Surfing Waves

So I've been around board sports for many years now, including snowboarding, wakeboarding, kiteboarding, skateboarding and skimboarding.

Now I feel like I want to try to get into surfing. The problem is that I don't have tons of money. I know that people say that beginners should always start off with a longboard so that they can get used to being on waves on stuff. I don't think I would have the money to upgrade as often as i should, which leads me to the following question:

Would it be that bad of an idea to start off on a short board?

Since I've been around board sports for many years (especially skimboadring which resembles surfing a lot) I feel like I would be better than the average beginner making it easier for me to start with a shortboard since I already have quite a lot of the actual "on-wave" stuff down.

Hope you guys can help me.
Cheers

Are you a really good swimmer? If not you should start with a longer board. The real thing is how long will you be surfing and how much time are you willing to put into it? If you are willing to put in 3 or more days a week paddling your board or surfing for a year without catching much waves then go ahead and get a short board. Once on a wave you may learn fast but you have to learn waves, how they break and where to be and how to avoid getting killed by them and currents. In order to get on the wave you need to not only know waves but have the arm strength to get you into the waves. If you have a bigger board then the arm strength requirement is much less.

90% of learning to surf is learning how to paddle, how to be in the right place, and how to catch waves, so all the sports you do won't be much help until you've passed that point.

Learning to surf takes a while and should be fun, not frustrating - so go with a longer board and have fun. You won't need to upgrade for quite a while anyway.

Out of a typical surf session of 60 minutes on a perfect surfing day with good waves, you might get (if you are lucky) 12 waves each with 10 seconds of ride (the more typical day will be 6 waves of 4 seconds!). So 2 minutes of actual surfing out of 60 minutes. As the others have said, your current skills will help with that 2 minutes, but not the other 58.

But, that said, if you have been skimboarding on waves then you are actually probably a bit more advanced than the average beginner (or snowboarder or skateboarder). If you are a reasonable swimmer as well, I reckon go for something around the low to mid 7ft mark (say 7ft2 or 7ft4) - it will be short enough to allow you to turn etc much easier but still have enough volume to make paddling easier (than a short board, but not as good as a longboard) and catching waves easier, plus some stability. Go for a mini mal shape (round nose) preferably; but possibly a hybrid type board might be ok.

drowningbitbybit wrote:90% of learning to surf is learning how to paddle, how to be in the right place, and how to catch waves, so all the sports you do won't be much help until you've passed that point.

Learning to surf takes a while and should be fun, not frustrating - so go with a longer board and have fun. You won't need to upgrade for quite a while anyway.

DBBB is right on the money, It takes dedication and *some* experience with surfing to do shortboards right, u also have to take 'steeper' more vertical drops on shorties, you also have to be in INCREDIBLE shape and have awesome paddle technique and core strength.

It took me at least 3/4 weeks of constant every day surf (sometimes 3 times a day) to get the fitness and skills together to ride my shorty on a recent trip to australia, I did it yes, but it was by no means easy and i had some experience with fish / hybrid type boards that are performance shaped but have plenty of buoyancy .

Grab a longboard, have more fun in the process, some people do not like how 'shorties' ride