Surfing Waves

I read an article yesterday that grouped surfers as those who surfed from the middle and those who surfed from the tail. The author basically said the sweet spot of a surfboard is pretty far back on the tail and is the correct stance where your back foot is over the fins. It almost sounded from the article that once you figure this out and able to perform it, you will immediately increase your skill level.The author says obviously you can shift your position but this should be the foundation. Is this just an advice for shortboarders and also if you are lying pretty close to the front of the surfboard while paddling, are you supposed to make the adjustment to stand close to the tail at the pop up?

I apologize if this was discussed before.

To do harder turns, or sometimes even any turns, you need to get your foot over the back fins. Watch the ‘surf simply carving vs trim turn’ video and it will explain it all

As to positioning- on a short board you may pop up with your feet over or near the back fins. On a longer board you may pop up around the middle of the board. When you need your feet to be over the fins, you move your foot (or feet) to do that. Then you move back again. You aren’t static, weight transfer up and back is a vital part of surfing. Sometimes that requires actual foot movement

Eraserhead wrote:Is this just an advice for shortboarders ?

Trust me, if you're ever on a 12 foot "tanker", being back over the fin ( and stomping on the tail ) is the only way to get it to turn. So probably being back is even more important the larger the board, not the shorter.

Eraserhead wrote: The author basically said the sweet spot of a surfboard is pretty far back on the tail and is the correct stance where your back foot is over the fins. It almost sounded from the article that once you figure this out and able to perform it, you will immediately increase your skill level.

If you don't understand what the author wrote about or are not already doing what he recommends to do, I wouldn't waste money on buying new thruster fins and just stay with the current twin-stabi setup until you can turn from the tail.

One reason for the short board originally was to bring the sweet spot over the fins so the back foot was planted on the steering, and the skill of walking and accelerating and then coming back to drive the turn was largely eliminated.

Longboards the trim spot is near the 2/3rds forward Mark , here the board will,keep accelerating to match the wave. Good longboard surfing is being able to control speed,,direction( turns) is a dance along the length.
Leaning only, in turns becomes less and less effective the further you move forward. Nothing feels quite like a reallgood series of turns aiming at the wall and stepping forward on the accelerator onto the wall.
Short board answer is changing weighting between front and back foot,. In both rear foot engages the tail and rear rail with speed for directional change front foot enhances and guides the forward board through the arc of the turn!

Last point think effective levers and amount of effort for result!
A surfer without tail skill is merely a hack until,they get it!

To me the sweet spot is the spot where the board goes fastest if you stand there. That isn't usually where you want to be to turn the board. Some boards turn fairly well from in front of the fins some don't but more than that it depends on the waves you are riding and what kind of turns you want to do.

Thank you. I just read an article on it. Even though I do know trimming and carving instinctively, I wasnt sure why surfers trim sometimes and carve other times. I thought it was just a matter of style. Not that I am at a level to consistently choose between trim or carving, it is still helpful to know.

dtc wrote:To do harder turns, or sometimes even any turns, you need to get your foot over the back fins. Watch the ‘surf simply carving vs trim turn’ video and it will explain it all

As to positioning- on a short board you may pop up with your feet over or near the back fins. On a longer board you may pop up around the middle of the board. When you need your feet to be over the fins, you move your foot (or feet) to do that. Then you move back again. You aren’t static, weight transfer up and back is a vital part of surfing. Sometimes that requires actual foot movement

Too late for that haha. I ordered a thruster from 3d fins yesterday. Regardless of my skill level though, it still feels exciting to have a new board and put new fins on it.

waikikikichan wrote:

Eraserhead wrote:Is this just an advice for shortboarders ?

Trust me, if you're ever on a 12 foot "tanker", being back over the fin ( and stomping on the tail ) is the only way to get it to turn. So probably being back is even more important the larger the board, not the shorter.

Eraserhead wrote: The author basically said the sweet spot of a surfboard is pretty far back on the tail and is the correct stance where your back foot is over the fins. It almost sounded from the article that once you figure this out and able to perform it, you will immediately increase your skill level.

If you don't understand what the author wrote about or are not already doing what he recommends to do, I wouldn't waste money on buying new thruster fins and just stay with the current twin-stabi setup until you can turn from the tail.

Haha not that I thought i am any better than a hack although i do feel a lot better than i should quite a few times after finishing rides which is why i love surfing so much.

