A Newbies Guide for Newbies

[sinistapenguin]

Are you incredibly good looking and talented too then?

[phillwilson]

whoooooo

hey guys,

thanks so much for the explanations of what to expect out back, things are sure taking off!!!

went out in South Bay (Scarbs) on Sat evening, I didnt have a surf buddy with me and there was only three other people out in the water but I took your advice on board and just went for it, spent the whole sesh out back and didnt once give way to that little nag inside telling me to come back into where my feet could touch the bottom....this is THE STUFF !!!!

I caught a proper full on down the line left AND right hander and really felt like I was a "surfer" proper

I took my place in the lineup and didn't feel like i had to make excuses for myself and just came out with like a TON of stoke. just wished there had been a buddy in the water to experience it with.

As for my usual pointers to those quickly coming up the ladder behind me,

LOOK UP!!! Imean , i know I have said it in previous posts, but this has been the single biggest thing to change in my progression since graduation to green faces, trust your balance and your feet....you dont fall down stairs or getting off buses so your body is more then capable of leaving your feet to walk the board...well till you get to the nose lol .

the backhabd wave I scored was crazy and ended up riding INTO the wave in front of the one i was on, this led to a pretty big drop which im sure if i had been looking at my board would have had me jumping off scared, but as it was i was oncentrating on what was coming next so i just "felt" it .

so question time...

you guys who are up and riding down the line...how far ahead are you generally looking? my frontside seemed to be ore or less as it should be with me acelerating to get round a little white wash and rejoining the face,

but my back hand I didnt seem to be anticipating what would happen next and i kind of slowed to the point where the wave carried on without me...i was still stoked bout would have loved an extra 5 seconds on that wave.

cheers


Phill

[Borris]

Sorry guys to throw you off track but..
Ive been surrfing on a 7 foot foamie for about half a year
and am fine paddling and on unbroken waves

But i was looking at getting a new 6.'8 or 6'6 hardboard
is this to soon or wrong sizing? If so what size should i get

p.s ive had 9 lessons

[Borris]

hi

What size should i be riding i
have had 9 lessons on a 7'3
and am looking for a shortboard i only weigh 45kg
i thought around a 6'8 or 6;6
i can ride unbroken and paddle fine

[johnboy530]

hi in need of abit of advice as im pulling my hair out, i know im a grommet been tring to surf for a little over a year now i started with a secondhand 9'4 roger cooper as im heavy (18 stone) im not fat ive been bodybuilding for the best part of 20 years had enough of getting big hence the surfing. what it is i thought i was doing the right thing by getting a better board my surfing would improve so i heard awesome reveiws about the firewire's so emailed a firewire stockist my situation and gave the low down on the 9'6 squash tail saying it would hold 18 stone, the board is amazing catch waves so much easier now and get up easier to but as soon as i get up i lose all momentum an the board sinks quickly, would having a different fin set up help it came with 3" side bites and a 7" center fin, i know the obvious way to get around this would be lose weight, ever since staring surfing ive lost over a stone because of my build i cant see me getting any lighter, so any advice would be great ( bar stop surfing, oor you are going to need a bigger boat ha!)
many thanks
john

[phillwilson]

sorry I have been out enjoying the sun!!!! missed a few of your posts.

Borris, I would say from my experience that your shortboarding aspirations are WAAAY too short for making your next step on, Im sure others on the forum will tell you that they managed it and indeed if you have cat like balance and you are athletic, it can be done, but Im sure if I was to try it , I owuld give up in dispair very quicky. I would say think big...now think a bit bigger!!!

Johnboy... I would say try loosing the sidebits and going single fin might be a start.. I have a single tunnel fin 9" and it works so well!!! I would also add that you may not have found your sweetspot on the new board, I tried my friends board which was nearly the same length as my fav board, it was amazing how much further forward I had to be to catch waves then I do on mine.

