Surfing Waves

I recently learned to surf on a 8' foam board since about March. I got the basics down on the foam board and went out and bought a used shortboard. Its 6' 3" long about 18" wide and about 2 1/2" thick. Im a 16 year old guy and about 120lbs at most. I've been out a couple times and haven't caught anything, or even been close to anything. That window of time that i need to pop-up seems to be my issue. Im in SoCal, and the waves were about 2-4ft every time i went. Is it me? Conditions? Or the board?

Nick about 70% of the posters in this forum ask this question, read down and you will see that you initial learning was on a barge ( foam floating platform= soft board) where you begin to have an experience of g.
Like learning to drive aBeetle Volkswagen, then next step you ( that's you and all the other posters) then try to jump in a formula one or Indi car and think you can drive to the racing conditions. Sadly you can't!

Foamies give you absolutely no idea of how to enter the real surf situation.
Put the short board away and get something about 8ft that is a real board and get some real time surf and experience and fun under your belt and the begin to go short by increments.
BTW you are the 2796th person to ask exactly the same question about the same problem and that 's only in the short boarders only segment!

FUN

Yeah i know, its so buoyant. What would your suggestion be? I cant afford to buy another used board. I know eventually ill get the hang of it, but do you have any pointers?

Really the way we all learned, is do it over and over again, often you will have days when nothing works, cherish and remember each success and try to repeat it .

It will be much harder to catch waves on the shortboard. Next time you're out, forget about popping up and just try and catch a few waves prone. This will give you a better idea of when you should be starting to get to your feet - there's no point in trying to pop if you've not caught the wave.
Practice, practice, practice.

nickmester . . . paddle to the shore to catch the waves that are going to break on your head (yes - this will work) . . . then do angled take offs of the same head smackers, then get popping up to ride the green faces of the angled take-off on the head slappers. . . eeeezzzzyyyy! - ish!

NOTE: You will get dumped overs the falls now and again, but this truly is a lesson in how to catch waves and ride them asap as you have requested

The trick to taking off on a short board.... If the wave doesn't look like it has the potential to throttle you, it's not steep enough for a short board.

nickmester wrote: 8' foam board .... bought a used shortboard. Its 6' 3" long about 18" wide and about 2 1/2" thick.

That's about as classical "newbie buys a shortboard" story as you can get *DBBB refrains from doing bangy head man*

You'll really struggle on that. I know that it can be done on a shortboard, but thats a proper wafer thin shortboard.
Put that one away for now, carry on with the foamboard while you save up for something with a bit... no, a whole lot... more volume.

I learned on a shortboard too. I can tell it's going to be very hard for you. You'll only wipe out again and again in the early stage and it'll take some time before you can stand up on your first wave. I've seen many people who try to learn on a shortboard quit shortly after. Some of those are my friends. (Even I quit too, but thanks to the girl who broke my heart I was totally driven to pick up my surfboard again.) If you learn the hard way and succeed, you will be strong. You learn from your experience and mistakes and will appreciate every moment of surfing and are unlikely to give up again.

jaktequila wrote:You learn from your experience

...but you learn much quicker with a suitable board

drowningbitbybit wrote:

jaktequila wrote:You learn from your experience

...but you learn much quicker with a suitable board

Yes, sure. Couldn't agree more. Just wanted to say that it works either way, provided that the person has enough determination.

To be completely honest, I think most people CAN'T learn on a shortboard. There are some, who have the determination to do it, and even those would be better starting on a longboard or a mini-mal at a push. Why do people insist on making life difficult for themselves? Honest opinions on a post-card.

garbarrage wrote:Why do people insist on making life difficult for themselves? Honest opinions on a post-card.

I dare say it's because 2nd hand shortboards are about 1/2 the price of mini-mals, and people are don't want to spend the money on a sport they don't know if they will like/stick with.

That's where the foamies are good - a new one is about the same price as a 2nd hand shortboard, but heaps better for a rank beginner to learn on - and potentially re-sellable as they tend not to get damaged too easily.

Unfortunately, they are very different to surfing a real board, so you need a new board pretty soon. /end rant.

That may be true for some of them Jimi, and it's unfortunate, because they aren't really giving the sport a chance. I dare say there's a fair few who see people ripping shortboards and think, "That's what I want to do."

I still think that garbarrage

Me too SP, me too.

garbarrage wrote:That may be true for some of them Jimi, and it's unfortunate, because they aren't really giving the sport a chance. I dare say there's a fair few who see people ripping shortboards and think, "That's what I want to do."

All a matter of perspective - there's way too many surfers in sydney, so if it deters the non-committed wanna-be ones it might be seen as a good thing

I too see groms ripping and wish I was able to too.

Jimi wrote:
All a matter of perspective - there's way too many surfers in sydney,

How could there be? They're all over here.