A man, reborn.
I’m in love, I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it! Oh who could have ever guessed that a sleek, black strap wrapping my left wrist, directly above my Nixon Supremacy watch, would change my entire life? Make me a better husband, father, writer, friend, surfer?
The most beautiful sound I have ever heard.
All the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word.
My personal transformation, crawling out of a morass of mental and physical inertia, began exactly one month ago for it was then that I admitted there was a problem, that I was a sedentary blob forever destined to be lightly below average, to have a lightly below average cutback, down carve, lip tap unless I did something about it. Unless I took action and was forced to measure my progress every waking, and sleeping, hour.
Say it loud and there’s music playing.
Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.
I first needed to reach a baseline of general fitness so began running and watched my strain levels rise, my stamina grow.
I next needed to build muscle so reached out to my famous bank robbing cousin, currently serving time in Oregon, for “prison bod” tips and watched my strain levels rise, my shoulders bulge.
A detour to Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch proved I was on the righteous path but needed more flexibility, dexterity. The fates responded by casting me as Mother Ginger in the famed Nutcracker ballet and I watched my strain levels rise, feet become nimble, as I attempted not to step on young Bon Bons hiding under the folds of my skirt.
Twelve days, out of October’s twenty-nine (so far), that my strain surged north of ten.
A fitness bonanza.
An aggressive slaying of personal mediocrity.
And then, like that, a gorgeous combination swell laced into Southern California. Water warm, air warmer, waves plentiful and peaky. Head high. Running across the various reefs and sandbars.
Was I ready?
I purposed to surf an almost-unimaginable twice in one day discover.
Paddling out in the morning, I felt strong, not winded, and sets stacking up out the back did not cause bile to rise for I knew that I could punch through them with my new convict arms. Oh, punch through I did and I caught waves very easily too, opening shoulders on turns, feeling reborn.
Paddling out in the afternoon, I felt sore but good sore, and did not falter on my pop-ups but was quick and clean and brave with enough energy to smirk at longboarders I zipped past on my Channel Islands Mid. Lightly spraying them.
A new man.
Afterward, heart beating healthy and proud, I checked my WHOOP application to see if I had kissed John John Florence levels of excellence.

The surfing, itself, still did not register as an “activity.”
More work to do, gains to see.
But would you like to join me on this journey? Buy your own WHOOP here and receive a fifteen percent discount if you use the code BEACHGRIT at checkout.

Commented on Disqus? Log out, tap the Disqus button, and your old name and comments come back. The box is ours.
Your comments are still here. Every one of them.
Twelve years of BeachGrit comments came across from Disqus. Connect and we will show you how many are yours. We get your username, nothing else.
Connect Disqus to reveal.
867 word claim
You’re still irritating as fuck,whoop whoop
GeeChasChrist…ripping brahh!
I really have to debate the legitimacy of a so called “scientific” study into the feeding habits of sharks that fails to allow for the specific regional dietary and nutrionary intake of the local “prey” meat in question.
For examples see The Malibu Artist on that there YouTube. His footage of juvenile great white sharks blatantly avoiding eating prime Yank surfer meat is obvious proof of said sharks dislike of high cholesterol Mcdonalds type “beef” fed, pissy beer marinated, red necked surfer meat.
The proof in the pudding is obviously the higher number of attacks in Australia where the local surfer meat is much more likely to be partly sun dried, and raised on a diet of pissy beer marinated real kangaroo meat with a subtle hint of shark attracting eucalyptus juice infused zinc sun block and righteous xenophobia. And South Africa where the entire surfer population is raised on pissy beer marinated, apartheid segregated bush meat.
Every proper shark theorist worth their salt knows white sharks in particularl like a very slight hint of eucalyp tang and/or blatant racism in their diet, just like their not closely related land lubbing koala cousins. Or is that bull sharks? Oh never mind…..we don’t get them here in Blighty anyway as the beer’s too strong, so who really cares?
Second last day of the campaign period. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Chas is the Benjamin Button of surfing. Spending his early years as a surfer to then have a personal transformation into a VAL.
It’s a beautiful life!
You can tell this promotion is a resounding success because the code doesn’t work and it’s been running foe weeks https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Video has to be out there. Surely Stab has a copy
Yeah yeah yeah Chas, it looks great next to your Nixon Supremacy… Buuuuut, how would it look next to myyyyy Omega Seamaster Diver?
You win, damn it.
It was on purpose! Art!
Breaking the rule through under indexing in education is known commonly as ignorance ….
Breaking the rule knowingly , to smash down the walls of grammar to let the words breathe is called …. Style ?
I intend to purchase a whoop ( using the 20% saving with the code INERTIA) than attach it to the next shark I catch and release.
But before that it’s going on the family cat!
This is the next level chas , embrace it!
You could buy a few extras and put them on covid patients entering the emergency room
The dullness of daily life continues…
Whoop there it ain’t .
Since this whoop thing started I’ve probably gone from checking Beachgrot once a day to almost forgetting it exists.
Well guess who’s missing out.
Username checks out…
The caption of the photo could/should be “Surf Journalist (pictured) in training, dodging the barrel.”
Also, fuck Whoop!
It doesn’t barrel there. Do you even Surf Ranch?
I haven’t and to be sincere, I would probably dodge the barrel myself.
Anyway, all i wanted to say is, fuck Whoop!
But can you sing a catchy tune about ‘smoking these meats, meat like a brisket’, as Zucc does in the video that John’s Knees posted on the last article with the Zucc n Kai foiling game ?
P.S.
Catchy tunes about ‘smoking these meats, meat like a brisket’, are more impressive than paddling out to glide along some headhigh combers…
Let the WHOOP strain meter decide.
It’d be funny af if it registered more than your surfing ……
Is that morass offering a better discount than your BG?
Oh, you’ve sold us on the virtues of Whooping. We’re now going for lowest bidder options and biding our time until purchase with best possible surf adjacent website codes. Wait until Ashton is offering 25% with code FACESLAP over at Stab.
He wouldn’t dare.
Slater prostitutes his idiocy for all to see in public internet settings. Why not Ashton too? BG certainly doesn’t have the monopoly. Plus Ashton has surfed Pipe with Derek Ho.
I’ve got an Underground Surf mail in coupon
I know your words are cheap but at this point I wonder how much whoop must be paying you to pen this much dribble
I don’t understand. This is artvertorial.
And here’s pure art while Whooping.
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
WHOOP WHOOP!!
Hey if Laird can peddle a stinky cologne and Jacob Szekely can peddle mangina cream why not peddle the Whoop?
The whoops are nice and all but where is the latest footage from your trip to the wave pool?
We all know how the last trip went….
Footage of Chas being Mother Ginger is probably better viewing