"Enjoy the journey, Jan!“

Enjoying the journey – that’s maybe the most important thing to me when it comes to my windsurfing experience so far. Originally a sailor, I discovered windsurfing back in late 2014. At that point of time, a world cup career already seemed a little bit out of reach for me ;-). Nevertheless, I always wanted to improve my skills, making my big dream - becoming a good wave sailor - one day come true. But living far off the coast in Germany it turned out that it was not that easy to become the next Jason Polakow with only a couple of weeks of holidays a year. For this reason I took lessons from time to time when I was for example on Fuerteventura.

After several of those trips I was looking for something new and on youtube I stumbled over the videos of GetWindsurfing. I liked the videos very much and I also figured out that Danielle and Phil were offering courses worldwide. With the big dream still in my mind I decided to book a wave clinic in Essaouira/Morocco. That was back in 2019 and at that time I also liked the idea that it was maybe a more international class than it would have been booking a German course e. g. on Cabo Verde.

Arriving at the surf club in Essaouira, it only took me five minutes to realize that the week ahead was going to be fabulous. We were people from several countries (UK, Norway, Germany, Russia...) and everyone in the group was open-minded, friendly and helpful - especially Phil and Danielle. Unfortunately, this week did not saw me doing insane bottom turns and towering aerials - but I learned a lot about techniques to cross the shore-break, gained the basic knowledge about waves and I developed a general idea of the physics and most important maneuvers in wavesailing.

Looking back to this first trip there is one moment that's still very present in my mind. One afternoon the wind was very light but there were still waves out there and to me, an absolute wavesailing rookie, everything looked very complicated. Phil was talking to each of us and he suggested that I should just take a SUP-board with a sail option. I followed his advice, managed to sail out, turned the big board with a beginner tack, sailed slowly back and, while watching the ocean, hopped on a wave, riding it down completely to the beach. On the beach, I walked back upwind through the shallow water, went out again, turned the board the way described and returned to the beach catching another wave. It went on like this for maybe an hour and when I finally came back to the beach I was totally stoked and thought to myself "That's something I could do forever and ever and ever...".

Morocco 2019 was only the first chapter when it comes to all the different trips that I took with Phil and Danielle so far. Each of those journeys was special and it's kind of difficult to sum up the different highlights.

In Ireland (September 2021) I was struggling with my wavesailing in the lighter winds and for that reason I started to do some regular surfing on a malibu beginner board. Even if my pop-up wasn't that good and the wave selection could have been better I caught some waves on my big floaty board and I enjoyed the pureness and simplicity of it a lot. It turned out that Ireland was not transforming me into a fearless Red Bull storm chaser (my original goal), but instead, it made me fall in love with surfing and since then windsurfing and surfing complement each other. Ireland was also the place where I had tremendous and memorable fun off the water. One evening I was staying with the Irish crew at our hotel bar and story after story we started to laugh more (finally with tears of laughter) and it's hard for me to remember the last similar situation before that evening. 

May 2022 saw me windsurfing El Cabezo (Tenerife) for the very first time. The conditions were demanding but at the beginning of our clinic Phil gave us loads of precious advice, making it doable for all of us. In some moments, I was kind of rubbing my eyes due to the fact that I was windsurfing this well known worldcup spot. Nowadays I think with Phil's guidance and trust ("You can do it, Jan!") I would also go out on Maui and try to windsurf Jaws ;-).

In 2022 I also went for the first time to Crete. That week in June was special for me too, because since then I have met a lot of these guys each year again in the beautiful little village of Palekastro and it's not only about windsurfing there. It's more like a recurring social happening with - of course(!) - our very own and very unique "Crete-Star-Wars"-whatsappgroup accompanying me through the year ;-).

Before finishing this short getwindsurfing-report I will not conceal that during my journey there have also been moments of huge frustration. There were days when I was not able to see any progression in my windsurfing and when it felt like everything was going wrong, when I was disappointed due to a consistent lack of wind and was really considering quitting the sport. In these moments I received a lot of support not only from the other participants but especially from Phil. I'm sure it's not that easy to find the right words in front of a frustrated and maybe exhausted guy, who is very far away from being content with what he is having - but Phil did, breaking it finally down to the central aspect of it: "Enjoy the journey, Jan!".

So here's my little summary: Did I already become the next Philip Köster? I guess "No!" is allegedly the correct answer. Did I improve my windsurfing skills? Without a doubt there has been some progression ;-). Did I finally manage to enjoy the time on and off the water more and more with each single trip? That's definitely true and I'm looking forward to all the things to come on my journey.

Jan from Germany