Blue Belt

Chapter 7

                                                          VII.

          "Ahh, that's too wide a board for me." The young customer said to me as I pointed out what looked to be a good starter board.

            "Actually, about twenty inches wide would be ideal."  I had already learned specific things to tell specific types of surfing customers to fulfill their needs.  "A ding in a $400 board will happen every bit as easily as in this $149 board.  Start basic."  I said.

            "And this one is not too long?"  He asked.

            "No, for your weight I'd say 7 and a half feet is just right."  I nodded.  I noticed Mr. Benson keeping his eye on us as he watched from the counter.  I knew I was dealing with an inexperienced surfer and thus knew what to suggest.  Since I myself was just learning to surf as well, I could let the experts tell me what to buy, but I had already learned from Benson and Bobby what I could tell beginners and intermediates about boards.

            "Alright then, fine, I'll take it."  He said as he grabbed the board and headed toward Mr. Benson who was waiting at the counter.  $149 was good for this starter board.  I was pleased to start my day with a sale.  Mr. Benson rang him up as I re-organized a couple boards we had on display and then the gentleman was on his way.

            On Friday of last week, just after the test, I ended up going out surfing with Jed who knew a thing or two about it and had a board himself.  It turned out there were a few students at OKA who could surf quite well.  Now we did not surf in waves with "tunnels" or anything like that, in fact the waves we were on were just large enough to create a break to surf with; probably four to five feet tops.  First Jed walked me through the proper line-up for catching a wave.  Then he showed me how to straddle the board properly as I waited for the wave.  I had a tendency to lean back to keep the nose of the board I was on from going underwater, but that only slowed me down.  So as I tried to catch my first couple of waves I would lay down and begin paddling as fast as I could, but their was a slight trick in that I had to raise my chest to keep my weight just over the center of the board.  I was able to get going and stand up briefly a couple of times, but again, these were smaller waves.  Still, it was a start, and I was determined.

            As I worked on taking inventory at the store, after making my sale, thoughts of Bobby began to pop into my mind.  I knew he was skimming from this place and to me the guy was shady as hell.  Between his watch, his voice, and some of his friends I had met, I got a bad vibe from the guy.  But even though I was beginning to know Mr. Benson a bit better, I resisted saying anything negative about Bobby.  And I could tell Mr. Benson thought fairly highly of Bobby anyway, so even though it was tempting to say something to Benson about Bobby, I could not bring myself to do it.  But still I kept thinking, how could he rob from Mr. B?  Why is that a cool thing to do?  He certainly had Mr. Benson fooled.  Bobby had a lot of responsibility around here, but was not deserving of what he was given here.  I knew that as a bookie he was not shy about "robbing" people who he did not think would turn into long term customers, and he did not seem to care what he did to other people.  I was starting to obsess about the situation.

            "Pull that leg back more.  Check the angle of the plane here with the ground."  Jed was helping me put together a solid round house kick, something we would be learning as part of orange belt training.  I was determined to get a jump start on my training and Jed had volunteered to watch and assist me in the dojo during some free time we had.  Balance was something that I needed to work on as I developed this kick.