Surfing Waves

Hi everybody, have a question about what would be a better choice board for me based on my popup.

I am 6', 190lbs, 55yo, in pretty good shape. Have been trying to surf for about 3 years. Took a few lessons and have been using a 9' Odysea log that is beginning to wear out. I surf in Southern NC, get to the beach 2-3 weekends a month, and generally go out in all kinds of conditions except flat.

Think one of my central issues is the popup. Where I surf, it's a beach break and b/c they've done "beach renourishment," the waves break pretty fast. I tend to wait too long and end up nose-diving, or go too soon and either the wave passes me by, or I get an "air wave" that collapses beneath me. Or I'll feel like the board is not stable enough to popup, will ride it through the break on my stomach, then popup after I've missed most of the wave. Most of the guys who use longboards here take off at an angle, or manage to take off on the face and do a gentle bottom turn and ride the line.

I've had friends take videos and hi-speed pix of me and I can see that my left foot is not coming far enough forward. I take yoga to try to open my hip flexors a bit but I need to make this adjustment where I popup....feet about 18" apart....nose of the board comes out of the water....I move the left foot forward a bit, nose goes down and I'm off. I can manage this in whitewater and also when there's small (knee-high) waves but on anything bigger, forget it. I've also tried to incorporate surfing exercises into my gym routine. Better than I was as a complete beginner, but am not where I want to be. Also, don't want to use the knee method to get up...been told by instructors it's best to stick with the purist popup.

I am wondering if anyone has any advice on my next board. Am considering either another 9' Odysea log....or maybe an 8' Wavestorm board from Costco. I understand that these and also 8' Greco boards from Amazon are good. I also have a 9' NSP epoxy board I got used from the local surf store. Gotta admit, i am a little intimidated by it. Wiped out one time when it was very choppy...had my head up and was looking around for it and a wave conked it on top of my head, ended up going to Urgent Care and getting several staples in my scalp.

So I know this is a lot of info, just trying to help paint the picture of where I am. Considering an 8' foamie on the presumption that it may be easier to pop-up on, ie, less tendency to nose-dive...but this of course could be completely backwards.

Thanks for any advice on board or technique!

For the pop up, try to move your hands further downwards towards your hips. I'm a regular footer (left foot forward) and my right hand is down at belly button level and my left hand a few inches higher (bottom of ribs). This arrangement means your hips are pushed high - whereas if your hands are too far forward, your shoulders are pushed high, but there isnt enough room for your legs to come through. Keep your elbows pointed backwards (not out to the side). Practice on land of course.

The slight differential between the height of the hands just gives you a little extra twist as you pop up - some people dont like it, but give it a go.

Secondly, have a look at the photos and see whether, in popping up, you are moving your upper body backwards to be over your feet, or your feet forwards to be under your body. The latter is correct; but its not uncommon for people to do the former because it feels like the best way to get to your feet the fastest. So when you push with your arms, push up not up and back. Its a push up - straight up and down.

Finally... some of the problems with missing waves or nose diving is likely more due to paddling/positioning than pop up. Those guys who are 'taking off on the face' are doing it because they have paddled hard and fast and from the right position, and end up on the face in order to pop up. If you are popping up at the peak of the wave a lot (and the wave passes you buy or its an 'air wave') then you havent paddle to the right spot - almost certainly havent paddled fast enough or you started in the wrong place (too far back usually) and didnt make it in time. This is pretty common for learner surfers so dont get too discouraged - its one of those things that you need to learn. A shorter board wont make any difference on this and could make it harder (shorter boards are harder to paddle). Have a read of this viewtopic.php?f=34&t=23001&hilit=nose+dive+perling#p171170

In terms of boards - yes, one of the basics is to come up out of the water with your hands on your head if you dont know where the board is. After a while you get a sense of whether its in front of you (toward the beach), in which case its fine; or behind you (toward the waves) in which case look out (or you can even open your eyes and try to find the board, but this can be hard in the washing machine). Obviously long term you will want to move onto a hard board (well, I say 'obviously' but I mean 'most people'); but at this earlish stage if a wavestorm makes you feel more comfortable then its a perfectly fine choice. I dont think you need it, its not going to solve any of the issues you have raised.

On the popup - dtcs advise of using the hands more towards the hips helped me a lot, and what made a huge difference for me is also to keep the head up and looking forward - that helps with creating room and keeping balance (you go where you look).

