kite.pl

Cabrinha Girls Weekend 1st edition

A bit under two weeks ago we have organised the first Cabrinha Girls Weekend in Poland. We were quite lucky with the beautiful and sunny weather and so, during those two days we had everything: some kiting, some wakeboarding, some SUPing and a lot of chilling out. 17 kitesurfing girls showed up and all in all, I don’t think this event could have gone any better 🙂 I always wanted to do something active to promote kitesurfing among women but up till now I never really got a chance. I hope that from now on I will be able to organise this kind of events more often and make it into a regular thing.

We started our event with a meeting, where all the girls sat down and had a chance to introduce themselves and talk a bit about kitesurfing and everything connected with it… it was quite inspirational to listen to all of them talking about the things they love about the sport and how it has changed their lives 🙂 Just as we finished the meeting, the wind picked up and we were able to go on the water and have some fun. We tested various Cabrinha 2014 equipment and had a lot of fun trying new tricks and just fooling around 🙂

We also visited a nearby wakepark on Sunday… some girls had a chance to try riding the cable for the first time and they were all doing great!

We finished it all with a lottery and a small SUP race. I think this kind of event was something new on the Polish kitesurfing scene and I am really happy it all went well! Check out the video filmed by Daniel Dmytrów:

and the gallery below:

may wind be with you,
Zuza

One story ends, another begins

It’s already mid-April and I would say that the season on Boracay is officially finished. The school where I work is already closed, the tide in the bay is very high most of the day and the wind is practically gone, except for a few odd knots here and there. It has been the best kite season I have ever had, full of new friendships, challenges (my first international competition!) and experiences. And even though money is really tight at the moment, I do not regret coming here this winter at all. It’s the first time I have ever truly felt at home somewhere away from home and I already can not wait to come back at the end of October and see all my wonderful island family again. It doesn’t feel like I’m leaving, I’m just taking a few months vacation from this place and I know that all the things and people I treasure will be here when I return 🙂 And so, I am ready to pack my bags and go back to Europe for a while, to enjoy new places and adventures this summer.

My plan for this summer season is pretty hectic, but hey, this seems to be a rather regular pattern in my life, doesn’t it? 😉 On 22 April I am leaving Boracay and going home for a little bit. I am SO EXCITED to see my family and friends, to chill out in my own room for a change and eat my mom’s cooking! I’ll also go visit our Polish Cabrinha office for some new 2014 toys, can’t wait to finally have my new equipment 😀 After two weeks or so I’ll transfer straight to my homespot, where I will teach (KITE.PL kiteschool, as always!) and take part in one Polish competition in May and then on 15 June I am going to Greece! I’ll stay on Naxos island all the way until 20 August and then fly back to my homespot to take part in two more competitions in Poland STRAIGHT AWAY, one right after another! I am so excited for all the new things ahead of me and I would be lying if I said I was not a bit anxious, but by now I have already gotten used to this anxious feeling in my gut and instead of hating it I have learned to appreciate it. After all, it means the days ahead of me are full of challenges and new goals and if I believe in something, it is that life without setting your bar higher for yourself all the time and trying to grasp as many wonders of the world as possible is no life at all.

I know that as an athlete I have to work really hard these next few months on improving myself, especially my physical strength and stamina. My goal for next winter is to take part in all the KTA competitions in Asia, and so I want to be prepared as best as possible 🙂 This means that from the moment I get home the physical training days are on again!

This is all for now and my next update will probably be from Poland already! If you want to be more up to date with what’s happening in my life, you can follow my official Facebook page (CLICK HERE) and I hope we’ll see each other somewhere around the world! 🙂

May wind be with you,
Zuza

Sorting my life out

Spending time back on my homespot in Poland has given me opportunity to finally sit down and think a bit about the upcoming months. The whole past year was a big string of unpredicted events, plans that changed one thousand times, opportunities seized and waisted and doors that were either closing or opening before me wherever I went. I travelled, I saw some things, I went to the other side of the world and back, surfed places I never though I would surf and met a few people who in some mysterious way managed to become a very important part of my present life.

It was all magical and amazing, but it was also a big, big time and money consuming mess.

So this year I’ve decided to do things differently. I am still going to go places and do stuff, but this time it’s not going to be the wild I-need-to-do-it-all-at-once craze.

After much consideration, I’ve decided the best thing for me will be to go to one windy place for the whole winter season and just settle there for a time. My final choice is Boracay, where I’ll be spending my time from 30 October until mid-April. I’ll be staying in the same awesome school as last year, so if anyone’s up for a kite lesson, you’ll find me in Ocean Republic Kite Centre 🙂

Boracay will give me a great opportunity to develop my riding, as over there it’s windy almost every day, so it’s a comfortable spot with good, consistent winds that help the progress instead of stopping it. I’ve also decided to go for it this winter season and take part in the PKA tour (Philippine Kiteboarding Tour) and hopefully at least 2 stops of the KTA tour… There’s probably gonna be also one big local competition on Boracay, so I might enter that as well. Competitions help to develop your skills a lot and they give you some kind of purpose and a reason to practice, so since I’m gonna spend on Philippines 6 long months, I might just as well participate in as many as I can. So far I’ve been kind of avoiding competing, but I have a feeling if I really try, I can do it. I bought my plane ticket for the first stop of PKA today, so can’t really chicken out anymore 🙂

So that’s more or less all when it comes to my winter plans. For now I am still at the Polish seaside, enjoying time on my homespot on Hel Peninsula. I’m gonna stay here one month more, hopefully producing another video… if only there’s enough wind to ride and film, it should be possible 🙂

Check out a few random pictures from our daily life on Hel!

