Hello and welcome! My name is Brittany Penaroza. You are currently reading the first of many blog entries I will be sharing based on my experience in the surfing world and my work with Upright Kinetics. I felt it was fitting for my first blog post to be an introduction to my journey as a professional surfer.
I was born and raised on O’ahu, one of the eight major islands that comprise the Hawaiian archipelago. Surfing was introduced to me by my dad. I fell in love with it when I stood up on my first wave at age 9. After that first wave, surfing was an integral part of my life which eventually led me down the path of becoming a professional surfer. I progressed every couple of years from competing regionally, to nationally and eventually internationally against the world’s best. By the time I was 19, I had been traveling and competing non-stop for about 4 years. I felt blessed to be doing what I loved but I was burnt out. The constant travel and dynamic schedule surfing demanded made it difficult to develop a routine. I wasn’t able to tend to the compounding stress surfing was putting on my body.
So when the world stopped moving at the beginning of 2020 due to the coronavirus, my body and mind were in desperate need of some TLC. Months into lockdowns my brother introduced me to Mark St. Peter, founder of Upright Kinetics. We started working together consistently twice a week. Mark expanded my knowledge of the body, fixed aberrant patterns I developed from surfing, and showed me what true foundation training was. It’s now been almost 3 years of us working together and my surfing has never been better. The level of body awareness I have has not only improved my surfing but also any athletic endeavor I pursue. Mark’s method of training can be applied to any domain because he is retraining your aberrant patterns to move in an optimized primal way. Most of the work we have done is seemingly unrelated to surfing yet translates perfectly to the coordination and agility I need on a board. There is still so much to learn and it has been an exciting journey of growth and change!
Stay tuned for more stories and educational tips.