight and multiply by 100. For example, if you weighed 200 pounds and you lost 2 pounds, it's (2/200)*100 = .01*100 = 1 percent.
If you lost two pounds that's 32 ounces of water you lost, so if you drank one quart you really needed to drink two. It's more likely though that even if you are wearing a camelbak that you drink just a few sips as you exercise, and it's not enough to maintain performance and balance. Generally, in warm weather paddling hard a person will need eight ounces of water every twenty minutes
Obviously you're not going to be carrying a gallon of water with you if you go for a two hour paddle. So here's a reasonable hydration plan for warm weather: In the hour before the paddle drink 32 ounces or more of water (one quart). During the paddle drink 6 ounces of water every 20 minutes. Following the paddle drink 32 ounces of water (one quart). Again, if you want to be precise, or just get a baseline measurement, weigh yourself before and after the paddle with an empty bladder and drink 24 ounces of water for each pound of weight you lost.
Unless you are exceptionally vigilant, as an active person you are probably chronically dehydrated. Not only is that bad for performance, it's bad for your long term health. The list of diseases and disorders linked to chronic dehydration is long and unpleasant. Some of them are not things you would automatically associate with not drinking enough water. When I started paying more attention to hydration the backaches I thought were just the price I was paying for an active lifestyle disappeared.
Once you have a clear idea of how much water you need during exercise, it's fairly easy to stay hydrated. You will increase your overall performance and recovery to a remarkable degree.
When you perform any exercise it makes sense to have your body operating at optimal levels, and hydration is clearly necessary to achieve optimal performance. But proper hydration is even more critical for Stand Up Paddle Surfing, because hydration has a profound effect on balance. Try this simple test. Next time you are thirsty, before you drink water balance on one leg, close your eyes, and count how many seconds you can remain balanced. Then drink as much water as you can comfortably hold, wait a few minutes, and repeat the test. You'll find you can balance much longer.
Not a very scientific test, but it should bring home the message that hydration is important to balance. Dehydration slows muscle response and detunes the fine muscle control that is critical to maintaining balance. There are other reasons too--physical performance, both intensity and endurance, falls quickly as athletes become dehydrated. In the longer term, operating in a dehydrated state is bad for your immune system, hard on your kidneys, and bad for your heart and lungs.
Here's the kicker--sedentary people don't have a big problem with hydration. They generally get enough fluids: Roughly a gallon of fluids for men and three quarts of fluid for women per day. It's the folks that are physically active that are frequently dehydrated to the point of substantially decreasing performance and compromising health. This has been well understood for a long time, most of the data still quoted in journals is from the 1960's. In random weighings of people working out in gyms with water freely available, more than 40 percent were dehydrated 3 percent or more; for bicycle riders it was more than 60 percent, runners more than 70 percent. A dehydration level of three percent is serious. Here's the standard dehydration scale:
0% -- normal performance
1% -- thirst occurs, heat regulation may be compromised, balance compromised
2% -- dry mouth, worsening performance
3% -- Heat regulation is compromised, strength and endurance performance declines 10-20 percent
4% -- discomfort, performance declines 20-30 percent
5% -- headache, fatigue, disorientation
6% -- weakness, severe loss of heat regulation
7% -- collapse
How Much And How Frequently
So when you've been paddling for an hour and you feel a little thirsty, your balance is probably reduced by 50 percent and your strength by at least 10-20%. Even if you take along a camelbak and drink from it while you paddle, you may not be getting enough fluid to maintain hydration. Slaking your thirst is just turning off the alarm.
If you'd like to be a little scientific about this you can do some fairly accurate and simple measurements. Before you go for a paddle empty your bladder and record your weight naked ___________ lbs.
