paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby waikikikichan » Wed Dec 09, 2015 10:13 pm

The funny thing is the two things you have a problem with, front side cutback and back side bottom turn, basically utilize the same form/technique. If you improve one, it helps the other.
But try doing this:
Hug the wave going backside ( or take a picture of the wave face as if a camera was stuck to your chest )
Eyes looking left during the final paddles, as you get to your feet front arm goes from pointing straight to swinging left and continue until it pointing to behind yourself. Back hand comes around and " palms" the waves face. ( this is just practice to get into form, later you don't need to "palm" )
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby oldmansurfer » Wed Dec 09, 2015 10:45 pm

I think if you are used to catching and riding waves only frontside or mostly frontside it feels weird to go backside. the only way to get used to it is to do it more. I learned to go backside initially because I would be slightly off balance on takeoff and fade to the left when I had every intention of going right but the wave broke in front of me so I ended up going left. Gradually I got used to it and eventually go to where frontside or backside made very little difference to me. Then I quit surfing for over 10 years and restarted. I found that I could do a fairly decent backside bottom turn right off the bat but frontside took me about 3 years (30 minutes a week) to get it decent. I am not sure why that is but I still prefer to go frontside.

As far as slowing down cutbacks are one way and top to bottom turns are another. From a bottom turn you go forward and up the wave and then go straight down which lets the wave get a little ahead then bottom turn and forward and up again and straight down again.
So what is worse.... dying or regretting it for the rest of my life? Obviously I chose not regretting it.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby drowningbitbybit » Thu Dec 10, 2015 12:12 am

keithwdixon wrote: heelside carving stuff is just ... it feels unnatural.


Similar to what waikikikichan said above - don't think heels, think shoulders.

If you turn your shoulders (and head, arm, chest too) when you're on your backside, your heels will work out the rest for themselves.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby keithwdixon » Thu Dec 10, 2015 12:53 am

waikikikichan wrote:The funny thing is the two things you have a problem with, front side cutback and back side bottom turn, basically utilize the same form/technique. If you improve one, it helps the other.


huh. i hadn't thought of that but it makes perfect sense. i wonder if working on front-side cutback will begin to make lefts feel more natural.

i've been making my lefts mostly by trying to finesse my use of the rail but i haven't (consciously) been using my hands to direct myself. i'll give the "hug" a try, thanks!
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby keithwdixon » Thu Dec 10, 2015 12:54 am

drowningbitbybit wrote:
keithwdixon wrote: heelside carving stuff is just ... it feels unnatural.


Similar to what waikikikichan said above - don't think heels, think shoulders.

If you turn your shoulders (and head, arm, chest too) when you're on your backside, your heels will work out the rest for themselves.


i wonder if this is what was causing those "side pearls" i was experiencing -- i was setting the rail to turn the board but my body position was wrong. so it's like my heels were putting the board in the right place but my body wasn't there!
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby dtc » Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:53 am

I have a slightly different tack, or perhaps more accurately a slightly different suggestion (because the above ones may be entirely correct for what is happening to you).

The issue with backhand is that you aren't facing the wave, so if you turn your body so you can see the wave, you end up putting more weight on your heels (stand on land with feet in surfing position, then turn to be able to see the imaginary wave behind you - you will notice that you end up with more weight on your heels). This can dig in the rails, particularly if you are doing a slow turn - perhaps your sideways perls. The weight transfer is likely completely unconscious - you are focused on being able to see the wave and not realising what its doing to the feet.

Conversely, it actually should make hard turns easier, because you already have the weight in the 'right' place. However, as waikikichan says, your hands then need to do the right thing as well. So I think you are correct in that your heels were already in the right place (technically your weight distribution was correct), but the body wasn't and you either did a slow trim turn or just dug the rails in again.

One common suggestion is to turn your feet so your toes are pointing more toward the front of the board. This way you can see the wave without having to twist ie without having to change the weight distribution. Its not as easy as it sounds, because you have to consciously turn the feet quickly after popping up plus you are slightly less stable as your feet aren't across the board as much. But it really opens up the wave.

And a final tip from Nick Carroll, who is a surf instructor/journo/guru (and brother of pro surfer Tom Carroll) - in any case, infinitely more knowledgeable than me - "In any heel based turn (the backside bottom turn, for instance), always LIFT the front shoulder and arm open to the turn. Many surfers tend to "fall" into the backside bottom turn, dropping their shoulder and leading arm into the wave face and trying in effect to pivot around the arm. Unless you're a really really good surfer who's figured out how to do this while keeping his or her weight off the front rail, you're gonna bog this turn."
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby waikikikichan » Thu Dec 10, 2015 6:51 am

keithwdixon wrote:i wonder if working on front-side cutback will begin to make lefts feel more natural.


Actually do the opposite. Work on the backside bottom turn, since it comes early on the wave. As your backside surfing improves, everything on the front will be better.

