Surfing Waves

i live in miami and come to mexico for vacations , every time i come i rent a board at the beach and catch waves with a longboard , but what i want to learn to use is the shortboard , and i want to buy a board for the month im going to be here for , and keep it at the house for the next time i come . what im getting to is that im thinking of buying a shortboard , the other day i rented a shorter board and manouvered around the water easily , and i would get on the waves but then fall off because of my balance , should i learn to use the longboard better first? because i dont feel like spending money on 2 boards yet , if i buy 1 i probably wont buy another for a year maybe 2 , so what i plan to do is get the board and go every day and just practice , i dont mind eating xxxxx , would i be able to learn to use the shortboard with so - so experience on a longboard? thanks buddys.

hmmmm... totally possible, here's what i would wonder:

every day for how long? a week? a month? all summer?

what size was the 'shorter board' you used?

what do you mean by so-so? can you bottom turn?

weight / height would help too

with the longboard i could get up most of the time, and turn into the wave and move around , im 6"2-6"3 , 88 kilos and the board i used last time i came was huge , the other day when i went the board i used was probably 7 feet , and yeah ill probably go every day for 15days , i can go with some friends that live a house down that go surfing, maybe get some pointers out in the water .

i also have a lot of experience wakeboarding but that was 2 years ago when i lived in venezuela now i dont really wakeboard anymore , dont know if that helps hahaha , maybe with balance?

i bet you can do it. it will be a tough 15 days but like anything else, you just have to keep at it and take your lumps. if you can stand up on a wave with the 7 footer you're almost there. it's fun to have both but if you want to ride shortboards long term maybe just commit to it and buy one.

fwiw: the biggest thing that helped me with the transition from long to short was focusing on the fins. as soon as you stand up it will feel loose and almost slippery because there's a lot less volume under you. you also can't rely on engaging your rail as much because there's so much less of it. to get some traction on the wave try 'scraping' the water with your back foot. work those fins back and forth like a fish swishes it's tail. It generates forward motion that will help you take control of the board and keep your balance.

hope that helps, good luck.

thanks man that helped , ill let you know how i do

How much is it to rent a board where you go? The reason I ask is, I recently went to Morocco for a couple of weeks, and instead of bringing boards with me and paying stupid money to an airline, we just rented boards there. It was great. If the day was too small for the board I rented yesterday, I'd just bring it back and change it. The perfect board for the day in question ecery day. Just an idea.

If you really must buy a board and don't get to surf more often than the occasional holiday, stick with a longboard. You only have 15 days, you really want to catch as many waves as you can during that time, and there is no tool better for this job than a longboard. Learning to surf isn't just about teaching yourself to catch waves and do a few turns. It's about doing the right turn at the right time, which means learning to read the wave and predict what its going to do next. This only comes with time on the face. Longboard = more waves = more time on the face = quicker learning to read the wave = doing the right turn at the right time = faster, more powerful surfing, sooner = more fun. Simple really.