Surfing Waves

This is the form:

I'm 50 years old. I first surfed 4 years ago on a trip to Bali. Started with a longboard in the white water, slowly progressed to catching the odd wave before it broke.

4 years on I guess I've surfed around 50 times in total, over several trips. I didn't surf at all last year but cycled a lot, and worked out in the gym. I'm 5 foot 9 170 pounds reasonably fit and strong.

I tired of paying to rent boards so bought one last year. It's 6'6" with a reasonable volume, not super-thin or anything. I didn't get a longer boards because they are a pig to transport.

Now my problem: I'm half way through a 2-month trip to Bali and Lombok. My duck diving has come on a treat and my paddling is OK, I'm catching plenty of waves. But.... I can't stand up! I've spent hours reading on the internet and watching youtube videos. I can perform a pop up (with some difficulty) on dry land but when I'm on the water I go to pieces! I either end up with my feet very close together and try to adjust, or on one leg with my rear right knee on the board. I'm aware I'm not thinking too much about what I'm doing, my mind is filled with doing it very fast, before I hurtle down that cliff of water

I'm pretty sure I should be on a longer board but I'm a determined sod, I won't give up on this one!

Any thoughts or ideas would be really appreciated!

Cheers
Rich

Galiciabound wrote:
4 years on I guess I've surfed around 50 times in total, -Problem No. 1 over several trips. I didn't surf at all last year

I tired of paying to rent boards so bought one last year. It's 6'6" Problem No.2 with a reasonable volume, not super-thin or anything. I didn't get a longer boards because they are a pig to transport.

I'm pretty sure I should be on a longer board Answer to both but I'm a determined sod, I won't give up on this one!

Any thoughts or ideas would be really appreciated!

Cheers
Rich

There you have it. Surfing a short board, needs determination AND consistency. If you only take the occasional surf trip, you want to catch as many waves as possible, not spend your time floundering trying to get back to the level you were at on your last trip. There is only one board design that will allow you to achieve this goal - a longboard.

at 170lbs a 6'6 is something you get after about a year or two of surfing. I started on an 8ft board and it took me 2 months of daily surfing to just stand up and 6 month of surfing twice a week to get the hang of it. The next board I got almost a year later was a 7'6 california gun, super thick and wide, so on and so fortth. I think I got to a 6'6 about 3 years into my surfing, and at the time I weighed the same as you.

Galiciabound wrote:This is the form:

. I didn't get a longer boards because they are a pig to transport.
Now my problem: I can't stand up!
I'm pretty sure I should be on a longer board YESbut I'm a determined sod, I won't give up on this one!

Any thoughts or ideas would be really appreciated!

Cheers
Rich

Buy a board you can surf on, buying a board to be able to transport is like saying, "fix my horn, my car's brakes won't work!"
If that is your only reason for a short board it is a very poor one

The only other way is to quit working and spend your full time waking hours on the short board.

Galiciabound

Obviously I agree with the others but, that said, if you are only popping up to your knee then you have an issue. A longer board will not cure that, although it will be more forgiving. And if you are in the middle of an Indo trip, I’m guessing you probably aren’t going to by a new board no matter what we all say.

I’m no expert so see if these comments connect to your personal experience. I am a bit wordy...apologies

It seems to me that your rear leg isn’t coming through far enough, ie all you can manage is to get your knee through, not your foot. Chances are this is because your hips are not high enough during the pop up, which means there isn’t enough room for your leg to come forward and stand up (by ‘room’ I mean the distance between your hips and the board needs to be a certain distance, otherwise your whole leg just doesn’t fit )

Causes of this may be:
1. your initial push up isn’t strong enough/doesn’t get your hips high enough. Why – could be (a) you simply aren’t strong enough in the upper body (b) you aren’t pushing hard enough, being too hesitant (c) your hands are too far forward, so when you push up you just aren’t pushing your body up far enough to give enough room or (d) you aren’t pushing your hops back far enough/twisting your hips enough and bending your knee enough in order to give your leg some room and get it to fit in the space (could be related to core strength or, given your age, to a lack of flexibility in your hips and knees) (I’m not much younger than you, so this is not an insult, just a recognition of what happens to all of us)

2. you are not moving your feet forward to be under your body, rather you are moving your body back to be over your feet ie you rock your hips back to be over your knees.

3. possible but unlikely – you are pushing your hips up high enough, but you aren’t bringing your leg forward fast enough before your hips drop again. Possible causes: (a) lack of core strength, meaning you cant move your leg/knee fast enough forward in order to stand; or (b) just a timing issue, you get it wrong

4. Possible - you just aren’t catching the wave properly, so your board is all over the place and its impossible to stand on regardless of your technique.

As to feet being too close together – not sure what this could be. The only thing I could think of was that because your hips aren’t high enough, you are planting your front foot too early in order not to completely fall over, and then sometimes managing to get your rear foot through into the right place. But your front foot is too far back, so your feet are too close together. The cause is the same- your feet cant get to the right place because the rest of your body is in the wrong place.