Do a typical paddle or surf session and drink as you normally would. Record the volume of fluid you consumed ___________ fluid ounces
Towel dry, empty your bladder and then record your weight naked ___________ lbs.(B)
Subtract your post-exercise weight from your pre-exercise weight to get the number of pounds you lost during exercise. To find out how many fluid ounces of water you have lost, multiply the weight you lost in pounds by 16. That amount of water plus the amount of water you drank is how much water you needed to drink to maintain normal hydration. You can remember the conversion factor for ounces to pounds easily with this mnemonic--a pint's a pound the world around.
To find out your dehydration percentage, divide the amount of weight you lost by your original weight and multiply by 100. For example, if you weighed 200 pounds and you lost 2 pounds, it's (2/200)*100 = .01*100 = 1 percent.
If you lost two pounds that's 32 ounces of water you lost, so if you drank one quart you really needed to drink two. It's more likely though that even if you are wearing a camelbak that you drink just a few sips as you exercise, and it's not enough to maintain performance and balance. Generally, in warm weather paddling hard a person will need eight ounces of water every twenty minutes
Obviously you're not going to be carrying a gallon of water with you if you go for a two hour paddle. So here's a reasonable hydration plan for warm weather: In the hour before the paddle drink 32 ounces or more of water (one quart). During the paddle drink 6 ounces of water every 20 minutes. Following the paddle drink 32 ounces of water (one quart). Again, if you want to be precise, or just get a baseline measurement, weigh yourself before and after the paddle with an empty bladder and drink 24 ounces of water for each pound of weight you lost.
Unless you are exceptionally vigilant, as an active person you are probably chronically dehydrated. Not only is that bad for performance, it's bad for your long term health. The list of diseases and disorders linked to chronic dehydration is long and unpleasant. Some of them are not things you would automatically associate with not drinking enough water. When I started paying more attention to hydration the backaches I thought were just the price I was paying for an active lifestyle disappeared.
Once you have a clear idea of how much water you need during exercise, it's fairly easy to stay hydrated. You will increase your overall performance and recovery to a remarkable degree.
[Blog] Hydration = Balance: When you perform any exercise it makes sense to have your body operating at optimal levels, and hydration is clearly necessary to achieve optimal pe... http://s3nt.com/gqh3
[Blog] Hydration = Balance: When you perform any exercise it makes sense to have your body operating at optimal leve... http://s3nt.com/gqh3
Monday, May 4, 2009
iPhone for SUP
(My Original Blog Post: http://ping.fm/6Zbpp)
Apple's iPhone is a great tool for anyone, but it has some features and available applications that make it particularly great for Stand Up Paddle Surfing. The phone I'm going to cover is the 3G version, which is handiest since it has built-in GPS capabilities. In fact the iPhone GPS is especially useful since it has special features that increase the accuracy, even when GPS satellites are obscured by weather conditions or terrain.
Unfortunately the iPhone is not waterproof, so you need a dry carrier of some sort. There are some fairly expensive and clumsy hard case versions, but the touch screen of the iPhone makes hard cases problematic. Thin clear drybags enable you to operate the phone right through the bag, and both talk and listen through the bag or via headphones.� My current favorite is the OverBoard case, which has a compact closure system and a built-in headset jack. The only drawback is that the back of the case is opaque so you can't use the phone's camera without taking it out of the case. Overboard makes a bag with a camera window on the back, but it doesn't have a jack. Damn--they're so close. Maybe they'll do a mashup of the two cases. I sent them an email about it, but they responded (more or less correctly) that the iPhone camera is so lame that they think most people are more interested in an armband and flotation, which are hard to provide along with a camera window. What they are not considering is geocoding photos, which I find extremely useful. Even a fairly crappy picture becomes interesting when you automatically know EXACTLY where it was taken. Anyway, here's overboard's MP3 case, and it really is a very fine product:
As it is the iPhone is great for downwinders and distance paddling. It has a clock, a stopwatch to time your run, it's a superb iPod player for your music, and if you or someone else gets into trouble or needs a lift your phone is right there. I consider it an important safety device. But it really comes into its own when you add applications that are available either for free or very inexpensively. There are currently about 30,000 applications available for iPhones. But before we explore iPhone Apps, let me give you a tip about music for paddling.
