Surfing Waves

Hello everybody,

Can someone give me some tips on how to improve my turns, i've attached some fails from my last session. I surf in Holland so the waves are not so powerful, hence the fact why it is so important to time your turns perfectly otherwise you get caught up. Whenever I surf abroad I expercience less difficulties with my turns due to the fact that the waves are so much more powerful and tend to "throw you back" when attempting a top turn/cutback.



All the tips are very welcome!

Cheers, Thijs

I think I see the problem... you're surfing in a cold wet version of Futurama....
Where are you surfing there? What's with the "architecture"?

Right, seriously, two things...

The first one you've already identified - those weak waves haven't got a great deal of push, and so the board is moving too slowly for an off-the-lip top turn. You've got the speed to do the bottom turn, but you've lost it all by the top... which brings me onto the second point...

...You're trying to do a high top turn when you've run out of speed, which is fine if the wave will push you back but it's too weak to do that, so you end up leaning off the board and burying the rail. This seems to be your consistent problem - burying the rail on an almost stationary board.

So, after your bottom turn, initiate your top turn earlier (not even a top turn really) and stay a little lower on the board and on the face, and concentrate on going down the line to generate speed by pumping up and down the face. Once you've got that speed, you can pull off a proper top turn, but you'll then need to cut back to the pocket. And make sure that you shift your weight from the front of the board (while you're going down the line) to the back foot (while your turning) to avoid burying the rail.

Or just take more overseas holidays

When you have more powerful waves it makes it all easier to do powerful turns. When the waves are less powerful you need to supply the power and you can add to the power of turns by going seamlessly from one turn to the next extending your legs out of the turn and crouching into the turn. When you crouch into the turn you start to turn and drop your center of balance and weight by crouching when you get to the bottom of the crouch your full weight hits the board and at the exact same time you start to extend your legs so it increases the force pushing into the board as you come out you are in full extention leaning toward where you want to be next and you unweight in that direction and start your next turn crouching down as you do and extending your legs once you start to turn. It takes a lot of practice to do this so don't get discouraged. One other thing is we can't really see your foot position from the video. You might try placing you back foot a couple inches further back and see if that helps. I like bigger more powerful waves because it makes all the maneuvers so much easier to do and in my old age I am slower and bigger waves give me more room to make turns on.
PS ( I used to be good at this long ago but quit surfing and I am working on relearning this now)

right arm is back which is showing " right"
left arm is "closed" and across the body when is should be starting to open up to the left.
right foot is okay at 3 o'clock
left foot is "closed" at 3 o'clock ( which is too powerful ). Should be more at 1 o'clock to give power to the back foot


right hand is holding on to an invisible wall. It makes the movement stiff


eyes is good looking to the turn apex
left arm is starting to open, but leading with the elbow ( palm is down )
right arm is still behind the center of the chest
* because the the left arm is closed and power is not given to the back foot , the left foot starts to roll on it's side *


left arm has moved to it's max position ( should be way more )
right arm has moved a bit more but not across the chest.
* notice the left shoulder is "showing" right *


now is the critical turn down moment
eye is still looking left, when it should have lead the movement and look right
right hand moves back from it's max position ( not enough swing rotation )
left fingers are trying to "steer" the board


things look good here from a single photo
bodyline from feet to head are inline with the stringer/board
eyes need to be more looking back to the curl
trail lines look good but maybe too deep for the speed/size of the wave


left arm cocks back at the elbow
right arm reaches for the wave at an awkward angle. Not really needed to be done.
it's like a motorcyclist trying to drag knee in a parking lot.

These are just observations. In time your actions will get smoother and more flowing. But the main problem is you're doing what I call "Whack a Mole ". You are trying to rip your arm thru the turn to force the action. You're going from the inside rail immediately to the outside rail too quickly. You have to flow from the left rail TO the flat bottom of your board THEN to the right rail. You're just chopping, which cuts your energy. It makes you catch a rail/edge and then your get flap jacked over. Stop trying to rip it and place your shots

Possibly the best answer to a question ever

drowningbitbybit wrote:Possibly the best answer to a question ever

Agree.

Waikikichan, can you tell me why the annoying 13 yr old grommet was catching lots of waves this morning and my old carcass was barely catching any....me and the old dads in the line up were just ruefully looking at each other as we were taught a lesson almost as good as yours.

dtc wrote: can you tell me why the annoying 13 yr old grommet was catching lots of waves this morning and my old carcass was barely catching any.

No matter wherever you are in the world, there's always this one kid that blows the old guys out of the water ( and rips on waves you wouldn't even try to paddle for )


This photo was taken from http://starb.on.coocan.jp/ . I love the expression of the guy on the red board on the left.

It is all mathematics.
Your DOB x Plimsol line co-efficient, divided by portional pudding slices overlayed with XXXX for the Queensland mean yule tide level and quantified by the number of cane toads in any given lineup!
The major factor however was you didn't take out Waikikikikichan's directive circles and red arrows without them you cannot overcome the problem>
SIMPLE

Uncle Jaffa was born in the first half of the last century has a definitive plimsol line.
No XXXX factor but certainly constrained by all of the above, even 13 year old girls can out surf him (no gender statements were implied or injured in this posting)

waikikikichan - that's a fantastic reply. Seriously.

Wow that's way more than what I hoped for when posting this thread, thank you so much!

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