Do you lose your surfing skill?

[benjl]

Hi guys

Probably a question for the more longer term surfers on here:

As most of you would've probably read, i've only been surfing for about 6 months now but have been going very frequently and making progress. Due to being in an account management/ sales based role, I have been lucky enough to have had the use of my company car to aid in my learning of being able to drive round all the surf beaches +/- 2hrs from where I work and see my customers in the same visits. This has enabled me to surf up to 3-4x a week relatively consistently for the last 4-5 months in all sorts of conditions and breaks.

I am about to get a promotion where I will now be firmly based in the office and my surfing opportunities will be 1 or 2 times a week at absolute max (based on favourable conditions in the weekend)

To the more experienced of you- is surfing skill something that you lose easily or do you keep it for awhile even if you haven't surfed in a few years or months? I know that with some sports you never lose the skill or touch but with others you do as soon as you stop training.
I understand paddle fitness would decrease if not surfing as regularly but what about the skills that i've finally and gradually developed to get to a shortboard stage with?
What have your experiences been?

Cheers

[drowningbitbybit]

In a word... yes

I learnt to surf in my twenties, and didn't get seriously into it until my early thirties, and I just don't have the in-built muscle memory that those pesky kids have. If I have more than about a week off, I start to go backward and need to reacquaint myself with the waves again. It doesn't take long, only a session or so where I surf like Bambi, but if you've only got a weekend, that's an awful lot of your surfing time. Fortunately for me, I can surf almost every day now, and so getting back into it after a week off just means one mediocre session followed by being back on form in a day or two.

I did use to find, when I lived in London, and I started surfing almost every weekend, and for hours and hours at a time, that I could hold it together from one week to the next, so hopefully you'll be okay
But you will have to put the effort into finding a wave every weekend and surfing every moment that you can.


And now, I've just had a very busy week working and Ive not got in the water since last weekend, so I can expect one of those sessions tomorrow

[dtc]

Same as DBB for me - I often have 4 - 6 week breaks between breaks (between surfs) and its 2 steps back and 3 steps forward. I reckon it takes me a good 10 - 12 waves to get back to the level I was at when I was last surfing. In other words, after a break, it takes 1 to 2 sessions to just get back to the stage I was before the break and feel comfortable and that everything is back in place.

Only then can I start working on improvements. Its not that those first comeback waves are terrible, they are still lots of fun. But its shaking out the cobwebs, getting rid of the rust, however you want to put it. As DBB says, if you only have a weekend and if (like me) you have family and cant surf for 5 hours a day, it might be that by the end of the weekend you feel you have only reached the level you were when you last surfed - no improvement at all!

The two things I find the most

1. timing - my wave catching/timing just goes to pieces and I have to intentionally concentrate on positioning rather than just 'being there'. But once I catch the wave, popping up is usually no problem and easy turns and so forth are still there - any of the basic skills I already know how to do, just perhaps a bit stiff or rusty. But I can miss a heap of waves before getting 'that lovin feeling' of being in the right place all the time (and this is despite having bodyboarded/bodysurfed since I was about 7 - and, guess what - I can hope on a bodyboard and instantly be in the right place every time... to echo DBB, stupid muscle memory). I always tell myself to take out my longboard for the first session after an extended break just to get back into it because you can get away with being off in the timing a bit, but I hardly ever do (note to self: listen to your own good ideas once in a while).

2. wave size - I finish a week of surfing loving head high+ waves; I come back after a break and just want a few waist high easy fat waves to get me started - if the waves are head high or too steep I'm a bit nervous and being a 'Bambi' as DBB so eloquently puts it. Or a coward, as others might. This is sort of related to timing as well; not being confident in timing and you arent confident in difficult or larger waves. Or maybe the waves just look bigger when you dont have that familiarity?

However, once you have reached a level of competency you dont forget how to surf - you arent perling and missing the pop ups or that kind of thing - its your timing that goes for a session or two; and where you are trying to learn something you dont already have down pat (say a cutback) you sort of have to start again even if you were previously 50% of the way there. Your skills progress slows dramatically.

Paddling I dont really notice too much, although I generally stay fit and swim and go to the gym and stuff. But, possibly, the paddling is decreased and affects my timing without me realising it.

But its still heaps of fun, even if it can be frustrating at times. Very annoying to look forward to a surf and spend your time failing to catch waves and coming in all grumpy! Overall, of course, we are still very eager to get in the water

[oldmansurfer]

I learned when I was 18 and surfed nearly every day till I was 24. Then I went to college at University of Hawaii and sessions dropped to an average of 1 time a week. I was super fit and did other things like I went hiking a couple days a week and did karate a few days a week and lifted weights a couple days a week and ran 2 miles a couple days a week. Drank beer several nights a week....oh wait that might not be a good idea . My skill in surfing continued to improve during that time. Then I went to college in Colorado and surfed only in breaks between semesters and during the summer. My skill and fitness dropped off but during the summer it came back to the same level. But I graduated and started work and even though I surfed a bit I never got back to the abilities I had before. I quit surfing and restarted more than 10 years later and it was like learning all over (except I knew how). My suggestion is to do exercises that require balance flexibility and cardiovascular fitness during the time you can't surf. This will help to keep you from losing skill. Karate or marital arts is good, tennis can be good if you play aggressive, hiking is good. skateboarding is probably good but not one I have done. Used to skateboard before I started surfing. Oh yeah and whatever you do don't stop surfing

[BaNZ]

IMO you don't lose the ability to assess the waves. You know which ones you can catch and which ones you can't. But for me it's my physical fitness as I don't do any exercise in between surf sessions and I only surf at the weekends.

However the first popup after a long break is always very wobbly. Also the drop in confidence so you wouldn't want to do risky maneuvers.

[oldmansurfer]

If you lose enough skill then knowing which waves you can make and which you can't has to be learned all over. If you are out long enough maybe your vision won't be quite as good too so you may not be able to see the lineup as well and you may have various nagging injuries that keep you from being able to surf at the same skill level as before and you may be overweight and out of shape which will affect your ability to surf and then you may end up posting stuff on an online surf chat site and call yourself an oldmansurfer.