Surfing Waves

I can pop up & ride whitewater most of the time now. Not perfect, sometimes popup is slow or knees are involved. But generally I can time & ride whitewaters pretty well..

Attempted green waves, either got out run by the waves or got pearled. Which is really tiring (physically).

Total session count is about 10. How many sessions should I spend on whitewater to keep perfecting popup?

Keep doing the white water but try green waving it too. When things you try beginntomwork then move on up,the food chain. Surfing is not a numbers game it's a capability game.
The answer to this how long is a piece of string!
More sessions more waves, you'll notice when it happens

Try to catch whitewater right next to the unbroken face of a wave and try to get on the unbroken face. You can do this before you popup just learn to turn the board and get it over onto the unbroken face then popup or you can popup and turn the board toward the unbroken face and see if you can get there. This will teach you positioning as well which is learning to be where you should be to catch a wave

I can relate to the pearling, but trust me, you're learning while doing that too. I'm also a newbie and I've taken lessons from great instructors and not so great instructors who have taught me bad habits I'm now trying to unlearn. One was to paddle with both hands at the very end to get into a wave, which almost always resulted in me pearling because that split second switch from one hand at a time to both slowed me down enough to lift my tail no matter where I was on the board.

Trust me, eventually you'll even learn how to save yourself from fully pearling, or you'll be able to at least pull out in time. I know it's exhausting but there are lessons in pearling as well - it will get easier.

I spent quite a bit of time in the white Water. What I did was spend my first hour just working on my pop up then i would go out back, if it was big I would just paddle out as far as I could and do 1 turtle roll then catch what ever back in then 2 rolls then back in then 3. This helped my pop up my fitness and also getting out the back on bigger days.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:Total session count is about 10. How many sessions should I spend on whitewater to keep perfecting popup?

Please don't adhere to rigid numbers. Everyone learns at a different pace. For you it may take 20 go outs, for others, 200.
But I will say get out of the whitewater as that's not "surfing", but rather just riding hanging on and a delayed fall. Go out with a well experienced surfing friend and have him/her position you in front of a REFORM wave ( if your surf break has any ). Or if you can go out back, have him/her time your paddle and let go your tail ( not really give you a push like newbie lessons ) , so you can get familiar with the timing and position needed to take off on green waves.

( and stop looking at your feet )

Try catching some green waves without popping up (belly ride). If you can do this, then you know you can catch waves. Keep in mind that the keys to catching waves are positioning and paddling. As a beginner, your positioning wont be great but your paddling can overcome that (in other words - paddle hard and commit, dont paddle and then stop or change your mind). Perling is due to the speed of the wave hitting the tail of your board being too different to the speed of your board due to your paddling ie your board needs to be moving forward at a certain speed before the wave hits it, or the tail will be pushed up in the air (and your nose down into the water. with the consequences you already know about)

So the next thing after confirming you can catch waves is to pop up. This is a technical issue and practice in the white water and on land is worthwhile. Getting the mechanics right is important; getting the timing right is hard and can only be learnt with experience.


Pretty much all learners have gone through your stage; dont feel depressed. Its totally normal

Thanks for all the tips everyone! Today I went out to my local beach (Pacifica, CA) and caught 2 green waves!! Key thing that helps seems to be position my body closer to the nose. One was 2-3 seconds long, I failed in cutting down the line but it's not straight to the beach either Another green wave was shorter.

I feel like I can really use tips to work on:
1) Wave selection / reading (sometimes I paddled for a wave but was out of position; other times I chose not to paddle but was actually at a great position)
2) Learn to turn fast when a wave comes

Any videos/tips?

surf a lot

ConcreteVitamin wrote:2) Learn to turn fast when a wave comes

It hard to spin the board 180 degrees laying done prone. So sit up, scoot back a bit and do Egg Beaters with your feet. Later ( after building your core muscles and balance ) sitting way back, getting the nose way high, pulling the rail with one hand and paddling with the other hand in rhythm with the feet, will help you spin around even faster. But don’t do that yet, you might spear someone nearby in the head.