Surfing Waves

I've been a long time reader on this forum, though I tend to forget my password to reply.

I've been surfing for 8 years, and self taught. It's good, but could be difficult. I'm currently relearning and fixing some of my errors I've started with. Mostly, foot placement and rear weight and rail control. Anyway...

When you take off, and want to do a nice bottom turn, WHEN are you sinking the rail? Mostly, which method is faster? I sink rail when I want to power down the line but I wanted to know what others thought. I appreciate the replies.

SurfBabu wrote:When you take off, and want to do a nice bottom turn, WHEN are you sinking the rail? Mostly, which method is faster? I sink rail when I want to power down the line but I wanted to know what others thought. I appreciate the replies.

You don't sink the rail, but I think I know what you mean. During a bottom turn, if your rail is digging in, then your weight is too far forward (likely to be foot placement issues). Down the line, that's exactly where you need to be - back foot a little forward of the fins, rail nicely engaged, head/shoulders/arms driving forward.

For a bottom turn however, drive down the face, but then a touch before you hit the flats, weight the back foot, bend the knees, and then really drive with your shoulders and extend the knees to exit. On a right, and assuming you're natural footed, getting your rear (right, in this scenario) hand into the water and pivoting around it (imagine you dropped your keys at the bottom of the wave and you reach down to pick them up) is a good way to start.
If you catch too much rail or set it too early, you will wipe out

And it's not either/or for down the line or a bottom turn - they're two different manouevres to do two different things, and it'll depend on your positioning, the wave, and - crucially - what you want to do next. You can't do a big spray off the lip if you're halfway up the face to start with, while conversely you can't outrun a crashing lip from down on the flats.

Turning is about speed and force, if you push hard on the rail and turn quickly you make a turn if you push weakly on the rail and delay turning you may just sink the rail unless you are going fast. It takes time to get it all down, basically knowing when to do what but it's a blast figuring it all out.

SurfBabu wrote: WHEN are you sinking the rail? Mostly, which method is faster? I sink rail when I want to power down the line

You don't "Sink" the rail per say. You "Engage" the inside rail to resist the wave energy rolling up. The bottom, rail and edge fights against the wave and hopefully that moves you forward. Too much pressure and the wave bucks you off. There's a time when you need to take off the pressure and let the board fall back down.

Think of it like a Moto GP race bike. You don't drag you knees going straight. And you just can't slam the bike over going slow. Faster speeds require harder lean angles. Same for surfing, faster bigger steeper waves need more critical lean angles and rail engagements.