[Rogue_Shadow]

Ive been told that ive done the right thing in learning
I started on a 8" Foam Board, then moved to a 7" Foam board
Then Onto a Softboard ( 3 fins and plastic base and foam top)
The foamies are very very forgiving when it comes to body position and foot placement. After around 3 days out on the softboard
I can pop up when i catch a decent wave and im ready to get my own board
I Am 9 stone/ 57kg and I am 5"10 in height
Therfore I am going for a 7"2 Minimal

There are many many many many many Webistes that will tell you the best way to pick a board,
If this is your first board dont go for a proformance shape board, it will make more grief than anything else

[johnboy530]

sorry I have been out enjoying the sun!!!! missed a few of your posts.

Borris, I would say from my experience that your shortboarding aspirations are WAAAY too short for making your next step on, Im sure others on the forum will tell you that they managed it and indeed if you have cat like balance and you are athletic, it can be done, but Im sure if I was to try it , I owuld give up in dispair very quicky. I would say think big...now think a bit bigger!!!

Johnboy... I would say try loosing the sidebits and going single fin might be a start.. I have a single tunnel fin 9" and it works so well!!! I would also add that you may not have found your sweetspot on the new board, I tried my friends board which was nearly the same length as my fav board, it was amazing how much further forward I had to be to catch waves then I do on mine.

"phillwilson"
thanks for that advice much appreciated just come back from the beach done what you said and lost the sidebits and i couldnt believe the difference it was a different board and for the better too. sorry to be a pain mate just wanted some more advice..
when i catch a wave and pop up i seem to speed away from the wave and by the time it catches up to me alot of my momentum has gone hence i sink abit, is there any lessons to be learned here.

many thanks

johnboy530

[RJD]

johnboy530 - sounds like your taking off straight, running down the face and then ahead of the wave.

Try paddling at a slight angle (think 5 degrees) away from the curl, then when your taking off down the face you want to turn the board in a curve towards the face before you get out in front, you want to start turning almost as you get to your feet probably (guessong on the wave size = smallish) and have the nose of youe board inscribe an arc in front of the wave to the face.

[phillwilson]

Hello all, I have returned!!

crazy thing has happened, I was out surfing this weekend and I realised that I actually no longer feel like a newbie !!!

Im not saying im a great surfer or even a "good" one, but I finally feel like I can call myself a "surfer" rather then someone who is learning to surf.

I have had 5 days on the trot out on good small longboarding waves, riding greens getting down the line and having the time of my life.

I had such a moment of pride on Tuesday when upon exiting the water a father and son who had been on softboards came over to ask me for *tips* cos I had been getting nice long rides out of the small waves!!

what a sense of self pride this gave me, obviously I was very humble and spent a while preaching my longboard and longerbord gospel (as I am prone to do)... but I set off up Cayton hill with an unusual spring in my stride

for me the thing I have decided I want to work on now is STANCE!!!

go one, chime in...tell me what oyu you, what I could do, options, fav pics etc......Im long thin and gangly so it seams i look a little akward at the best of times.

I think i look worst when I am looking down at the board, i look a little like a rolled up hedgehog!!

I have another board since my last post (9'6 lovely stuff) strange enough I just read my last post to this thread and I seem to have had a revelation...this board has sidebites which I left on and I actually LIKED the feel...

I dont know if this is advice for others or just "how I do it" but with the center fin quite far up thebox and the sides in place I feel I can keep about 80% of my weight on my backfootvery litte on the front except to guide the boasrd where its going and use the ball of my foot which feels like it is right on the fin, to "joystick" the board.

its very hard to explain but basically i can move my back foot very 3 dimentionally to control the board, toe down sppeeds it up and moves me lower on the wavemore heel presure brings me up, left right steers etc.

dunno but it works for me!!!

Johnboy...how you getting on? I never thought I would get to the stage where waves make sense but it feels like they are starting to, my brin is learning to interpret things i dont even fully understand...just kinda a feel thing.
give me a shout if you need more help, im more then happy to refine things i have said on here.

well thats enough for now, as always, more then happy to answer any issues anyone else just setting out is having

peace

Phill

[Katsura]

Hi Phil,

On your last post - you mentioned toe down speed up, heel down to slow and left right to steer,
Souldn't that be left/right to speed up/ stall (depends on if you are regular or goofy) and toe/heel to steer instead? Do you put your backfoot 3' clock direction of the stringer? If so the toe/ heel should control the rails I'd thought...

