I Learned How to Surf in 14 Days, this is what happened

This is me learning how to surf in 14 days with the goals of pulling off advanced surf moves and getting barreled. We all have these dreams that feel impossible, but recently I found an extreme surf hotel where my plan is to go in as a beginner and use their advanced wave to learn these moves, which I'm totally allowed to do, right? I mean, I can just book the advanced wave and go surf. Is that allowed? Nope, because if you get in the water without the skills to handle it, you'd be a threat to the safety of other surfers and the hotel staff will kick you out. So I'm moving into this hotel to earn my spot through each level of wave and prove I belong. I just gotta make sure I don't hurt myself or anybody else, and we should be okay. Ready? Welcome to Waco Surf. Today is the first session from beginner to barreled. Please, God, help me. I've learned a few things already from some buddies who I met in the entryway here. Where do you wanna go? Yeah, that's it, okay. Where do you wanna go? Remain calm and just drop in. I think I'm gonna be pretty good, so. Because I signed up for Waco Surf's most entry-level training, I get a coach. This is my coach, Jeff. Ready to play Training for the Tube? Hey there, welcome to the game. Out here, there are three levels of waves. The only way to unlock the next level is with coach approval. All right, player, don't get kicked out. Master the advanced wave, find the barrel, and you'll be a winner. Let's play. Thanks for letting me do that, guys. That was a lot of fun. If I'm gonna hit these goals, first, coach Jeff had to see where my surfing was actually at. One thing I will say, Alex, is you're always doing at least one thing wrong. Probably. And I was. Buzz, you can try to have your heel down. Oh. From there, Jeff walked me through the basics. How to paddle, how to move on the board, and how not to move on the board. But before I can get in the water, I had one question that would determine if getting barreled here was even possible. You think I'll be ready for an intermediate session tomorrow? Maybe that's something you have to weigh and see in the water. 100% something I'll have to weigh and see in the water. Okay, okay, we'll see. Grab high hoops. Okay, cool. Hopefully a yes. Thanks, Jeff, appreciate it, man. Without hopefully a yes from Jeff, I was feeling pretty good. You see, I've been on boards my entire life. But when I was 13, my family moved to Puerto Rico, and for a few months, I actually tried surfing. But the intensity of the lineup got the best of me. If you're not familiar with the surf lineup, this is what it can be like sometimes. I got intimidated, and I quit. My friends didn't. They kept going, and they got good, really good. And since then, I've always felt like I missed out. All right, Jeff's the man, got us warmed up. Should be okay. He's got a little bit thicker wetsuit than I do. But he said I should be okay. The only thing I'm nervous about today is impressing Jeff, to be honest. All right. I'm a skateboarder, trying to figure surfing out, so I'm just like- It translates over pretty well. I hope so. You're a great skateboarder, right? Yeah, yeah, so I got a lot of skateboarding behind me. Not pro, but I'm an advanced skateboarder. Do you think I'll be ready for an intermediate session tomorrow? 100%, something I'll have to wait and see. Okay, okay, we'll see. Thanks so much, Jeff, I appreciate you, man. What do you think? What's your notes? I'm going. I mean, you're pretty close. You could maybe handle it. Okay, if I go out there and let them know, like, hey guys, I'm just figuring this out. I can step out of the water. I mean, hey, if it's your only option. Yeah. Do it. So I got the yellow pass. Dinner surf session? Yes! Nice work. Now you're going to start your journey to a shortboard, but be careful. Pick the shortboard too early, and you'll wipe out and look like a kook. Good luck. I feel like a kid on Christmas. I'm going to sleep like this. Are you jealous, Elyse? Be 3 o'clock to intermediate. Be coming at you pretty quick. Get ready, guys. Hop in the lagoon. Get ready. It was only my second day surfing, and I had a brand new board I'd never even paddled on before. And I was pretty nervous about the surfers I'd be sharing the water with. How's it going? But then, a friendly voice came along. It's my first one out. Anybody been out before? Okay, cool. Everyone's had one. You know what? You might as well just try it, and see if it's going to happen, right? But I don't know if it's going to happen. That one's going to be too quick. And just like that, the optimism of another beginner surfer had me feeling confident again. All right. Wish me luck. The board felt good. I felt stable. How bad can this be? The in-water coaches noticed I was a beginner and got to me real quick. And now with the coaches watching, I had a lot to prove. Why would you miss a wave? He's kind of like, kind of like a wave. It's just embarrassing. I did my best to return Heidi's optimism, but at this point, even mine was starting to fade. In moments like this, it's really hard to know when the breakthrough is going to come, or what it's going to look like. But something told me, I was closer than I thought. Managed just to get to my knees. And for just a moment, I felt what it would be like to ride this wave. But it was enough to put a smile on my face again, and to give me a new energy for another try. Cue the montage. Nice work, player. 