Surfing in Baja is a highly encouraged MEA rite of passage. You get up, you fall down. You get up, you fall down. You get up, you fall down. The metaphor is profound. Midlife and beyond, modern elders learning to crawl again as we strive to stand on our boards.

We feel the force of life, the wave behind us, gaining power and speed. We respond by searching for the flow, for the groove. Intuitively, we know it is time to stand. Instinctively, we know we have but a fleeting moment to stand up and catch the wave.

Many physical activities in daily life can offer profound life metaphors. Snow skiing. Water skiing. Hand gliding. Parasailing, any sports activity pushing us to our edge. All of these activities require instinct and being in the present moment as we fully engage with the sport at hand.

I have never been on a surfboard. The joven/young men quickly line us up on the sandy Cerritos beach and ask us to lie face down on our boards. I quickly realize the sequence is four yoga poses. Cobra…All Fours…Low Lunge….and Warrior One, with an added chair squat as we float onto the shore.

Yogis: We practice All Fours on our hands and knees, preparing to do cat cows. Low Lunge we are familiar when we drag a back foot forward, opposite knee down. However on land, you can slowly step up onto that back foot when you glide into a Warrior One with arms raised and extended front and back. When you are on water, this movement must happen very quickly while you maintain your balance and come to standing. This is the critical moment. Once you are up, you squat just a bit, almost a seated chair pose, arms extend out and you gracefully sail towards shore.

We paddle out together past the breaker line. The joven/young men are behind us in the water. I am facing the shore. I hear them yell, “Listo?” “Ready?” “Get up! Get up!” I feel and hear the wave pushing me. I know it’s time to rise up onto All Fours and quickly pull my back leg forward moving into Low lunge and up to standing. The wave is driving me forward, towards shore. The sound is all around me. I can’t look back. Is it a big or a small wave? I can’t worry about that. Life is pushing me forward.

How many times have you felt your life force propelling you forward? There is no turning back. You are committed to the activity, you have to ride it out.

As in the rest of our lives, we don’t know which ride will draw us towards a peak experience? Will we fall and have to get up again? Or will we effortlessly glide to shore?

Every time we stand on the board, we take a risk…the risk we might fall. When we reinvent or regenerate ourselves in any situation – a new friendship, courageous conversations with loved ones, anything we begin anew – we’re standing up on a board and risking a fall. Ultimately, it’s about trust. Trusting yourself and trusting life.

In the end, much of life is about trusting yourself. Trusting those around you and trusting you are making choices from your highest and best self. This is why a daily practice of any kind that connects you with your highest and best self may be the most important moment of your day.

Even the disclaimer teaches me. Try at your own risk. Such a valuable point to consider with aging: What risk am I willing to take as a younger septuagenarian versus a potential physical consequence? Falling in shallow water on hard sand is indeed a risk AND it was one of the most thrilling hours of my life. It was life full on. Fully alive. Fully expressing. Fully in the moment. A risk, for me, worth taking.

I think about this as I review that magical morning. I am fully aware of the physical danger. Will I surf again when I return to Baja for the next MEA workshop? My intuition told me that morning, “you have had the time of your life Rocky, now is time to stop.” I didn’t want to listen to that voice, I did so only when I realized I was the oldest and last MEA compadre still in the water.

What will your “Baja Aha” be?

Below are a few of the many splendors from the Modern Elder Academy campus in Baja, Mexico. If you have questions about my experience, feel free to ask me.