But back to the point, I find two things hard about surfing from the tail. Even though i am sure they are related to where i am on the learning curve, those points are:

1- While I am getting the advice that i should be lying higher up on the board, i am supposed to pop up closer to the tail. So in practice that would require me to make a subtle adjustment during the pop up. When i am concentrating on catching the wave, not dropping on someone, not making a mess of the wave, making subtle adjustments are a lot harder. But that is probably why a lot of the basic stuff has to be second nature first I guess. But, is that supposed to be the case, where you need to move back at some milisecond from the moment of catching the wave to the completion of the popup? And i am talking about a 7-6 funboard or even a short board.
2- Every now and then i find myself standing above the tail and instinctively walk to gain speed because i feel like i am losing speed at a very high clip.

jaffa1949 wrote:One reason for the short board originally was to bring the sweet spot over the fins so the back foot was planted on the steering, and the skill of walking and accelerating and then coming back to drive the turn was largely eliminated.

Longboards the trim spot is near the 2/3rds forward Mark , here the board will,keep accelerating to match the wave. Good longboard surfing is being able to control speed,,direction( turns) is a dance along the length.
Leaning only, in turns becomes less and less effective the further you move forward. Nothing feels quite like a reallgood series of turns aiming at the wall and stepping forward on the accelerator onto the wall.
Short board answer is changing weighting between front and back foot,. In both rear foot engages the tail and rear rail with speed for directional change front foot enhances and guides the forward board through the arc of the turn!

Last point think effective levers and amount of effort for result!
A surfer without tail skill is merely a hack until,they get it!

I just watched a good video and it explains how to shift the weight back during take off pretty clearly. Now it is about trying to apply it.

Standing on the tail isn't good for speed so first you need speed. If you are taking a drop that is vertical then no matter where you stand you will go fast so on the tail is okay but once you make the bottom turn then the wave may be flatter and you may need to move forward from the tail. I don't think you are at this stage yet so you are coming down the not so steep waves and need to be more forward till you get more speed. With a shorter board you can push on your forward foot for speed and your back foot for turning. I learned on a 6'8" board. I didn't change my foot position at all for a long time but I did adjust my position relative to the board. Going down the wave I was leaning forward to get down the wave as quickly as possible so I was falling down the face with the board falling along with me, then at the bottom I had to bring the board underneath my falling body or I would go face down into the bottom of the wave with the board going nose first into the bottom of the wave. It's kind of difficult to explain that but I could feel it and knew when I pulled the board under me as I got to the bottom then I didn't pearl. On a longboard riding whitewater you won't experience that and instead need to learn in smaller stages but maybe more successful way to do it for most people. To avoid pearling on longboards on green waves you need to paddle well (same as for smaller boards) and angle the board down the line if the wave is fast and this would be done from more forward to the tail till you get to the point that you are on parts of the wave where you won't slow down from standing on the tail either because it is a fast wave or because you are constantly turning. If the wave is slow you can do a trim turn from a more forward position on the board to angle the board after you stand. Even the shortboard pros move forward (for speed) and backward (for turning) on their shortboards except maybe just a few inches as opposed to a few feet on a longboard

This was for sale on the local Facebook buy and sell today........probably selling so that they can "progress" to a shorter board that is easier to turn LOL

Admire the thrift....no need to waste wax where it apparently isn't needed!

Brilliant

Ha ! I first said "what's wrong with that ? If you're not going to the nose, no need to wax up there".

Then I scrolled down the photo ..................... Yikes !!!

LOL.....here's another one just posted in the same group apparently opposed to standing too far back on the board.....

Notice the little half-moon cut out on the rear of the traction pad ? That's to clear the leash plug cup and the leash rope. Sure on longer boards the traction pad doesn't need to back over the leash plug, but at least have the tail kick of the pad over the center fin of a thruster on the middle of the center fin of a box fin.

I once had a customer want his traction pad put on his longboard higher than in the photo Big H provided. I said that's too far forward and recommend we put it further back. He kind of got upset and told me quite firmly, " If I stand that far back, the nose of the board will rise up and hit me in the face ! "

I don't have a traction pad but sometimes I have my back foot within an inch or two of the end of the tail (behind the fins). There seems to be only one situation where I do this. I do this when I am riding a wave in and encounter the shorebreak section and find it is walling up too fast for me to get down the face then I go all the way back on the tail to keep the board horizontal while I drop. It seems to work and I can continue riding the wave in or cut out if I wish to go back for another wave. I do have my board waxed in that area. I would say this about foot position and surfing. When I first started to ride my 8 foot board I always had my rear foot in front of the fins in fact usually a couple inches in front of the fins. I could do a lot of maneuvers from that position but it seemed the real hard power turns weren't possible from there. If you go back in this forum and look you will probably read me bragging about being able to do everything from in front of the fins but in reality I couldn't do top turns or cutbacks as powerful as my bottom turns. I gradually started popping up with my foot more back and I started learning to do real power turns like a top turn or cutback where I am putting as much pressure into the board as I do on my bottom turns.