13 sessions before your first advanced. Show up unprepared, and you'll be kicked out. Let's see if you have what it takes. Yes, of course. After a long, heavy week, it was time to explore what it was like to live on a surf hotel. We noticed a very big school of birds. Awesome. And we went out to investigate. And then we also did some investigation of our neighbors on Lemur Island. Oh, hi, King Julian. Oh, there's Snugglin. Go up, King Julian. Well, guys, we just passed the one-week mark, and I've got to say, we've made some pretty amazing progress. Look at day one versus day seven. This is working, I think. But with all that being said, we are only halfway through on this challenge, and the advanced wave is coming up later this week. By selecting the advanced session, you are signing up to surf one of the fastest, largest, and most powerful waves we offer to the public. These waves have the power to break boards and seriously injure people. We have a very special guest coming in, and he's gonna be coaching me into that barrel and into the advanced wave section. Ollie, how do you like Waco Surf Hotel? Honestly, Dad, it's been great, but how are we paying for all this? I haven't had a new toy in weeks. Sorry about that, guys. Okay, we'll see Ollie later. You spent all my toy money on surfing. So with that being said, I have two more days of intermediate sessions, but before that, your boy's on rest day. Today is a day to soak it all in and to not have a pit in my stomach in the morning. Bye, guys. So while I wasn't surfing today, I wanted to see what life at the surf hotel was actually like. Come on, Bubba. Normally, this place is buzzing. Lazy rivers, giant slides, restaurants, bars, but in the- Yeah, that's right. I got one of my old buddies from Puerto Rico to come out and coach me to my first advanced session tomorrow. My car, my car. Sick, yeah, you can hold it like that if you want. All right, this is Marley Puglielli, and he is a good friend of mine. Few questions, Marley. Yeah. Do you still get nervous? Absolutely, I'm nervous right now. Thank God. Marley was telling me he was waking up throughout the night every hour with anticipation, and I'm like, thank God that's not just me. Last question before I head out. Is it possible for a beginner surfer to go to an advanced wave in 14 days? Absolutely. Where we're at right now is a great place to make it happen, and I'm excited to see the progress. Dang. All right, let's get out there. Let's make it happen. Let's get it. Thanks, bro. This is gonna be my last intermediate session before my first advanced, so I really need to get Marley's approval today. Session one, we're getting out there. Can't believe I could do that. Praise God. Thank you, Jesus. Get Marley's persuasion. Yeah. That was fun, though. 10 more to go. All right, Marley, what do you think? Definitely one of the cooler things I've experienced. Okay. For sure. Did I get it? Yeah. I think the waves are, did they look a little faster to you, or? They definitely look a little bigger. Did you hit the bottom at all? I definitely did. Yeah. Yeah, double times. What do you think? Am I good to go on that? I think you for sure got it. You looked good. Positioning looked good. Paddling into the wave looked good. Your top up was clean. Now I just feel like we need to take it to the next step. Okay. We're gonna start one more top to bottom then lateral surface. Okay. All right, man. Well, I think I'm ready too. I think I just gotta get out there. So I'm gonna take the next 40 minutes and contemplate life a little bit. I'm ready. I think, I think so. All right. I'm gonna go get hydrated. Coming to you live from Waco, Texas. First one, I'm riding it. Someone needs to invest into a car now. Oh my gosh. That was like, I think I was just feeling the wave a little bit. How do you feel about the mona? All about the mona. I'm about the mona. I felt the mona. You're saying I'm graduating from the board I'm on? Yeah, bro. Time to, time to step it up a little bit. Shorty? Yeah. I don't know about that. Let's turn it up a notch. Let's give the people what they want. Dude, the people want barrels and they want ripping. So. Is that good? Did I do okay? You did good. Woo. I don't know what's going on. What the heck? Ha, I got you there, didn't I? You thought we were about to go back onto a sick montage. I thought so too. But this session was about to turn into a nightmare. And it felt like day one all over again. And I broke rule number one of the game plan. I left early. Yeah, I'm done. I'm done. You're done? That's crazy. Ah, I just got worked. Couldn't get up. Couldn't figure it out. I warned you, Alex. You looked like a kook. Ah. This has become the hot tub of shame. You on or are you not on? Dang, Marley's not on right now. Jump on in, Elise. Join the, this is the fun. We're having fun in here. Join the fun party. Come on. We can't be a bunch of sad sacks, man. Do you think the board is not, yeah. That one you struggled big time, paddling two waves. But yesterday it was working in a sense of like, okay, this is a starting point. It was way better than I did this session. My gosh. I couldn't understand what you were doing wrong. Yeah, it can be all. Sunshine and rainbows. Sunshine and rainbows, dude. I think today was just one of those off days. Yep. That's all. It happens. After that