Surfing Waves

How to pump for speed, just watch the first 20 seconds.

Surfskating really helps with getting the "feel" of this!
Cris Mills offers some advice...

I like the instructor saying you have to do it right or you will learn the wrong thing but wonder how if you never did an effective speed turn will you know how it feels? The way I learned was at my favorite beach on an infrequently breaking freight train right that would break about every 2 months or so for maybe just a day or a few days. I watched the other surfers who were likely much more skilled than me and noticed none of them was trying to make the wave and instead they would try to get tubed on the first part of the wave then let it run past them or cut out if that was possible. It was an even breaking wave and in my mind it seemed like it should be makeable.

On my first attempt I took off and the wave quickly passed me by. So the second wave I paddled harder got in earlier and made a bottom turn and then the wave passed me by. The next wave I paddled hard jammed a hard bottom turn to top turn and was able to make a few more bottom to top turns before the wave passed me by. It kind of went like that with me getting a little further along the wave each time. After an hour or so I finally made the wave and I recall cutting out by riding off the flattened end of the wave and realizing I was going to be airborne so I jumped sideways off the board and when my feet hit the water I was violently flipped head over heels doing 3 complete head over heels rotations before I splashed down into the water. It was quite frightening because I was totally not expecting that. I was still surfing with no leash or that would have been an issue.

The next wave I made I tried a different dismount and dove head first and that was wrenching hard water and I ended up inches for the bottom even though I was going sort of flat. Next wave I tried to just land flat sideways and I was whipped around violently close to ripping my arms out of their sockets. Then I finally came up with a less violent way to dismount I landed flat on my back and skipped along. If I let it go I would do 3 skips before landing and spinning around but less violently then sinking into the water but at first I only did 2 then tried to enter the water and that was okay but still a little violent so I opted to let it go and skip as much as I would which turned out to be three.

The first time I did three skips I was gathering my board up and one of the surfers close to me paddled over and said “You were going 30 miles per hour on that wave”. I said “ How do you know?” He said “Because you did 3 skips”. Well I knew that was nonsense and thought they were making fun of me but after a while I realized they were just recognizing that I was getting up some speed.

What I learned is if you want to generate the most speed you need to utilize your whole body and your body leads the turn so you lean in the direction that you want to go both up and down the wave. Leaning up the wave is not such a change from doing a good bottom turn but leaning down the wave from the top was weird. It’s like you are falling back down the wave but bring the board under you before you hit the water.

I learned something about boards and that was I could take my slowest board and still make those waves but it had a noticeably slower top speed so it just wouldn’t go as fast as my faster boards no matter what I did. I had 2 faster boards and one was slightly faster than the other and a slow board (swallow tail) and at top speed I could feel that I wasn’t able to generate more speed with it regardless of my form and effort and the wave.

oldmansurfer wrote:I like the instructor saying you have to do it right or you will learn the wrong thing but wonder how if you never did an effective speed turn will you know how it feels?

Good point. Surfskating is most useful when I do along with regular surfing. After developing a new skill in the water I practice it on the surfskate.

oldmansurfer wrote:What I learned is if you want to generate the most speed you need to utilize your whole body and your body leads the turn so you lean in the direction that you want to go both up and down the wave. Leaning up the wave is not such a change from doing a good bottom turn but leaning down the wave from the top was weird. It’s like you are falling back down the wave but bring the board under you before you hit the water.

I'm working on exactly the same thing...compressing and weighting forward while going down the wave then extending and weighting the fins when climbing upward. I love the feeling of torque at the bottom!

I recall on one of the fastest waves I ever rode where I was going from top to bottom in a second and back to the top in a second too. It possibly might have been faster than that as it was kind of beyond my comprehension. My body was staying in between the top and the bottom and my legs would go up and down. At one point I had a "Matrix moment" where everything slowed down and I was looking up at the underside of the nose of my board as it turned at the top of the wave and wondered how this was possible? The bottom of the board was facing the bottom of the ocean. I was leaning forward and toward the beach my back was arched and just my feet to my knees was over the board. But somehow I brought the board back under my feet but only temporarily then back up to that off balance position. I couldn't even imagine doing that many turns in that short of a period of time. I guess you never know what you can do till you do it.

I think the problem learning how to pump for speed is that it's a misnomer / inaccurate description. Beginners think you need to bounce up and down. You can see their body squat down to the board, but when actually done right the head is quite stable and the board more up and down. So you aren't actually Pumping, but resisting and relaxing.