Last week, we introduced you to Brian Coppedge of Haiku Maui, who was taking on the challenge of learning to SUP. Read all about his first experiences here. Brian has been hard at work (and play) this week and has more insight to share!

“Week of one of my SUP training is now in the book that means it must be time to bare my soul to all of my new friends. I was excited to get in the water on two back to back days this week and really saw a marked difference in my confidence and basic board handling skills. I can already see that my biggest challenge to meeting my goal by the May 12 event is going to be carving out enough time in my week to make sure I have ample board time.

I think the best way to approach covering this past week is to break it down into two parts; Part 1 “Water Training” and Part 2 “Land Training”

Part 1: Water Training

My partner Max and I headed out to a beach in Kihei near the 5 Palms Resort. The weather was perfect, sunny, fairly glassy conditions with just a little bit of wind to mix things up slightly. The first day’s goal was simply to get use to our new (used) 16ft board. The big challenge for me was that the board was much narrower than the board I had used when I went on my first lesson with Suzie. At just over 27 inches wide the board did not leave me much room for error.

After paddling about 100 yards out from the beach on my knees I started the process of trying to get up and stay up on the new board. First attempt went well, as I got up and managed to get in a good 10 or so paddle strokes before I leaned too much to the left and went for a swim. The next 15 minutes were consumed with me climbing back on the board, not the most graceful thing to watch, and then attempting to stand up. I don’t think I got more than 2 strokes in at any time before face planting into the beautiful, clear sea. I decided that I really just needed to figure out this crazy new board, so I spent the next 20 minutes paddling while on my knees and just trying to gauge how any slight motion on my part resulted in much more exaggerated movement of the board. I then headed to the beach to turn the board over to Max, who promptly jumped up and paddled off for the next 45 minutes, never actually touching the water with any part of his body- that does wonders for the ole self esteem.

Fortified by my time off the board and a beer (don’t tell Suzie about that part) I headed back out with a clear focus. It was like a switch had gone off; I remembered to stop looking at my feet and to keep my eyes focused out to the horizon in front of me. I popped up and sunk the paddle blade nice and deep on the left side of the board a good 3 feet in front of my feet and I was off. I had gained enough confidence around my balance that I decided to start focusing on my paddling. I was not reaching far enough in the front and I wasn’t really doing a good job of rotating and using my lats and oblique to power my stroke. This of course is when I really started to loose my balance again and take a few nice little plunges in the sea.

Instead of being set back by each fall, I was surprised about how quick I was able to get back up on the board and get right back to paddling. I spent another 45 minutes paddling, working on turns and trying to improve my strokes- overall a great day. I know I can ride this board, now I just really need to work with Suzie to increase my core strength and balance.

Part 2: Land Training

On my next land training day with Suzie I shared with her some of my challenges on the water. The thing I love about Suzie is that she didn’t feel the need to immediately address those concerns, we went ahead with the work out she had planned for me.
BUT, when I meet with her a few days later for my next land workout she had developed that day’s program to address the issues we had discussed previously.

I had committed to doing 25 push-up and 50 crunches a day, Suzie asked me to up that to 75 crunches daily this week with the ultimate goal to reach 200 crunches a day. That ab strength is going to really help address my balance issues.

We then moved to my favorite work out tools, the Indo Board and Gigante cushion. Suzie instructed me and even managed to shoot some great pictures as well. We first worked on basic balance; I mounted the board in a traditional surfing stance (I’m goofy footed I discovered, which in hindsight can explain a number of dance floor mishaps). Once we had that down, Suzie had me “ride” the Indo board on one foot. I gradually began reaching forward, then to the side and then to the rear with the foot not on the board. The pictures make me look good; I swear she had to shoot fast because it took me awhile to get the hang of this one.

Next we moved on to address my issue of losing my balance when I started to reach and paddle. I again road the Indo board surf style, but this time I had an 8 pound dumbbell in my hand to simulate an paddle, and worked on my paddle stroke while trying not to fall of the board. This was super helpful, suddenly I found myself able to really address a key issue from the water in an environment that didn’t require me to blow saltwater out of my nose each time I fell.

We finished up with some boarder- line sadist exercises to roll out my much maligned muscles. As you can see from the pictures my face could be used as a cut away in some low budget bondage film but man did the exercises really help roll out the knots.

Next Step

I am traveling for work the next 7 days, so no chance to get in the water- my goal is to get as much exercise as I can while gone and to be ready to back out on my board the day I get back to Maui.
Cheers.”

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Let’s keep the love going and help Brian to continue on his SUP adventure and drop us a line. He’s got quite a following now and he is an inspiration to me and many others world wide!   Mahalo, Suzie Cooney, CPT  Owner Of Suzie Trains Maui, LLC

The Indo Board Training Equipment Brian is training on in my studio is the with the Pro Package. Order yours here:

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