Wiped out one time when it was very choppy...had my head up and was looking around for it and a wave conked it on top of my head, ended up going to Urgent Care and getting several staples in my scalp.

Learn to wipeout safely - protect your head with your arms.

dtc and Oldie, thanks much for the advice....very much appreciated. Will try the modified popup!

Will stick with the 9' board for speed and buoyancy...Amazon offers a 9' foamie with two wood and one fiberglass stringers...it's called the Liquid Shredder FSE http://amzn.to/2edYIzZ

Have either of you heard about this board?

Thanks again for taking the time to provide such great advice

I was at that stage not so long ago. Reading the waves and being at the right place at the right time take a lot of practice. Being on the right spot of the board helps... not too forward to dip the nose but not too far back to induce drag. Position your body so only about 1-2 inch of the nose is out of the water while paddling. Once you feel the wave lifts the tail arch your back as you power paddle for the last 2-3 strokes so you shift the weight toward the back of the board. Then pop-up quickly but stay crouched not stand straight up right away. And try not to stare at the nose the whole time! This is hard to do because you are worried about nosediving and it's very tempting to keep an eye on the nose. But looking at the nose lowers the head which brings the nose down... nose dive! Keep surfing and you'll eventually realize that you don't nose dive much anymore

I've heard pro teck fins are soft tipped but perform very well so that might be an option if you decide to use your NSP board again.You might need the fin box adaptors to use non NSP fins.

saltydog, thanks for the advice and encouragement.Will try not to stare at the nose....it is difficult, I keep wanting to make sure it's not going under I guess it's just a matter of it becoming automatic. Will keep practicing and enjoy just being out!

When you're riding your Mountain bike, do you look at your front wheel ? Look down - Go down. Look to the shoulder of the wave - Go to the shoulder of the wave. Try to fixate your gaze on a landmark way in distance in the direction you want to go BEFORE your hands release from the deck. In Waikiki, there's the pink Royal Hawaiian hotel to the left and a green roofed church to the right. Makes it easy to teach beginners to keep their heads up.

Little piece of advice which improved my popup a lot, if you're looking to aboid landing on your knees you have to make sure your front foot lands properly so have both hands near your hips but the one infront of your front foot a few inches than the other, it gives you space to place your foot without lifting your hands giving you move stability.
Also you said the way breaks fast not sure if you meant down the line or that it jacks up quickly assuming you meant jack up quickly you need to learn to get to your feet early in the waves just before it breaks (Paddle harder than you currently do and search on how to paddle properly it's 50% technique and 50% fitness)and look down the line so your board turns before you hit the bottom of the wave or else you'll bury your nose and go over the handlebars

I have the 8' Greco and really like it, but I don't think your board should be any worse than the others in terms of being able to pop up.

When you say you can manage when popping up in whitewater and smaller waves, do you mean that you're able to pop up right into good position, or that you're just able to adjust your front foot without falling? If it's the latter, then I think you need to work in just whitewater or smaller waves until you're able to pop up right into good position (or at least very close.)

I'm pretty new at this, and find my pop ups get sloppy or lazy if I'm not careful, and then I'm not in good position and often fall off. What gets me right is just remembering to swing my front foot forward as much as possible (not literally, but just over-exaggerate the motion a bit), and that tends to get me planted right and balanced from the get-go. It's almost counter-intuitive, my natural instinct is that swinging my lower body faster and forward would seem to make me less balanced, but instead I just sort of plant and stick it (vs.having to find my balance if my feet aren't right.) So I think that's why I have to be mindful of it for now.

You might be overthinking this a bit.

When it comes to front-foot placement, it should land roughly where your hands are. It's just one of those happy coincidences. So, if you are familiar with your board, and know where the sweet spot for paddling is, and place your hands comfortably (I take issue with the "hands by lower rib-cage" school of thought, hands should be up by chest, you aren't pushing yourself up but pushing the board down into the wave and hopping into the space) your front foot should land roughly the same place very time.

It gets to the point that you won't even think about it.

Good luck!

kookextraordinaire wrote:You might be overthinking this a bit.

When it comes to front-foot placement, it should land roughly where your hands are. It's just one of those happy coincidences. So, if you are familiar with your board, and know where the sweet spot for paddling is, and place your hands comfortably (I take issue with the "hands by lower rib-cage" school of thought, hands should be up by chest, you aren't pushing yourself up but pushing the board down into the wave and hopping into the space) your front foot should land roughly the same place very time.

