Couple of questions to move me along a bit...

[Dantastic1985]

Hi all,

After being in Cornwall for the week and surfing minimum 4 hours a day on my first proper surfboard (7ft3 x 22 1/3 x 2 3/8) I found that I was getting to the point where 7/10 times im getting up on the board in the white water, riding it all the way in and popping out a few very slow carves on the way. On a few of the bigger white water waves I have managed to drop down the face of the wave when it has re formed (amazing feeling). My problem is foot positioning. I find that my back foot is not close to the back of the board very much as Im pushing the front to get over the surf and build the speed up. Although when I am trying to trun I move my foot back it feels like I am trying to do the splits having a rear foot on the back for turning and the front foot near the front to generate the speed. Is there a happy medium or shall i just get the yoga mat out? Its left me thinking that a shorter board would be loads easier to turn than my barge of a board. I am however still a beginner and would rather get xxxxx hot on my board than struggle to ride a cool short one.

The second thing is I am really struggling to catch the unbroken waves. I just cannot get my timing right. I either stand up to early and sink or the wave crashes on top of me leaving me covered in snot and seaweed after rolling around under the wave for a bit. I find that I can stand up on the white water as soon as I get the 'push' but cannot replicate this on the unbroken waves, this leaves me thinking my pop up isnt the problem but is that incorrect? Is it down to poor paddling, not fast enough and stopping too early? When I feel I am close I think about popping up, next thing im flying down the wave holding on for dear life thinking ive just missed that one...

Part of the problem may be that I am crap at duck diving so I find myself going for what comes rather than picking the best waves from the line up. I think this is down to wanting to practise on the smaller 3-5ft waves rather than drown on the 5-10ft ones. I find myself in limbo between massive surf and small unbroken waves with no power.

All i want is to be able to ride a clean medium size wave along the face for a bit then turn off the back for the next one.

I would really appreciate any tips.

Thanks for reading.

Dan

[oldenglish]

If you can pop up in one swift motion in whitewater than its safe to assume that you have the skillset to do it on the face of a green wave. Your right that it is probably other things that prevent you from popping up. Positioning is key, if the wave is crashing on you your too far inside. It is also harder to pop up on the bottom of the wave face after speeding down it because you have gravity working against you and your board looses all its momentum once it speeds to the flats.

It is hard to do much more than trim on white water and even on reforms at that. The take off gives you the opportunity to bottom turn and create speed. Without a drop or face of a wave its difficult to get the speed necessary for sharper turns.

7'3 board is kind of short for a newbie but I'm sure doable. If you had a longer board you could catch green waves earlier and this would give you more time to work the wave.

It will click dont worry. If your catching and popping up in whitewater than you should just progress to green waves. I'm a beginer and when I got the hang of whitewater I gave up on it immediately. After awhile everything just seemed to work together and I progressed.

There are lots of really really useful threads on this subject if you use the search function. I pretty much spewed the common rhetoric on this forum there are much more detailed explanations in other threads.

[Dantastic1985]

Thanks for the feed back dude.

"It will click dont worry. If your catching and popping up in whitewater than you should just progress to green waves. I'm a beginer and when I got the hang of whitewater I gave up on it immediately. After awhile everything just seemed to work together and I progressed."

The last couple of days i was there I did maybe 3 or 4 white water rides then concentrated on trying to get the green ones. I suppose its all about time in the sea.

Ill do some serious searching on here during my lunch breaks in that case and hopefully make it happen!

[RonG]

I think this is down to wanting to practise on the smaller 3-5ft waves rather than drown on the 5-10ft ones. I find myself in limbo between massive surf and small unbroken waves with no power.

Just for reference, if they are really 3-5 ft waves then they're a good size, as in stomach to head high on the face for an average sized surfer. Waves that size should have more than enough push.

10 ft waves are in double-overhead territory.

Other than that oldenglish pretty much covered it. Timing, and time in the water. You'll get it a couple of times, recognize how it should feel as you catch the wave, and it will become second nature. Ultimately it's as much about how you time your paddling as how fast/powerfully you're paddling.

[Dantastic1985]

Cool. Thanks guys. I just want to get out there but its a good distance to the coast from where i am.