How did you get into SUP?

[surf4food]

I’m rather surprised that no one in the poll answered white water kayaking as their gateway sport being that white water/river SUPing has become a significant part of the overall SUP scene.   Or at least it seems that way.

[covesurfer]

I've been in the water and loved it since I was old enough to get in it on my own. A lifetime of swimming, which I still love at age 55, was my gateway drug. Canoed and sailed from age 7 on and still sail my own boat regularly. Learned to short board surf in my late teens and made annual surf trips but never lived where the break was out the door. Seems like that is key to being more than an average surfer. As I got older, I got the (inevitable?) fish and longboard and still love to go surfing but I know my limits.

Got into windsurfing in the early 80's while working in a shop and was rapidly hooked. Windsurfing was life-changing/defining for me and caused my relocation to the Columbia Gorge in the mid 80's. I don't sail as much as I used to but the quality is still there for me and I absolutely love the days I still go out.

My wife and I sea kayak and a few years ago on the glassy days we'd notice the stand ups and I would comment on how I would never do that. Thought it looked silly and slow.

It took a few days of 100 degree temps while at a bicycle race in Bend Oregon, of all places, to get me on an SUP. Rented some boards just to get on the water and get cooled off and got hooked. At first it was just casual flat water paddles, then I had to try it in the surf on a Maui trip. It was even more fun that I'd dreamed of. My surfing background was a huge advantage for me.

After 3 weeks of paddling and surfing small waves daily last Fall, it was home to Oregon and the cold air and water. Four boards later, I am paddling an average of 4 or 5 days a week, even in the winter. I love flat water distance paddles almost as much as surfing and even like paddling into the wind and earning my downwinders, which have tremendous potential here in the Gorge.

I'll be trying my first race in a few weeks and am really stoked about that. Paddling my race board is just totally addictive and meditative for me.

I am so amazed at the breadth of SUP as a sport - the things people are doing is mind boggling. One of the most attractive things  to me is that no matter the conditions, you can always get out there and have an awesome paddle. What a great sport!

[stoneaxe]

Brain tumor...

[bretrwarner]

I think, with the exception of windsurfing, I have spent many hours doing almost every sport on that list. I have certainly spent the most time teaching sea kayaking and swimming, but the first time I saw a SUP I think I was hooked before I even tried it.

[tde]

I was Waveskiing....after 30+ years of surfing I had neck problems that lead to surgery....The condition was aggravated by prone paddling. Waveskiied for 6 years and in 2006 discovered SUP....ordered a board and have never looked back.....THANK YOU SUP...I CAN STAND AGAIN!!!!

[Shark]

Got back into surfing after a 30 year hiatus, but hated prone paddling and popping up (mainly because I sucked at both).  SUP solved both problems, plus now I can enjoy a flatwater session when I can't make the 3 hour drive to the nearest waves.

[SUP Wheels]

Started surfing late in life...too late.  Changed to SUP and I'm loving it.  I can do with as a family and I will by ready to try the waves again

[blueplanetsurf]

I checked windsurfing although the real gateway for me was bodysurfing as a little kid.  Interesting how pretty all the big windsurf brands now have a line of SUP's, it's a natural crossover.

[Gaucho]

Longtime swimmer, water polo player, surfer then windsurfer after move to SF Bay Area years ago.  Got tired of hauling all the windsurf gear around and that combined with a bad hip got me into SUP.  Haven't been back on a surfboard for 2 years and loving SUP in the surf and flatwater.   Whole new experience while surfing..continuous workout and best view possible.  Now have a new chromium alloy hip and having a blast.

[lucabrasi]

Flatwater and some whitewater kayking. Bottom line is that I just want to be on the water and I can't think of a better way to be out on the water, anywhere.
I grew up near the coast and probably the biggest regret I have had for years was that I never surfed or took full advantage of my location and all of the ocean activities. Lots of body surfing tho. Fast forward many years later, hopelessly landlocked it seems, and I was doing a lot of kayak fishing and saw an ad/photo in a mag/online of a board and instantly "I want that."
Absolutely hooked. Very short season here, maybe get out first time of year this weekend. (Hooray for global warming, it was June last year)
I have also made addicts of my kids. (which made for an expensive wedding present, can't have just one in their house I thouht)  
I find myself lost in daydreams at times watching the downwind videos here and some of the waveriding ones.
What better way to be on the water. This was the first way we got on water I am sure. Broke down that guy on the log with a stick hasn't evolved all that far. We were looking for the best log to float on and stick to move us back then.

[surfinJ]

Luckily grew up with my summers spent on the beach.  First surfboard was a 'pig' shape,
an ugly but functional radical reduction of a 60's 10 footer cut in half.  Forty years later, body
racked with neck and shoulder problems found the cure - standup!  

[crtraveler]

Costa Rica, Feb 2008....I was surfing (longboarding) in front of Capitan Suizo in Tamarindo with a couple other guys.  There was one really good surfer who went back to the beach and grabbed a huge board with a crazy looking paddle and proceeded to have a very tough time staying up on the board, catching waves, etc.....when he did catch a wave, he rode it all the way into the beach.  In my mind I was thinking..."if he's that good of a surfer and now having this much difficulty and fun on this new type of board...I gotta try that sometime soon"  I was not a great surfer by any means (still not), but I was intrigued about something that would put "the fun" back into being on the water after a bunch of years of surfing.  SUP was it.....

I returned home to NY, still thinking about it, found a shop on Long Island that just started renting boards.  I rented a board (South Point Kalama 11'6") for the weekend, paddled around Lake Mahopac, then brought it down on Monday to try it in the surf before I returned it to the shop.  I was so excited to find it so challenging in knee high waves and so much much fun all at the same time.  I headed back home on Monday evening with a brand new Kalama on the roof of the truck.  Thats it, everything since then is chronicled pretty well on The Zone.

[Big Ed]

I thank Boledo for it daily, he got me started. I would also thank Josh Sleigh for pointing me in the right direction and showing me the sport can be "cool" and progressive.  SUP changed my life!

[ron.c]

Hello

Although I checked off longboard surfing, I think it’s much more complicated.

Surfing sessions gave me a first hand view of a paddle’s power – Surfing would not have been possible if my love for windsurfing didn’t focus me on moving to the ‘Cape – My continued passion for windsurfing may have been partially spurred on my seeing fantastic pictures of tropical island spots, one in particular, with beautiful half naked women – Windsurfing was somewhat of a segway from a half-hearted attempt at teenage surfing – I would have never bought a surfboard if I hadn’t had so much fun on a disk shaped hunk of plywood painted sick blue, christened with a flower sticker that worked well as a skim board – Maybe it was the beautifully (beach) tanned women on the cover of my parents Peaches and Cream album – It could have been the thrill of wearing a wetsuit, fighting bad guys underwater and bedding a blond bombshell as witnessed by seeing Thunderball at age 7 - I think ultimately the desire to SUP started with the love of my frog man GI Joe.

Too bad the survey didn’t have a check box from twisted upbringings.

RC

[ObviousSup]

Too bad the survey didn’t have a check box from twisted upbringings.

RC

That would pretty much delete the purpose of having a poll since everyone would chose that option.