Automatic Playlists
You might be used to putting together playlists of music for your MP3 player. I find it really tedious, so I'm really pleased that Apple came up with a wonderful automated playlist building tool that's very appropriately called "Genius". If you have the latest version of iTunes (free on either PCs or Macs) you have Genius. To turn Genius on you click "Store" in the top iTunes menu, then select "Turn On Genius". iTunes will be busy for quite a while, indexing your songs, checking with the iTunes store about some mysterious characteristics of every song you own, and building the database that Genius uses. When you want to build a Genius playlist you just select a song that is representative of the music you want. Click on the Genius button (a little atom symbol in the lower right corner of the iTunes screen) and Genius builds you a playlist of compatible songs assembled from your library--the songs you own.
I have no idea of how it builds the lists, but they are great. Really great. The songs don't sound all the same, and they are not all from the same kind of band or even the same genre. They just work really well together. They remind me of an old disk jockey that used to work at a musty meat market bar in Eugene Oregon called Foo's Spinnaker about thirty years ago. The guy would somehow assemble playlists on the fly from a huge vinyl collection he carted around. He made music link together emotionally so well that he controlled the mood. People who experienced his talents remember him all these years later. The Genius isn't quite that good, but it's close.
Sometimes it's so good it's just plain weird. Who knew that Dunk n' Dine by The Georgia Satellites goes perfectly with Thick and Thin by the Black Crowes and Ride, Ride, Ride by Foghat--but it absolutely does.
You can give the lists a memorable name and save them by first clicking Edit>Select All, then clicking File>New Playlist From Selection. Then you can add the playlists to your iPhone by connecting your iPhone to your computer. When the iPhone sysnc screen appears click the Music tab. Check the Sync Music box, then click the Selected Playlists button, and check the box next to the playlist you just saved. You can build genius lists on your iPhone as well, but I find it convenient to have a selection of playlists that I know suit the kind of paddling I'm planning to do.
Finding Your Way
On to more specific SUP things. You have a lot of choices for planning where to go and/or tracking your travels. At the base level there's a nice implementation of Google Maps that enables you to look at satellite pictures of your planned route. "Wow, that reef sure goes out a looong ways", or "where did that waterfall come from" are both obstacles that are fine to discover when looking at a google map--much better than bumping into them.
So far we've just talked about fundamental features. Moving up a BIG step are the GPS apps.
So far my favorite Stand Up Paddling App is EveryTrail. Everytrail is both a free stand-alone application and a connector to the excellent GPS experiential site, also called Everytrail (http://www. everytrail.com). The GPS features we are adding to Ke Nalu are patterned after Everytrail.
You can download the Everytrail App by browsing the Appstore on your iPhone, and then search for EveryTrail, or go to the Travel Category and look for it. The iPhone has to stay active while the EveryTrail application is tracking your run, so you'll find it works best for SUP tracking if you go to the general iPhone Settings menu
set the screen brightness of your iPhone to the lowest setting, turn off WiFi and 3G
Apple's iPhone is a great tool for anyone, but it has some features and available applications that make it particularly great for Stand Up Paddle Surfing. The phone I'm going to cover is the 3G version, which is handiest since it has built-in GPS capabilities. In fact the iPhone GPS is especially useful since it has special features that increase the accuracy, even when GPS satellites are obscured by weather conditions or terrain.
