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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, March 1, 2007

Upstanding athlete

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Video: Learn proper stand-up paddle surfing techniques
 •  Balance is at core of paddling workout

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

'Ocean girl' is stoked about old style of paddling and the workout it provides.

RICHARD AMBO | The Honolulu Advertiser

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TIARE LAWRENCE

Age: 24

Profession: Kapi'olani Community College student studying Hawaiian language, who is taking the semester off to backpack in Australia and snowboard in Canada.

Residence: Grew up on Maui; lives in Palolo

Height: 5-feet-2

Weight: 130 pounds

Fitness routine: Standup paddling, running on the beach at Makaha, surfing, paddling team and solo outrigger canoes.

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The waves at Makaha were not for the timid, sweeping fast toward the beach like a fluid, blue version of your neighbor's two-story house. Make a mistake, and you're a piece of flotsam.

Perfect conditions for standup paddling, said Tiare Lawrence, flashing a 100-watt grin on a recent weekday afternoon. Her hair was still damp after a morning session that left her buzzing with adrenaline and struggling to explain to an uncle how she snapped his board in two.

She'd break a second board before the day was over.

Lawrence, a 24-year-old Maui native, credits her dedication to standup paddling with giving her the kind of strength to muscle big Makaha.

The sport isn't new — Waikiki beachboys have been doing it since the 1930s — but it's experiencing a renaissance. Afficionados, standing on boards as thick as a loaf of bread and up to 16 feet long, propel themselves with oversized Hawaiian canoe paddles lighter than most rubber slippers.

The blend is natural for Lawrence, a self-described "ocean girl." She started paddling near her family's Lahaina home when she was 9.

"I could barely get the paddle to touch the water," she said.

Riding waves came next, in all its various forms. Whatever Lawrence found herself doing on the ocean, it had the power to wash away a bad day.

"Being out there, you see things," she said. "The ocean is so beautiful. You see turtles. You kind of think about things, life goals. On land, you are so distracted."

But for much of her adult life, there was always an internal struggle: surf or paddle?

That changed late last year when she returned to Hawai'i after spending the summer dancing hula professionally in Japan and indulging in too much sushi and beer.

"I was a heifer," said Lawrence with blunt honesty.

Using a borrowed board designed for standup paddling, Lawrence found the answer to all her concerns last November while charging down the face of a huge wave, she said. Three months later, the sushi saddles are gone. Her body is a toned, seamless sequence of mocha-colored muscles. Lawrence said her strength has doubled.

"I definitely get a good workout in my back, my biceps, my triceps and into my core," she said. "And it's a really good workout for my glutes, my hamstrings, all my leg muscles, even down to my toes, because it requires a lot of balance. My feet are sore every night."

Now her workouts are geared toward being fit enough to pursue her new sport in larger and larger waves. Lawrence will run in the sand at Makaha four times a week, take long-distance standup paddling runs when the ocean is flat. When a swell is pumping, she'll surf, surf, surf.

"It's amazing what standup paddling can do," she said. "After doing an hour of this, your butt's going to get a good workout."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.