Surfing Waves

Hey guys

New to the forums here. Hopefully I can contribute as well as learn more about the sport!

I went surfing yesterday in manasquan, nj with my brother, and this one way I caught got my attention. It was a solid good-sized wave, and it was definitely my longest ride of the day, but I couldn't do much on it because of how I popped up. I popped up and made the descent, but I noticed my front foot was way to close to my toe-side rail. How could I have fixed this because I have noticed that in the past if I lift my front foot up the board shoots right up to it because of the pressure from my back foot. I generally do not have this problem with my back foot because I can keep weight on my front foot (center of board) and move my right foot around a little.

Should I be doing a 'shuffle', and then relocate my back foot? I have even tried to put my front hand down to weight the board while I shift..

Thanks for any suggestions!

Mike

Welcome desinaner, first the good news, there is no correct way to correct your foot placement if it isn't working.
Hands on rail, shuffle jump all are tools you can use to correct something in your stance at anytime.
No matter how long you have been surfing for you will get wrong footed, from your description I am thinking that you are probably in the white water riding stage and that is where a wrong front foot has the most effect, if you were turning and riding across the waves you would have all the self corrections under more control.
Don't worry too much, just surf lots, the self correcting thing becomes second nature.

Consider the baby learning to walk, begins as wobbly as and each step evolves the brain and neural pathways to be more and more self correcting, then you walk and then you run.
Surf and it will happen

A little further to what I posted, the shots of your board and it's damage seems to tell me there was some grunt to that surf and I might be wrong about your level of surfing could warrant an

Just so I know what level is your surfing

Hey thanks for your reply jaffa

And yea, definitely not in the white water stage. I broke my board on a day where I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple 9-10 footers, but for the most part I was riding 7-8ft. waves on the face. I am starting to really get the hang of a nice bottom turn and slashing top turns, along with barrels and all that jazz, but for whatever reason when my front foot was to the side I was crippled and couldn't do anything! ahah

Another person on the forum said to lift my front foot just enough to get it off the wax, and that it's more of a 'slide'? Makes sense, but I don't know how well that would work. I'll have to try it.

I'm open to hands on rail, shuffle, etc. but would someone like Slater use this method to adjust? If he even lands wrong footed of course

Sorry about the white water bit, clearly a bit more to the wave!!!!. Aussies use a technique called the pigdog in some situations like that when having to negotiate a heavy drop.
It's almost a kneeboard stance with front foot anchored and it's usually hard to reposition then and the back foot sort of lateral backwards then when the intensity of the take off is over readjusting the stance, none of it however is kneeling. Guess the best learning might come from watching videos of the technique.
I do know that the harder you are driving to get the turn or whatever the harder it is to shift stances if it is happening in your more critical waves then I'd back off a little and just try modifying my stance until it becomes your natural one and then going back to more critical.
i'm going to look up manasquan, nj in my Stormrider might clue me up a little more. Enjoy your winter, fix your board, won't be quite the same but will still do a job.
Hope the New Year bring plenty of good stuff

9 footers in Manasquan in the past week? Wow. Just a bit to the south here on LBI we haven't had anything bigger than a 4 foot wave in months, and the day you're talking about I was out and it rarely got over 2 feet. Not doubting you, just astounded it could have been that different so nearby. Seems everything from here south to Cape May has been flat to small for weeks.

If the front foot lands in incorrect position... then you fall, it happens. Have fun, try not to let it happen...

themathteacher wrote:If the front foot lands in incorrect position... then you fall, it happens. Have fun, try not to let it happen...

That's true, why pout about a wipe out

RonG wrote:9 footers in Manasquan in the past week? Wow. Just a bit to the south here on LBI we haven't had anything bigger than a 4 foot wave in months, and the day you're talking about I was out and it rarely got over 2 feet. Not doubting you, just astounded it could have been that different so nearby. Seems everything from here south to Cape May has been flat to small for weeks.

Really? I mean, even if 10ft is exaggerating, there were 7-8 footers without a doubt in my mind. Some serious swell where we were, picture perfect.


Jaffa is the pigdog different than the poo stance? I tried to make out what you meant by your description, but not sure. I'll have to find more videos because the ones on youtube aren't that clear.

and I hear ya math teacher.. Usually I pop up in the right spot. It was just funny because the one wave where I popped up and my front foot was real close to the toe rail, I actually had the longest ride of the day. I took it so far, but was kind of pissed because the turning and everything was off. If I could have fixed it I would have been able to recover.

Thanks for your input guys! Happy new years

I 'd thought I'd help you out with some of my photos so you can understand the difference between a poo stance and a pigdog.


Just three of my local spots

haha thanks for your help jaffa. I understand now what you mean by the pigdog. I have definitely seen that before, but didn't know it had a name for it. Just figured it was how the surfer decided to ride the wave. I actually grab the rail and do that backside just by instinct (at least I hope that's what it looks like haha!).

I wonder.. can you do the pig dog on a frontside wave in order to squeeze into a wave? Not sure if it would work because going backside, it seems the front leg leans into the wave and the surfer fits perfectly in the shape of the tube. Frontside kind of goes against the almond shape of the wave. Either way thanks for your help!

Easy solution: Get a log and cross step that sucka. This way you are MEANT to move your footings
j/k