Surfing Waves

Seems that when I pop up I end up standing with my two feet right next to each other instead of spaced out....no idea why but it is so darm tricky to stop doing it automatically. Any hints on how to stop it..driving me nuts!

I reckon what I'll do is try to stop standing up straight away...stay in a crouched position and that might force me to keep the trailing leg further back.

When you stand up, point your leading hand in the direction that you want to go. This should help straighten you out a little bit.

go back to practicing on land till you get it worked out. staying crouched is a good idea most of the time anyway.

I'd say practice on land for about until you nailed it on land, then practice in the swell, try and hold your shape in the wave for as long as you can before popping up. Point in the direction you are heading and your feet should spread to get the balance. Keep going we all need to work on little things, I for one am sure I do.

just noticed your other point about not standing up straight away. bout 6 months ago I found myself sort of bodyboarding on to the face. kind of directing the board as I was taking off. at first it felt like a cheat as it meant I could go deeper than normal but not get to my feet till i was in control, but after a while doing it i found that the motion became more fluid and faster. when I started surfing green waves first I was always trying to get to my feet as fast as possible which was ok on less challenging waves but meant i could only take off in a couple of positions, which left me stumped if a wave was peeling quickly. or was a little steeper than I was used to.

now it is much more instant but feels like it is all happening much slower. reckon it's because I've trained my muscle memory in a wider variety of positions if that makes sense. still get it wrong sometimes but a lot less often than I used to. also increased my wave count hugely. could be a really bad habit, not sure yet as I'm not out on the really heavy stuff, but working so far. anyone else further on than me who learned this way feel free to chime in. or anyone who reckons i'm barking up the wrong tree. interested to hear others thoughts.

when ya paddling onto the drop dont look at your nose turn your head and look across the face, ur body will then want to go that way because of the momentum. also try putting just your front foot up and kneeling instead of going straight up, that way u can bring your back foot into it slowly and keep composure.

tano wrote:when ya paddling onto the drop dont look at your nose turn your head and look across the face, ur body will then want to go that way because of the momentum. also try putting just your front foot up and kneeling instead of going straight up, that way u can bring your back foot into it slowly and keep composure.

this is a really bad habit to get into. get straight to your feet no matter what.

first bit could be worth a try tho.

Ta all - reckon I am looking at the nose too much and need to learn to trust the board and myself a bit more.

i dint think its a bad habit as everyone scrambles up when learning, best way to keep balance is it stay low.

The popup is actually a two step process, the back foot goes down first and the front foot second, we just do it so fast that it seems both go down at the same time. If you keep that in mind and try to exagerate it you should be able to land your feet spread appart.

Second, if your feet are together then I'm going to assume that also, by mistake, you are facing forward. Remember that the body has to be sideways, landing facing forward will result in you falling backwards.

try 4 magnets, one on each foot and two on your board, i used this method with a good degree of success.