session this morning, my goals of advanced surfing and getting barreled felt further away than ever. So this was going to be my last shot at figuring something out. In order to get me working well on my surfboard, I've taken Marley to my territory. We're at the skate park, baby. Only problem is these are my only shoes. But we'll make it work. All right. Oh my God. You just owned it and fell. What have you done to me, dude? Seriously guys, I do know how to skate park. Instead of leaning on that tail, use the rail of the board. There you go. Turn around. Use those arms. There you go. Now do it the other way. It's hard. Dude, my respect for surfing is like skyrocketing right now. And after 14 days of training, it was all going to come down to the last day. Huh? Good. You got it, bro. You're ready for it. All right. We are here on the final day here at Waco. I've been strategizing with Marley on how I can get myself in a barrel. I did not expect you to get barrels. He says it's probably the most challenging thing that I can do while I'm here. He says that turns and all that kind of stuff is probably more reasonable, but hey, I'm not reasonable, am I? That's a good thing, right? Oh, there you guys are. So as I wrapped up my final intermediate session, three sessions left to go, I searched for a barrel the entire time. And I came up mostly short. There's a lot that goes into this, so keep going. We've got two more and that's it. After finding no barrels, Marley wanted to review the footage because he saw something he really liked. You can hear me go, I go, whoa, whoa. That is a backside turn. And if I could do that throughout a full wave, that would be advanced surfing on an advanced wave. Marley was insistent that if I wanted to do these turns and find a barrel, I had to go back to a short board. But with the trauma of the last short board meltdown still fresh on my mind, I wasn't sure I was ready for it. I kind of like, I don't know, maybe this right here. This seems like a nice little. Yeah, this one's a 590. I might try that one out. Try it. Do it? Yeah. All right. I'm being so hesitant about it, bro. All right. You just grabbed the board to go do a turn, dude. Killing me. It's your last day. I'm being too hesitant. There's no more sugar coating, bro. We don't got time for that. We don't got time for sugar coat stuff. We gotta get straight to it. We got work to do. All right. This is gonna be the first time I'll have back-to-back sessions, both advanced, both on a smaller board. But this is incredible, man. I'm just kind of like in a bit of, just a lot of gratitude that I know what I'm capable of. And I don't think I've shown that yet. So I'm gonna take a little time. Rest up for about 30 minutes. Get revved up. It's time to go. We ready to go, Ollie? It's pop time for this. What do you think? He says I got it. Yeah. A lot of pressure on right now. I think more pressure than I originally thought I would have on myself. I got this. The Waco Surf Hotel. This is it. The big one. Time to go get it. Two hours to go. There's the guy right there. Two hours. Alex is on the RNF. Time to man up. Let's go. With just two hours left on the clock, I hadn't been kicked out yet. But two goals are still on the line. Master the advanced wave and get barreled. It was time to kick it off. Find this barrel and surf a session as an advanced surfer. Watching this back now, I'm really glad to see a smile on my face here. I had been so focused on those specific goals that I had almost forgot something. I was already surfing the advanced wave on a shortboard with my friend, which was the goal the whole time. But that realization wasn't gonna stop me from doing the two things I came here to do. And as the halfway point was approaching, I pushed harder. But it seems like every time I push hard, I get pushed right back. That guy tried to kill me. Yeah. And you're trying to take pictures of it, man. That ain't right. So, Alex's last wave, he almost killed me. Trying to get the shot for him. And he tried to take out the filmer. Minus one point for you, Alex. Yeah, maybe I deserved to get yelled at when I was 13. I tried again, going front side. And no matter how hard I tried, I just could not put together all the pieces on one wave. And I was still not finding the barrel. And then before I knew it, it was the last 30 minutes. And I was going left. There you go, there you go, good. This was my last chance. I don't know. Something happened on this last 30 minutes and everything turned on. And as confirmation that I had mastered the advanced wave, Marley saw this happen. Oh, that's the bottom turn. I'm sure you didn't even realize what you really did at that moment. I was honestly pretty proud at that moment. I was like, wow, he did it. That's a proper bottom turn. Like you can show anybody that photo and they would 100% think you've been surfing for years. I really became the surfer I wanted to be. And I think that 13 year old version of myself would be really, really proud. Thank you to everybody that was there to help me through that. Pleasure surfing. And thank you for watching this. That means the world to me. Oh, and before we go, there is one more thing. To become a real surfer, I had to get barreled, right? Well, on day 10, something amazing happened. Now I know I didn't ride out of that barrel, but it had all the feelings of a real barrel. So for me, I'm gonna count it. Oh, yeah.