After the basics

[paulminors]

Hi

I've been surfing a few months on a 6'8 board and have mastered the basics. I can get up on most waves I catch but am still just surfing in a straight line back to the beach. Any advice on how I learn to surf along the waves. Do you just pop up then turn or do you paddle in to the wave facing in the direction you want to go all ready?

[Sillysausage]

a little bit of both. paddle in on a slight angle but you may still need a bottom turn to keep going along the wave

[BoardatWork]

By basics, do you including turning? I'll assume not as you haven't been going along the wave.

Before you start trying to turn on unbroken waves (i'm assume this is what you are on), practice the effects of turning with some whitewater behind you. You'll look like a kook, but stand on your board, arms out sideways and turn (at your waist and shoulders) to point your hands along the length of your board. Get a feel of how your body movements turn the board. Shift your weight from the front edge to back edge, feel what happens when you dig a rail in to do sharper turns.

After a few waves, you should begin to get an idea of how your movements will move the board around on the wave. When you're comfortable that you can direct the board where you want to, start having a go on smaller unbroken waves.

There are three ways to make the drop:

Along the direction the wave is breaking (good for learning)
Straight down
Towards the break of the wave

On the latter two the key move after your drop in is the bottom turn. You will need to put in a good bottom turn to maintain your speed in order to perform a top turn (re-entry) or to just move along the direction of the wave (which you should be doing to start). My advice would be, forget about the third move until you've perfected the bottom turn as until you can do that, you won't be able to maintain enough speed to produce good moves.

Extreme sports channel has some good guides on bottom turns etc.

hope that helps!