Domingo's surf

 Domingo found his balance not on a board, but in the ruins of one.

For years, he was La Paliza’s hurricane. He charged waves others backed down from, his style a beautiful, reckless violence against the water. Then, a freak wipeout on a deceptively gentle day snapped his board and his femur. The ocean he’d tried to conquer had simply reminded him of his place.

The long months of healing were a different kind of wipeout. A mental one. Frustration was a cage. He watched from the shore as the groms, the kids, thrashed and fought the waves, just as he had. He saw Carlos, a whip-smart 14-year-old, erupt in fury after a failed cutback, beating the water with his fists. He saw Maria, all fierce determination, paddling against the current until she was too exhausted to catch anything at all. They saw only the wave as an enemy to be dominated.

One afternoon, his leg aching with the promise of a swell, Domingo didn’t grab his repaired board. He grabbed a piece of chalk.

On the seawall facing La Paliza’s main break, he drew a single, simple curve: a wave. Underneath, in Spanish, he wrote: “¿Escuchas? Él ya está hablando.” Listen. It is already speaking.

The kids gathered, curious. “What’s it saying, old man?” Carlos asked, still scowling from a morning of defeats.

“It says it is stronger than you,” Domingo said, smiling. “It says you are tired. It says to stop fighting me and start moving with me.”

He began to point things out, not as obstacles, but as information. The shifting wind wasn’t a betrayal; it was the wave whispering about its shape. The punishing current wasn’t a personal attack; it was a free ride to the better lineup, if you’d stop resisting it. “You don’t control the ocean,” he’d say, his voice a low, steady rhythm beneath the crash. “You have a conversation with it.”

He started coaching from the sand, a perched, sage-like figure. His instructions were unlike any they’d heard.

“Maria, you paddle with the heart of a lion. Now, paddle with the ears of a deer. Listen. Is the wave asking for your strength, or your timing?”

“Carlos, your anger is a heavy anchor. Let it go. The wave will give you its power. You just need to make room for it.”

He taught them that effort was a dial, not an on/off switch. “Adjustá tu esfuerzo,” he’d call. Adjust your effort. Preserve your focus on the water, not on the girl who just passed you. Maintain your consistency, not in riding perfectly every day, but in reading the water every day.

The transformation wasn’t in their trophies in national competition, though a few started to appear. It was in their eyes. The frantic, fighting light softened into one of attentive calm. Maria started catching more waves with half the effort, a serene smile on her face. Carlos’s once-permanent scowl melted into a look of intense, fluid concentration. They began to ride not just on the wave, but with it, their movements a seamless part of the water’s energy.

They called him El Equilibrista – The Balancer. He hadn’t given them a set of rules to conquer the sea, but a philosophy to partner with it.

One evening, as the sun bled into the Caribbean, Domingo sat on the wall, his own board beside him. Carlos and Maria joined him, silent, watching the hypnotic swell.

“Aren’t you going to ride anymore, profesor?” Maria asked gently.

Domingo looked at his leg, then at the ocean, and finally at the two young faces, now reflecting a peace he’d spent a lifetime chasing.

“I am riding,” he said, his voice full of a quiet, boundless joy. He nodded to the water, where his students moved with a grace he’d only ever dreamed of. “Every time you go out, you take me with you.”

He had set out to master the wave, and in breaking him, it had taught him the true lesson: the deepest balance isn’t found in standing alone on the water, but in becoming a calm, steady point from which others learn to find their own.