[phillwilson]

ha ha......Katsura you are a Genius,

and pretty spot on, its funny how yu mind make assumptions as to what is going on from the build up of bio-feedback...

ie.toes point forward ,heels point back etc.

when i thought about it, its more of a hybrid of the two!!


it also brings to light the fact that i am rarely surfing with my feet directly across the deck, im more at an angle...hence the general back of/outside of my foot leads to speed decrease whilst pressure toward my big toe/ inside leads to me riding lower on the wave.

hmm interesting...i need ot get in the water now to see how this really works, as at the mo i am just ind surfing at work.


while on a related note........stance........mine is crap.....at what point did any of you further on from me begin trying to figure out what oyu want to look like in the water and any tips on how?

ta

Phill

[Katsura]

I always thought I have a kooky stance as well . Without seeing a picture or video it's hard to say though. I need to get someone to take a vid of me - do you have friends who can take pics or vid of you surfing?

At the moment though, because I'm still experimenting with cross stepping, and nose riding, I tend to just 'hop' (almost like a kung fu hop lol) as quickly to the nose as possible without tipping the board over. My though is - get to the goal first, then worry about the style LOL. But seriously I need to get some vid analysis.

[drowningbitbybit]

Be proud! Be proud of your poo-stance!!

Me, Ive always favoured the neanderthal knuckles-dragging-in-the water look

[phillwilson]

ii asked Chasing-Daylight for her honest appraisal of my stance....

the resulting pose was comparable to that of the "M" in the yMca........fleshin'!!

i think cos im tall i tend to stoop rather then crouch!!

also arms wise......what you guys do?

I have always felt that the "ready to grapple" pose i was taugh might look a little silly for a man on a longboard in a foot of wave........or am i wrong? i didnt want to look like I THINK im tacking pipeline on a crumbly day in scarbro'

other thing is..i know i look at my board too much..how much is too much..should it just be something you grow out of?

apparantly the best i have looked in the water was when i was looking almost straight back at the wave and the rest of the lineup on a front hander.....where should i be lookng?


thanks
phill

[drowningbitbybit]

Q1 - i look at my board too much..how much is too much?
Q2 - where should i be lookng?

A1. At all.
A2. Where you want to go.

[jumpmonkey]

just want to say thanks to everyone who has posted advice on here, really helps when you think you're struggling, to read that others have been through the same stuff! i started this summer at cayton bay and, a few mis-haps aside, am really loving it. i went to scarb south bay today for the first time, waves were a bit small but better then nothing, especially as it was the first time i could get out in a few weeks. would just like to apologise to the guy whose wave i think i nicked! it was about 4pm so if you're reading this, i'm as blind as a bat without my glasses on and didn't realise you was so close to me, it was only when i got out my girlfriend said i really cut you up. does anyone know anybody who wears any of the surfing glasses? i can't get contacts in my prescription. i can see well enough to surf, i think, but i can't tell if someone is looking at me or trying to tell me something(!), unless they're about 3 feet away, and even then it's a bit blurry.

[surfnoob]

Hey JumpMonkey - I am a shortsighted surfer myself but manage to wear contact lenses OK. If you have not checked out contact lens availability for some years, worth a trip to the eyesight chap to see whether things have changed - you maybe lucky. Have no probs surfing in contacts and have yet to lose one - couldn't imagine not surfing without em. GL bro.

[Zeroman_IR]

+1 on the contacts. I tried contacts years ago and they never worked for me, only about 80% as good as specs at best. Called to my optician on a whim last year and got new dailies. Almost exactly as good as glasses and you don't even notice them while surfing. But I can see the waves now! Made the biggest to my efforts at learning to surf. Never had one washed out either yet.

[phillwilson]

Hey Jump Monkey........


Nice ot have another local in the water, Im living in Beverley at the mo so PM me if you want some company on your next outing


think Im off tomorrow Tues

keep at it bro