Surfing Waves

Met two guys in the lineup the other day......we got to talking and I found out that they were from Norway....they made a comment that made me think of recurring themes here.....both were in their 30s and both had been snowboarders from when they were in their pre teen years....one said that he'd been here for two months and he'd caught about 5 good waves....the other one was on his fourth sesh and yet to catch one.....they both assumed that their snowboarding expertise would be an asset in learning to surf; actually they figured it would be a piece of cake and the one who'd been here two months expected to get barrelled immediately off the plane.....


....then they both tried it for the first time and found out the reality that gets written about so often here.......it was amusing to hear it coming out of the mouths of those who'd learned the hard way....or in the process of learning the hard way...I tried to help the one who'd never caught a wave; put him on the spot and then told him when to paddle.....his paddling sucked and he pearled hard when the wave came.....honestly he had no business being out back in the first place...anyhow, the point of the story......two longtime/lifetime snowboarders who now understand and embrace the fact that being good at snowboarding does NOT translate into being able to speed the learning curve for surfing.....not in the slightest.

I also told them to change their boards....one guy was a pure viking, looked about 6'6" / 220lbs and was on a mini mal....other one was on a hybrid shortboard that was about 6'8"isn....that day was fat, small, soft and on top of it I was out at high tide...live and learn....

Big H,
Very refreshing story. I can guess what snow boarding - wanna surfers will say when they hear about this. They will say, "That won't happen to me." In fact, this is the standard response from my 16 year old nephew when I tell him something based on having 40 more years of life experience.
billie

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I'm wondering is it true when surfers go snowboarding? Do they think they also got this because they have been surfing since they were kids? As I've tried it once and my god my legs gave up about 30 minutes.

BANZ,
excellent point! I'm curious. You guys won't hear from me for a while. I'm going to use the little spare time I have to participate in snow boarding forums. I'll repeatedly post:

1. "I've been surfing for 12 years all over California. I'm good to go at the snow board slope, right?"

2. "Please take my on-line survey about snow boarding so I can pass my university course."

billie_morini wrote:Big H,
Very refreshing story. I can guess what snow boarding - wanna surfers will say when they hear about this. They will say, "That won't happen to me." In fact, this is the standard response from my 16 year old nephew when I tell him something based on having 40 more years of life experience.
billie

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Yeah....the bigger one who was on his fourth time out could barely contain himself....he was so incredulous; just couldn't get over the newfound reality that his 25+ years of snowboarding (I think that's what he said) really didn't apply AT ALL to being able to:
-Paddle out to the lineup (looked like a sack of potatoes that was half falling off the board as he did some kind of crooked paddle flap
-Position for a wave....I helped him there and put him on the spot....he complained that he couldn't figure this out at all on his own
-Paddle for a wave (reference the sack of potatoes)
......forget about the rest.....he also mentioned that he was exhausted and had no idea how hard it was to paddle a board around.


Welcome to surfing!


PS - I've never snowboarded, but was a skater as a teen....I'm a long way from those years now and when I recently got a skateboard and started up again I lasted about 15 min on the first sesh and was so sore the next day I didn't go in the water and definitely didn't skate.....got a $5 massage and mused about getting older.....

There is a strong resemblance of doing carving turns on a wave with doing carving turns on a snowboard in powder snow, but that's where the resemblance ends. It's quite a different story to sit in a lift that brings u comfortably to the takeoff spot, not to speak of the stable takeoff on a mountain versus on a moving and in shape developing and potentially crushing wave.

I would welcome the use of lifts in lineups though.