Surfing Waves

I've been surfing for under a year now but unable to actually surf down the line. I have a 6'10. I'm able to catch waves and ride directly towards the beach but for the life of me I cant take off and go right or left across the face of the waves.

Any suggestions?

p.s. I cant do bottom turns and cutbacks

The first step in turning...

Look where you want to go, turn your shoulders where you want to go. The board will go where you're looking. If it doesnt, turn your shoulders more and exagerate the movement.

The bottom turn is the key to your problem.

Until you can bottom turn, you won't be riding the wave. Many instructions by doing a search or looking at the sections and stickies for beginning surfers will focus on how to bottom turn.

every surfer struggels to start going down the line, but what these guys have said is right, just as your about to pop up look down the line and you need to learn how to bottom turn nicely, i stugled at first, but now its just natural i dont even have to think about it, as soon as im popping up im thinking weather to pump or kick out not getting my feet in the right possition. good luck

you could always paddle in the direction you want to go. i mean when you're paddleing to catch a wave, already be in the direction you want; i.e going down the line. but yeah the bottome turn is gonna be your best friend. it takes a while to get it down.

found this on the net & seems really helpful regarding bottom turns as well as many other manouveres!

http://www.surfingvancouverisland.com/s ... m_turn.htm

the problem when your learning is you tend to be surfing small waves, and small waves are much more difficult. everything needs to happen much quicker and you have to work to get any power out of the wave, even the slightest stall from being off-balance which causes you to lose momentum is difficult to recover from and the wave passes you by.
In small waves you need to be paddling into the wave at more of an angle so when you take off your already heading down the line, you dont have the room to go for a huge bottom turn straight away so its more of a slight turn to get you heading down the line and pumping as soon as possible.

GowerCharger wrote:the problem when your learning is you tend to be surfing small waves, and small waves are much more difficult. everything needs to happen much quicker and you have to work to get any power out of the wave, even the slightest stall from being off-balance which causes you to lose momentum is difficult to recover from and the wave passes you by.
In small waves you need to be paddling into the wave at more of an angle so when you take off your already heading down the line, you dont have the room to go for a huge bottom turn straight away so its more of a slight turn to get you heading down the line and pumping as soon as possible.

this is a good post. getting down the line is harder in small waves at least where i'm at (central FL). a lot of the mushy slop we surf down here loses power fast or closes out quickly so you have to be fast like gower said. for me i really think the key is taking off in the right spot of the wave. being on one side of the crest or the shoulder and taking off at an angle is the easiest way to get a solid ride on the waves here. most of the time if you take off at a peak strait down the wave and try to bottom turn you wont get across to the next section because you wont have enough speed.

u need to be standin up at the top of the wave so you have time to look where your heading as drowningbitbybit said