May wind be with you,
Suzana

Hel 2013 is ON.

After a year of traveling the time has come to finally say ‘that’s enough for a while’. It’s amazing to see the places I’ve been always dreaming of, it’s even more incredible to meet all the amazing people that I’ve stumbled upon on the way but, for some unknown to me reasons, during the year that has just passed the further I went, the more I missed the one place that has always been right under my nose. Maybe I will never be a ‘true’ traveller. Maybe I will never really be the ‘wanderer’ that people started to call me. Maybe I will not be those things after all because the place I have missed is exactly where my journey has started. I used to say that ‘I don’t feel rooted in any place, I’m fine wherever’ but I suppose the only way to discover it’s not true was to go away for a long while. I do feel rooted. And my home is exactly where I am right now, on this little Polish campsite, in an old caravan shared with two other people, surrounded by sun, water, green trees and that particular, loud beep noise the trains make when they stop at the train station 100m away.

Funny I had to go almost around the globe to understand something so simple.

I’ve been here only for a few days so far but this year I’m staying somewhere until mid-September. There are so many people here I’ve known for years now and there’s always something to do even if it’s not windy. Trickboarding, SUPing, wakeboarding, longboarding… the list is endless. There are parties and events planned for the whole season and right now we have two top PKRA competitors, Eudazio da Silva and Carlos Madson, staying on our campsite too. It’s pretty funny to see those “famous” Brazilian guys playing football with our boys or just hanging out with all of us 😉 Even more amazing to see them on the water, but I had that pleasure in Egypt already a few months ago… really inspiring! Makes me want to go and practice new tricks myself 🙂

This season should be pretty interesting as I still want to focus on developing the female kitesurfing scene here. I have some things planned in my mind already, I just need to find a bit of time to talk to my sponsors and other ‘influential’ people and see if they can help me to bring them to life 🙂 I really hope so because we have lots of great girls over here and all they need is a small push to come out of the shadows and rock it! As far as competitions go, I might be entering one or two of them next month, but that really will all depend on how much I get to train in the upcoming weeks. I’ve had a 1.5 month break in riding due to lack of wind followed by an injury so progress-wise I am not yet in the place I wished to be by now… but it’s all a matter of practice and right now my main goal is to get as much riding time in between lessons as possible! The forecast looks good so fingers crossed 😀

Hopefully next time I’ll be able to post some riding pictures as well!

May wind be with you,
Suzana

I Guess Longboarding Is Now THE Thing

As far as I know, Chałupy has always been known for two things: being a kite/windsurfing mecca and having nude beaches where all the flower children of the sixties migrated to do whatever flower children did in places like that… 😉 I have never been to any of those beaches and I’m not even sure they still really exist, but what has become really popular lately among all the free spirits here is longboarding. I have never tried any skate-related sports before, so when the opportunity appeared a few days ago I was more than eager to finally put my hands on one of those boards. It turned out to be so much fun! I guess I’ll try to ride as often as possible from now on to become better and maybe learn a thing or two… especially that for the next few days there will be almost no wind at all and we have some longboards to test for free in kite.pl.

Below are some Go-Pro pics we took during a sunset break on one of the campsites. It was super nice to sit there on a pier with everyone, our legs dangling above the water, people walking there and fro, children playing silly games… a good time for sure.

Can’t wait for the evening to ride again! Longboarding is FUN!

May wind be with you,
Suzana

Cherish what you have, dude.

Ever since I got my camera back from the service 2 days ago, I’ve been thinking there is truth in saying that you understand the importance of things once you loose them. Only now I really feel how uncomfortable it was, using photo equipment I don’t know and don’t really like instead of my own things… I can’t believe I used to complain about my camera in the past 😀 Will never do that again for sure, I love it now more than ever! And I may not be a great photographer, but taking pics makes me happy and I guess that’s the most important thing… everyone got used to being followed by a tall weirdo with a camera/gopro around the school and people have finally started to act natural around me so it’s becoming more and more fun to try and capture them unawares. 😀

The forecast has finally improved and it seems from tomorrow on there should be at least a bit of wind every day. A good thing, as I need to think seriously about finally earning some money… my kite plans around the world are expanding all the time and if I don’t start organizing now, I might have problems later on… but no need to panic, it is going to work out for sure. It has to! 🙂

A few snaps from today are below, all the people are kite.pl employees 🙂 We have had the same teaching crew each season for many years now, which is an amazing thing that doesn’t happen often. After you have gained some working experience in this field, you start to understand that instructors keep coming back year after year to the same place only if the school is really good. The best schools around the world never need to post seeking employment ads, it is actually hard to get accepted there as all the posts are usually taken. Proud to have been a part of one of those schools for 3 years now! 🙂