Surfing Waves

I have been surfing a 7.6 mini mal for about 2 years and want to get a shortboard. i have borrowed a 6.6 long 20 wide and 20 thick shortboard and found it fine the first day but the waves were tiny so it was easy to get outback. However i tried it again today and struggled a lot because i found it exahusting to paddle it quickly and can't duckdive. Can anyone give me sme tips on how to make the paddleing easier? Should i buy this board or would a different shortboard be better- it seems to have a very thin long nose compared to many other shortboard i'v seen? i'm 5.6 tall and about 63lbs. Thanks

paddling tips... well I'm by no means an expert but I was struggling with paddling for a while and this helped me a lot..
do some shoulder exercises: get some dumbbells and do some raises, that sorta thing. work on triceps: tricep dips and extensions work really well. some work on the lats wouldn't go astray either. I find a lot of people really push to work on the lats for surfing but to be honest I use a lot more tricep and deltoid strength.
google some strength exercises for upper body and you'll be fine- its not really about bulking up, just endurance and training the muscles to do their thing. or there's specific exercise sites for surfing as well which can help. still borrowing the 6'6? maybe try duckdiving on the smaller days to get used to it: tell ya what, my 6'9 is a boat and impossible to duckdive and it's so hard to go back to that after surfing my 6'4. you have to paddle about twice the distance, not to mention the blast of the wave: exhausting, I feel your pain!

Remember that the amount of board sticking out of the water in front of you is the same amount of board dragging like an anchor, slowing you down, behind you.

Biggest mistake that rookies make is paddling from way too far back on the board. This makes it very hard to get into waves, and just makes you too slow. Try to paddle with only about 12" max of your board sticking out of the water.

As for the duckdive: Push the nose down, and then at the deepest point you can get, step on the tail of your board. When the board floats to the surface, the nose should be higher than the tail, so that the float pulls you forward, and out the back of the wave. Bigger boards are tough to duckdive, though. You'll find this much easier on like a 6'3".

Stomp on that tail with your foot when you are the deepest part of the duckdive! Press the board down as deep as possible, then Pull up on the nose, and stomp on the tail. Ride the floating board out the back of the wave!

Vasos wrote:Stomp on that tail with your foot when you are the deepest part of the duckdive! Press the board down as deep as possible, then Pull up on the nose, and stomp on the tail. Ride the floating board out the back of the wave!

yeah.

this is exactly my problem. my board's a 6'6 epoxy fish, 22" and 3' thick! i can push the frontside down but the tail section sticks up even if i step on it! i bail whenver there's a big wave coming x_x

noob wrote:this is exactly my problem. my board's a 6'6 epoxy fish, 22" and 3' thick! i can push the frontside down but the tail section sticks up even if i step on it! i bail whenver there's a big wave coming x_x

Please don't bail. Danger loose board situation, practice your duck diving and learn to turtle roll (eski roll) under the waves. Epoxy problem more buoyant board