Anastasia Ashley explores how her surfing started

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Board found in trash can launched Anastasia Ashley's stoke

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 4 May, 2012 : - - When you're 6, you're not supposed to be good at anything. But Anastasia Ashley knew from the moment she stood on a surfboard that she was good. Really good.  So naturally, she wanted to do it all the time. But for that, she really needed her own board. Little did she know there was one waiting for her right outside her house.

"I found an abandoned surfboard outside of our house in front of a trash can," Ashley said. "It was about six-feet-long, very beat up and super ugly. Boards are normally white, but this one was yellow from being in the sun and old. I tried to make it look nicer by cleaning it up and taking off some of the stickers. But I didn't care too much how it looked. It was my board."

That dingy board helped then 6-year-old Ashley sign up for her first surf contest, which she won, confirming what she suspected.  "OK, this is what I'm supposed to do," she told herself.

She started surfing five to eight hours a day (basically whenever she wasn't in school) and by age 7, she picked up a board sponsor who replaced her run-down board with a few new ones. Three years later, she was competing in amateur events against women two-and-a-half times her age, though she longed to surf with her peers.

"The girls I had to go up against were substantially older than me, so I entered a few boys contests to compete with people my own age," Ashley said. "I actually beat a few guys who are pros now, so that's kind of funny." When asked to list a few names, she simply laughed and said, "I think they all remember who they are.

Read the full article by Cristina Goyanes at ESPN.GO

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