Surfing Waves

so ive been surfing a while and can easily surf unbroken waves but i want to start learning tricks like pumping, snaps and cutbacks. it is always my goal to try these before i go surfing but when im surfing i just get caught up in the moment and forget and it just feels like the waves go really quick and i dont get a chance to do them so any tips on how to do these before everything is white wash. please and thanks

Pick one 'trick' before you catch the wave and just do it no matter what. And think about why it didn't work. Then do it again

A suggestion, all those manouvres are just that, vital position turns and placement on the wave, IMO. Tricks are aerials, alley oops and stuff like that. They are the basics that give you speed and control to launch into tricks.

To gain your basic skills practice small turns, small positioning changes trimming and bit by bit, and make each one a little stronger and bigger and do them in response to the wave.
Your transition should be to surfing improvement in each aspect.
Tricks may come!

Question - How good is your Bottom Turns ? The bottom turn sets up all those moves. If your bottom turn sucks then everything after will too.

waikikikichan wrote:Question - How good is your Bottom Turns ? The bottom turn sets up all those moves. If your bottom turn sucks then everything after will too.

As someone who has been working on improving my bottom turn for a while now, I feel like I should add two metrics to this:

1) the change of direction angle
2) the amount of speed you retain after your bottom turn

I think both are very important for setting you up for more advanced maneuvers afterwards. On a shortboard (I assume you want to ride a shortboard to do tricks) you will find that it's very easy to change your angle relative to the shore by a lot, but the board slows down as you are doing it.

One of the great things about shortboards is you can generate and keep speed much better than with a longer board (waves with some size and a wall). With a longboard you mostly rely on the wave to generate speed but with a shortboard you do it with turns. It is much harder to get speed from turns with a longboard because they are slower turning but for shortboards it's all about turning starting off with a bottom turn which sets you up for all the other turns.