Surfing Waves

Anybody notice whether planting your feet on walled lefts is harder than on fast rights (backside, as I'm regular-footed)? I noticed this today on my quad fin superfish as the waves were fast and barrelling. Leaning into lefts, my placement is always off, but leaning into rights, my placement is right.

Planting rear foot first seems to work better on lefts for me. Just wondering if this is the same for anybody else.

If you are Regular and take lefts then you are riding backside and you are on your toes which gives you the feeling of being off balance. I used to have this problem so I tried putting a little more weight on my heels and that helped a little for me. Try it out.

Yep, it is, you just get better at it.

A trick is to "go pro" on backside. You seen the pro's grab the rail? Well, it really does help, but also for begginers. Grab the rail going backside, it will steady you and get you lower, helping you balance. It's not just for pro's, it's great to teach yourself how to swing the board around for back side takeoff's

I know you guys are talking about after getting to your feet. I'm more talking about the process of getting your feet in the right position. When I take off on walled waves, I take off down the line (my board doesn't have much rocker). The faster and more vertical the wave breaks, the harder I need to push, and the more critical I get up faster. When I launch up into position, pushing off with the left and swinging my hips from left to right takes more effort than the other way around (pushing off right and swinging from left to right). So my feet often end up placed wrong and I slide right down out of control.

The "back foot first" method works well in that case. Though certainly once I'm up, grabbing the rail seems like a good way to keep that steep angle on a backside barrel.

Actually, to explain better, you don't change your foot placement, you change the angle at which you take off, which grabbing your rail early corrects somewhat. I don't mean catch the wave, bottom turn then grab the rail, I mean grab the rail as you pop up, it will correct your wave entry backside and give you a better feel how to take off on the wave.

Ya, I agree with themathteacher most of the time on walled lefts I find myself just automatically grabbing the rail just as a natural reflex to gain balance. It really helps.