( Oh, and forget Heelside when you're surfing or talking about surfing. Snowboarder put pressure on the front and slide the tail. Surfers put pressure on the tail and slide the front. )
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby keithwdixon » Thu Dec 10, 2015 1:30 pm

dtc wrote:"In any heel based turn (the backside bottom turn, for instance), always LIFT the front shoulder and arm open to the turn. Many surfers tend to "fall" into the backside bottom turn, dropping their shoulder and leading arm into the wave face and trying in effect to pivot around the arm. Unless you're a really really good surfer who's figured out how to do this while keeping his or her weight off the front rail, you're gonna bog this turn."


well, that sounds exactly like what was happening to me. there was always a bog/stall/slow turn characteristic to my lefts that often led to side perl.

so i just stood up in surf position and pivoted and it's funny, you can feel a difference in your heels if you lift that frontside shoulder.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby drowningbitbybit » Thu Dec 10, 2015 9:48 pm

Not arguing that anything anyone has said is wrong, merely for discussion...

dtc wrote:so if you turn your body so you can see the wave, you end up putting more weight on your heels (stand on land with feet in surfing position, then turn to be able to see the imaginary wave behind you - you will notice that you end up with more weight on your heels). This can dig in the rails


I think of that as an advantage to backhand turns. I always used to be better at lefts on my backhand (but then I moved to the Gold Coast and haven't seen one since) precisely because it weighted the rails, whereas it's quite easy to do a frontside turn (on a shortboard) without weighting the rails. But yes, you do have to be moving fast and with the weight on the back foot, else you'll bog the rails, and I imagine it's quite different on a longer board.

dtc wrote:And a final tip from Nick Carroll, who is a surf instructor/journo/guru (and brother of pro surfer Tom Carroll) - in any case, infinitely more knowledgeable than me - "In any heel based turn (the backside bottom turn, for instance), always LIFT the front shoulder and arm open to the turn. Many surfers tend to "fall" into the backside bottom turn, dropping their shoulder and leading arm into the wave face and trying in effect to pivot around the arm.

Now, I'm not going to argue with Nick Carroll... :shock: ... but... dropping the leading shoulder and pivoting around the arm at the beginning of the bottom turn is precisely how I do it. Then the shoulder and arm comes up for the second half of the bottom turn.

Like so... (or at least how I pretend I'm surfing...)

6477397.jpg



Basically, for any bottom turn, there will be a hand in (or at least near) the water - the rear hand on the frontside, and the leading hand on the back - for the first half (or maybe the middle third) of the turn. 8)
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby dtc » Fri Dec 11, 2015 1:22 am

drowningbitbybit wrote:Now, I'm not going to argue with Nick Carroll... :shock: ... but... dropping the leading shoulder and pivoting around the arm at the beginning of the bottom turn is precisely how I do it. Then the shoulder and arm comes up for the second half of the bottom turn.


You missed this bit of his quote, which obviously applies to you....

dtc wrote: Unless you're a really really good surfer who's figured out how to do this while keeping his or her weight off the front rail, you're gonna bog this turn."


I think pivoting around the arm works better (or works ok) for bottom turns, because you are going fast and you can deal with the effect of the weight on the front rail just because of sheer momentum, as the pic shows. But if you arent going fast, or doing a backhand top turn, probably you want to lift the arm (I mean, you don't want to drop your shoulder on a top turn, you would just fall off...).

Or just don't worry about your arms at all...

web_mark_richards2.jpg
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby oldmansurfer » Fri Dec 11, 2015 2:23 am

There are different bottom turns for different situations. The above bottom turn is to take speed off and go for the tube ride but Mark Richards also did a crouching low to the water gull wing kind of bottom turn when he wanted speed.
So what is worse.... dying or regretting it for the rest of my life? Obviously I chose not regretting it.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby dtc » Fri Dec 11, 2015 5:29 am

like this...

merkel_mrichards3.jpeg
merkel_mrichards3.jpeg (32.99 KiB) Viewed 770 times



I realise these are all front side turns so not the same thing as we were talking about!
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby LostAtSea » Sun Dec 13, 2015 3:03 pm

Just curious....would Mark Richards be riding a single fin in that pic, and would that have a big effect on how he bottom turns?
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby oldmansurfer » Sun Dec 13, 2015 3:48 pm

I am not sure if it makes a whole lot of difference whether you have one two,three, or four fins and are making a fully rail engaged turn like you typical bottom turn. I know with no fins it is much more difficult but not impossible so it probably makes some difference. I used to surf a single fin and now surf a quad. It may affect the speed you get from the turn but I don't notice much however that is likely because I am not as good of a surfer as I once was.
So what is worse.... dying or regretting it for the rest of my life? Obviously I chose not regretting it.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby dtc » Sun Dec 13, 2015 11:56 pm

MR pretty much surfed twin fins during his heyday, so I imagine its a twin. However, its possibly a single fin - he didn't ride thrusters very much at that time.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby waikikikichan » Mon Dec 14, 2015 12:23 am

JJGreenberg wrote:Just curious....would Mark Richards be riding a single fin in that pic, and would that have a big effect on how he bottom turns?


If that photo is pre-1978 it should be a single fin. With single fins you need to "wait" during the bottom turn and let the fin load up. Then at the right moment you release that built up energy. For multi-fin setups, you can pump thru the bottom turn to create energy. Singles don't like doing that.
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Re: paddle, pop up -- and wave goes by without me?

Postby Big H » Mon Dec 14, 2015 1:19 am

There is a replica of that board for sale here; I took pics of it a couple of months ago....about USD 1500 and it could be yours...it is still there as of a week ago....it is a single fin.
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