Unfortunately the iPhone is not waterproof, so you need a dry carrier of some sort. There are some fairly expensive and clumsy hard case versions, but the touch screen of the iPhone makes hard cases problematic. Thin clear drybags enable you to operate the phone right through the bag, and both talk and listen through the bag or via headphones.� My current favorite is the OverBoard case, which has a compact closure system and a built-in headset jack. The only drawback is that the back of the case is opaque so you can't use the phone's camera without taking it out of the case. Overboard makes a bag with a camera window on the back, but it doesn't have a jack. Damn--they're so close. Maybe they'll do a mashup of the two cases. I sent them an email about it, but they responded (more or less correctly) that the iPhone camera is so lame that they think most people are more interested in an armband and flotation, which are hard to provide along with a camera window. What they are not considering is geocoding photos, which I find extremely useful. Even a fairly crappy picture becomes interesting when you automatically know EXACTLY where it was taken. Anyway, here's overboard's MP3 case, and it really is a very fine product:
As it is the iPhone is great for downwinders and distance paddling. It has a clock, a stopwatch to time your run, it's a superb iPod player for your music, and if you or someone else gets into trouble or needs a lift your phone is right there. I consider it an important safety device. But it really comes into its own when you add applications that are available either for free or very inexpensively. There are currently about 30,000 applications available for iPhones. But before we explore iPhone Apps, let me give you a tip about music for paddling.
Automatic Playlists
You might be used to putting together playlists of music for your MP3 player. I find it really tedious, so I'm really pleased that Apple came up with a wonderful automated playlist building tool that's very appropriately called "Genius". If you have the latest version of iTunes (free on either PCs or Macs) you have Genius. To turn Genius on you click "Store" in the top iTunes menu, then select "Turn On Genius". iTunes will be busy for quite a while, indexing your songs, checking with the iTunes store about some mysterious characteristics of every song you own, and building the database that Genius uses. When you want to build a Genius playlist you just select a song that is representative of the music you want. Click on the Genius button (a little atom symbol in the lower right corner of the iTunes screen) and Genius builds you a playlist of compatible songs assembled from your library--the songs you own.
I have no idea of how it builds the lists, but they are great. Really great. The songs don't sound all the same, and they are not all from the same kind of band or even the same genre. They just work really well together. They remind me of an old disk jockey that used to work at a musty meat market bar in Eugene Oregon called Foo's Spinnaker about thirty years ago. The guy would somehow assemble playlists on the fly from a huge vinyl collection he carted around. He made music link together emotionally so well that he controlled the mood. People who experienced his talents remember him all these years later. The Genius isn't quite that good, but it's close.
Sometimes it's so good it's just plain weird. Who knew that Dunk n' Dine by The Georgia Satellites goes perfectly with Thick and Thin by the Black Crowes and Ride, Ride, Ride by Foghat--but it absolutely does.
You can give the lists a memorable name and save them by first clicking Edit>Select All, then clicking File>New Playlist From Selection. Then you can add the playlists to your iPhone by connecting your iPhone to your computer. When the iPhone sysnc screen appears click the Music tab. Check the Sync Music box, then click the Selected Playlists button, and check the box next to the playlist you just saved. You can build genius lists on your iPhone as well, but I find it convenient to have a selection of playlists that I know suit the kind of paddling I'm planning to do.
Finding Your Way
On to more specific SUP things. You have a lot of choices for planning where to go and/or tracking your travels. At the base level there's a nice implementation of Google Maps that enables you to look at satellite pictures of your planned route. "Wow, that reef sure goes out a looong ways", or "where did that waterfall come from" are both obstacles that are fine to discover when looking at a google map--much better than bumping into them.
So far we've just talked about fundamental features. Moving up a BIG step are the GPS apps.
So far my favorite Stand Up Paddling App is EveryTrail. Everytrail is both a free stand-alone application and a connector to the excellent GPS experiential site, also called Everytrail (http://www. everytrail.com). The GPS features we are adding to Ke Nalu are patterned after Everytrail.
You can download the Everytrail App by browsing the Appstore on your iPhone, and then search for EveryTrail, or go to the Travel Category and look for it. The iPhone has to stay active while the EveryTrail application is tracking your run, so you'll find it works best for SUP tracking if you go to the general iPhone Settings menu
set the screen brightness of your iPhone to the lowest setting, turn off WiFi and 3G[Blog] iPhone for SUP: Apple's iPhone is a great tool for anyone, but it has some features and available applications that make it particularly great for Stand Up Paddle Surfin... http://s3nt.com/geat
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