It gets to the point that you won't even think about it.

Good luck!

Before I moved my hands back my pop up was slower, I used my back foot to "peg" the back of the board while I stepped through with my front.

That worked fine for me on my bigger board in smaller waves. Once I started taking of on bigger, faster waves - I needed to be on my feet in an instant, before I took the drop so I needed to have both feet in the air, at the same time, swinging forward. Having my hands further back helped me do this in 2 ways - It created more of a pendulum with my entire body, helping with the "swing" (it's more of a mid-air pelvic thrust with my legs tucked underneath), and also it pushes the whole board down, not just the front, creating the room I need to get my legs under.

Sometimes if I need that extra weight in the front to get me down the wave, I'll place my hands up higher, but I counter that by extending my upper body more forward in the cobra position on the board. I suspect I do that when I'm slightly too far back on the board.

I like to be forward on the board, keeping my head high to achieve trim when I'm paddling, and then throw my head drown and forward to catch the wave and to my feet quick to avoid the pearl dive. Hands placed low on my body (bottom of my rib cage) keeps the downward pressure in the centre of the board.

That's just my personal preference - I just don't have the strenght/stability to push my whole body up and bring my legs forward with my hands up high - unless I do a 2 stage pop-up.

Hey, if that creates the room you need whatever works for you. But, generally pushing the body up and away from the board will tend to stall it. Keep in mind also that the earlier you get into waves your pop up won't have to be as critical and you'll havea bitmore time.
But, on another note, it can't hurt to do lots of pushups until you have the upper body strength to experiment a bit.

kookextraordinaire wrote:Hey, if that creates the room you need whatever works for you. But, generally pushing the body up and away from the board will tend to stall it. Keep in mind also that the earlier you get into waves your pop up won't have to be as critical and you'll havea bitmore time.
But, on another note, it can't hurt to do lots of pushups until you have the upper body strength to experiment a bit.

I'm sure there as many ways to do it as there are surfers.

I don't have a problem stalling as long as I keep my upper body over the front of the board - and by being able to bring my legs under me (as opposed to pushing my upper body back, over my legs) I maintain speed and I'm up in time to compress into a bottom turn, before I actually hit the bottom of the wave.

When I used to have my hands up higher - I tended to push my upper body over my legs, - instead of swinging my legs under my upper body (hands low)

I'm sure it depends on the board & waves a lot too.

Chances are I will evolve my take-off as I get more experience.

Move your hands depending on where you want to end up....getting in early on a fat wave on a longboard might favour a forward landing while a late drop on a steep jacking wave on semi gun might mean that you want to go back a bit more than usual....like so many things in surfing there is no "right" answer that applies all the time.....

Big fan of all manner of bodyweight exercise and stretches: pushups and variations of such, pull ups, dips, burpees, squats (no weights), alternating forward lunges, hanging leglifts, planking, superman extensions and that wheel thing that has a handle on each side that if standing you bend over then roll out until in a pushup position then retract until the wheel is at your toes again/rinse repeat....those and some straightforward pop up reps on the living room floor keeps things sorted.....

If you can ball your body up this small your pop up will be better:
http://www.theinertia.com/health/child- ... -the-mind/

Typical exercises:
http://www.theinertia.com/mountain/3-ex ... ur-pop-up/

Atypical exercise:
http://www.theinertia.com/surf/tips-for ... back-down/

Big H wrote:http://www.theinertia.com/surf/3-explosive-moves-to-make-your-pop-up-dramatically-faster/

I think if you can do those exercises then you won't have any issues with a pop up.

Agreed with Big H. Plus, getting in good shape can't hurt!

CB surfer, try not to thing of it as getting to your feet, but getting into a nice low crouch. I used to play a lot of tennis when i was a kid. For all my strokes, my dad would always intone the acronym KISS. Which stands for, Keep It Simple Stupid! Worked for me. It’s tricky to have more than one thought at a time, especially in such quick situations, so just pick one thing and work on that. I wholeheartedly recommend the aforementioned tip. And, remember to have fun! It’s not a 9 to 5, after all.

Perhaps after all these years maybe it shouldn't be called a "pop-up", but a pop crouch!