learning to surf imperfect waves

[oldmansurfer]

People have asked is it worth surfing on waves that are less than perfect and I have a story to tell about that. Long ago the surfers on the east side of the island all hung out at Wailua beach (where I surf now). Just 5 miles north is Kealia beach (where all the surfers hang out now) and no one went out there back then. I am not sure why but there were rumors of people dying there and perhaps that had something to do with it. When I started surfing I ended up surfing a lot at Kealia beach because no one was there and I didn't have to compete or worry about running over anyone and there were waves more often. Some days I would go there and sit in my car watching the break and then decide to go somewhere else. One of those days I spent two hours looking for better surf and couldn't find any but I really wanted to surf so I went back to Kealia. I went out and the waves were much more fun than they looked. Eventually if there were any waves I would go out at Kealia. I learned to surf this break when it was stormy and when it was breaking really fast almost closing out and when it has huge and when it was small breaking right or left. On several occasions I had other surfers come up to me and ask me what happened to the waves? They would say "When we were watching you on the beach the waves looked fun but by the time we got out here there weren't any decent waves." The waves were still the same and I was still catching them but they didn't know which waves to catch and how to ride them if they did catch them. So if you can figure out the junk waves well enough they can be fun. Besides that even on a junk day there may be a nice wave come in and you might get lucky and be in position to catch it. I surfed there so much I had trouble initially on good waves. I would be riding along and thinking "what do I do? It's so perfect I don't need to do anything." I was so used to being busy working sections. However I got over that and learned to stall and get tubed. LOL I surf at Wailua now and it isn't often very good but it is fun and the more I learn how to deal with the waves the more fun it becomes.

[beachbumuk]

I learnt early on, surfing in the UK, that hunting for a better wave was not only expensive (fuel costs) but usually pointless...if there's a wave, there's a wave...get out and enjoy it. 9 times out of 10 its usually better than not going out and, as you say OMS, it teaches you a lot and can a heap of fun on a sloppy break!

[oldmansurfer]

In my experience it is 10 times out of 10 better to go out than to not go out.

[BaNZ]

I had exactly the same experience. I was surfing really bad messy waves that closes out quickly. On average you can only stay between 5-10 seconds on the wave. Therefore I spent a lot of time polishing my popups. Half a year later, I went to visit my surf coach. He surf at one of the best spot in the country. He was shocked at how much I improved. I was very good at catching waves. I was beating all the locals and even some of the pros. My fitness level was so much better than them as well due to surfing at places where the rip are strong and you have to paddle against the waves to get out to the line up. However after surfing a month at the better spot, I lost my stamina and had difficulty surfing at my old spot again lol!

They do still beat me in techniques as I don't have enough time on the waves to practice them. Therefore there are pros and cons of surfing at imperfect waves! But when I go to a good spot, I'll be able to catch more waves than them so I can practice the techniques! So it's a win win situation.

[jaffa1949]

The majority of anyone's surfs will be less than perfect.
Learning and being out out in those conditions keep the skills up, fitness stays in place and often you get to try things in small sections of the wave.
You can pick a part of a break that is doing something different and try some different approaches to surfing.
Best of all you are in the water! Wait for perfect days , hmm your skills stamina and wave reading will be less when those days come.
All time in water counts!

[oldmansurfer]

In my case the waves were usually junk in a similar fashion. In order to have a long ride with lots of maneuvers you had to go outside to the farthest peak. Then you had to pick the waves that looked like a peak with a long wall on one side and take off at the peak and completely jam the bottom turn. If you didn't jam the bottom turn and get a lot of speed down the line it would seem like the wave closed out on you. But once you get back onto the face of the wave you have some time to do a few maneuvers or maybe a few speed turns to get to the slower part of the wave, then you have to keep an eye for the next fast section and speed back up and once you get through that part it's slower till the beach. So maybe those guys saw me complete a bunch of waves in a row (which I didn't always do) and maybe it seemed like I was just carving randomly but really it had to all be done in a manner that allowed you to make the fast sections.

[peazz]

I agree mate, I learnt to surf in Hong Kong which unless its may - september when typhoons are kicking off shore making their way over to Laos area, its pretty much junky wind swell.

I will say that some boards like mushy blown out junk, primarily boards with plenty of float (not ness width or length as I found out). Learn to surf the junk and its even easier to surf cleaner conditions

Surfing junk is better then not surfing at all. The more breaks, waves and conditions you can surf the better you will become on the longrun.

[Southsurfer]

Well i dont have years of surfing yet but im happy to even go out and practice paddle on flat days so anything that resembles a wave is more than great for me

[CARBr6]

I have to agree with you there Southsurfer.
Anything that could be remotely classed as a wave and that I may stand a chance of getting up on and I'm there!

[drowningbitbybit]

Quite often I have the choice of surfing perfect but crowded waves or surfing relatively mediocre* waves all on my own.

I pretty much always go for the surfing on my own option. Mostly, I just hate surfing in crowds, but also, I'd rather get 10 okay waves than 1 great wave.

If the option was 'one great wave surfed perfectly' then maybe I'd go with the great wave, but realistically I know that I'm going to fluff the take-off in amongst the crowd, get dropped in on, and then have the wave land on my head while I'm working out how to go around the next floating obstacle.

I'd far rather surf a worse wave but feel I'd got the best out of it.




* relatively mediocre still being really quite good by many people's standards.

[oldmansurfer]

Yes exactly 10 waves that are ok if you surf them really well are much more exciting even than 10 perfect waves. Because it is easy to surf perfect waves. They get boring after a while. I like imperfect waves better, the wave forces you to interact with it.... you can't just take off and get barreled. I hate crowds too but crowsds often forced me to get my best rides ever. I guess I enjoy waves that are more of a challenge.

[dtc]

Yes exactly 10 waves that are ok if you surf them really well are much more exciting even than 10 perfect waves. Because it is easy to surf perfect waves. They get boring after a while. I like imperfect waves better, the wave forces you to interact with it.... you can't just take off and get barreled. I hate crowds too but crowsds often forced me to get my best rides ever. I guess I enjoy waves that are more of a challenge.

a friend of mine went up to PNG last year and surfed perfect point/reef waves - 3-4ft, absolute glass curling with 300m+ rides. Every wave. He said day 1 you were really excited and loving it, day 2 it was ok, day 3 and it just felt normal. Day 4 and you would pop up and go 'huh, again, I've done this so many times, getting a bit boring'. Day 5 he went fishing.

[oldmansurfer]

I wrote in the surf stories thread about a day where I surfed perfect tubes. I got bored after an hour of surf. I mean it is the same thing over and over again. Of course these days I am not getting tubed very often so it would take me like an hour and a half to get bored

[Jester]

Had a little surf today at my local break in tramore, had looked at surf report and it said 2-3 ft onshore. Still took the drive down and as expected the waves were as weak as dishwater. Got in and worked on paddling, worked on finding spot X, going over the fundamentals. When you're learning like most of us are there's never really something you can't learn from imperfect waves..
Breaking through whitewater and even just the feel of the ocean, learning it's moods and characteristics are all going to build up abilities over time. You'll be a better surfer at end of day. Totally agree with Bans, learning in the junk can make you much better in the good stuff!!
There was a nice surprise at the end of the day when I found a nice few waves and dropped in smoothly to turn along the face..even if it was just a few moments they're what it's all about!!

[oldmansurfer]

I quit surfing for 11 years. When I restarted I could barely sit on my board or even lay down on it. The waves were not good but it didn't matter too much since I couldn't catch them anyway. That miserable day surfing easily was WAY BETTER than 11 years of not surfing.