Surfing Waves

Hello surfers,

Is it possible to pop up and set/plant your feet with out your palms ever leaving the board? I swear that's what I see the pros do. After their feet are set then they release the hands. Or does this require some godly level of flexibility?

I have a really slow pop up and have read a ton about improving my push up power/explosiveness. But watching slow mo video of the pros they seem to just extend their arms (not explosive) and slide their legs underneath them.

thoughts?

Obviously it is possible to popup without letting go of the board. The question is should you do it? I would say that answer is probably not. You should stand and balance so you can learn to surf. The pros keep a hand or two on the board to hold the rail at a particular angle on the drop. Until you can do regular drops there is no need for you to do this. Flexibility yes ....godly amount no. The explosiveness isn't to propel yourself several feet up in the air and land back on the board. It is just to make it all a bit quicker. The more power you have the more you can control it. So as a beginner you crawl up to your feet but as you get quicker it is a popup. One thing that can help you is to keep both your hands back closer to your hips and the hand that is on the same side with your back foot a bit more back. This will allow more room to bring your legs up without having to do a carnival act.

It's a fairly straightforward process for drop-knee spongers and surfing gorillas.

No and depends is the answer. Yes in white water, but if you pop up with weight still on your hands on a wave, then its a short ride to nose dive.

Yes in that you can pop up and have your fingers or one hand still touching the board. But there is no weight on the hands - in fact, as oldman describes, the pros hold their board to actually lift the outside rail and push the inside rail into the wave. So not only no weight, they are lifting ('negative weight'!)

I think on steeper waves there is the illusion of this. Check out the vid: https://surfhealthandfitness.com/2012/1 ... ith-jordy/

dtc wrote:No and depends is the answer. Yes in white water, but if you pop up with weight still on your hands on a wave, then its a short ride to nose dive.

Yes in that you can pop up and have your fingers or one hand still touching the board. But there is no weight on the hands - in fact, as oldman describes, the pros hold their board to actually lift the outside rail and push the inside rail into the wave. So not only no weight, they are lifting ('negative weight'!)

pop up 2.JPG

There is also the other extreme of jumping/standing up too early, typically resulting in losing balance and/or landing to far back ( I can only speak for me, but see it in other beginners, too). For me the idea (like in the above picture) to get to your feet while the fingers just lightly touch the board without any weight on them works well.

I've always had a very fast popup, maybe a bit too fast, I would disconnect from my board completely then land on it, not having your hands on your board is an issue when starting out, I would wipe out on a lot of steep waves as they aren't forgiving in non perfect foot placement, I fixed it with trial and error, you don't need to worry about wither you hands are on the board or not, but actually when you land on the board, if you time it too late your board will fall away from you and you will land on the tail resulting in a wheelie wipeout of doom or too early and you won't catch the wave or pearl, time in the water will fix your issue, you can read a lot of tips online but once you're in the water you tend to do things at your own pace and forget what you read... well that's how I see it Keep the stoke

PS:If you do want to keep your hands/fingers on the board, don't extend your backfoot too much during the popup, keep it on the tail but in a crouched position (not knee on the board) this will keep you lower to your board and as a result keep your hands on it

It is about where you place your hands. It is about getting you feet under you body. But a lot has to too with helping out your back. If you hide, crouched down in a box flat on both feet, you can pop up really far. Virtually straight up. But if you hands are out in front, you'll go forward and up.

Here he is not flat on both feet. I always tell my students to put the front foot flat, slide, pick up and put down back foot flat, then stand up. This photo, he will have to rock back once he straightens up. That transference of weight right when he takes the drop, might be enough to stall out or wheelly out.

Here's Arnold rising slowly out of his crouch. He doing it without pushing off his hands. Looks cool, but you try do that.
1) Get into a low crouch flat on your front foot and on the ball of your back foot, purposely pull your arms away from the body and raise up. How does you back feel ? Sore yeah ?
2) Now do the same low crouch, but this time push off the ground with your hands. Easier on your back.
3) Now crouch down but being fully flat on both feet under you ( kinda of a duck stance toes pointed away ). You can push off or not. But you can see being flat footed really puts less strain on your back. Not as unstable/shaky as being on the toes of one foot.