My suggestions:
1. Try the pop up on the land as much as you can, until you can do it easily and properly.

2. On land, try slight variations in the pop up to see if it makes it easier. So twist your hips early or late, push one shoulder up higher than the other as you push up.

3. I found the easiest way (works on a longboard, not sure about your board) was to push up and, rather than jump and land on both feet at the same time, I step my back foot forward to just below my hip (looks a bit like spiderman climbing a building) and my front foot follows just a fraction later. Note that this could be called a ‘back foot pop up’ ie my back foot lands first and everything else follows. Described well here http://members.shaw.ca/kevin_bartlett_1 ... _surf.html
As I said, may not be a viable shortboard method

4. When you pop up, commit. Don’t do it softly, softly means you fail. Push hard. Look ahead, not down.

5. At the end of the pop up, you should be low on the board. Low enough to touch your board with your hands. Bum below hips, knees pressing slightly toward each other, feet flat on the board (you may need to point your toes out to achieve this). This is the most solid stance – once you are stable, you can raise yourself up or whatever you want to do. I guess you could be trying to stand up too early and trying to rush everything.

Agree with all the above. In addition, are there any mellow, crumbly waves in Indo? It's much harder / more intimidating to learn to pop up in steep, pitching waves. Never been there, but Indo is not generally considered a beginner spot.

Thanks for all the replies, really useful. I've tried to bear some of the advice while I've been out over the last few days.

Unfortunately, I broke my board on Thursday! I wiped out on a big one. When I stuck my head out another big one was about to break right on top of me. No time to get back on my board so dived under the wave holding the webbing bit of the leash just below the board. Trying to get back ashore with a board bent at 20 degrees in a rip was heaps of fun

Anyway, this has prompted me to follow advice i.e. my board is too small. I'm limited to 6' 6" (2 flights booked with Garuda: 2 metres maximum). I tried out a wider/ much thicker funboard/ fish yesterday. It's much heavier than my old board, this probably negated any paddling advantage it might have given me. There again I was catching odd waves with my old board, so paddling wasn't my biggest problem. It was a bit of a pig to duckdive it, but I reckon practise will help with that. Anyway, my landing position is still all over the place but the board is much more stable and forgiving. I find I have time to adjust which enabled me to ride several green waves during the 2 hours or so I was out.

Just need to bargain the price now. It's an oldish rental board, epoxy. The guy wants rp 1,500,00 for it, that's about U.S.160, which seems a little steep!

I'm not sure where you get the 2 metre limit from, I take 9ft longboards in and out of Indo no problems and yes 1.5 million rupiah is a little steep.

Say "not my price" and walk out the door with a smile, don't offer any price, go look elsewhere, look for guys going home sometimes there is a bargain there, or buy/rent a long board that you would be prepared to leave and get a board suited for home based on your new knowledge.

If you are thinking of buying a board and taking it home home thin again, board price + shipping + you have no call back to Bali.

I've booked to fly from Bali to Lombok with Garuda, then from Lombok to Jakarta before I fly back to the U.K. I double checked with the Garuda office when I arrived in Bali, 2 metres is the limit. I think this is because they use small prop planes on these routes, rather than bigger jets.

My flight back to the U.K. is with Qatar Airlines. They don't make any charge for surfboards. In fact they give you a specific extra allowance for sports equipment, on top of the usual allowance.

A board of any description costs a fortune at home, even on Ebay etc. I'd get nothing at all for 100 pounds. Plus, I've already paid a fee to take a surfboard to Spain, where I'm going to teach for a year. So I reckon I'm better off buying one here, even if it's not perfect for me, rather than renting and then having to buy one in Spain. I can always trade this for one that's ideally suited to me, when I get there.

Money is a factor for me, us teachers don't exactly coin it in

That's the way I see it, I'd welcome any other thoughts though!

Cheers.

If you look around this forum you will see plenty of people who have picked up longboards/minimals for not much - eg wherry in this thread viewtopic.php?f=39&t=19922&start=20 (page 2 of the thread)

But whether they are lucky or not, I dont know (being from the other side of the world).

My main point is that if you buy your 'long term' board now just because it fits in the aircraft, you will have exactly the same problems the next time you go surfing in Spain. You have tried out surfing, know that you enjoy it, so why not buy the right equipment? Its like playing golf with 40 year old thin irons and persimmon drivers, or playing soccer (football?) wearing the same boots you did at high school. Sure they work, sort of, but not really.

I guess what I'm saying is that spending 200 or 300 pounds now will be forgotten about 20 minutes into your first surf session. Or, probably, 3 seconds after riding the first wave.

Good advice dtc, any money you spend on a board that isn't going to do it for you is a waste of money no matter how great the bargain ( it robs you of the chance of spending that money on the board that works)

The overall question is simply, do you want enjoyable surfing or more in the wallet?
Is galiciabound frustrated nough to stop doing this to himself?
The surf gods are giving you a courtesy call!

Cheers for the replies. You're right, the board I may or may not buy here won't be the perfect one for me. I look at it this way...

Although I'm a little frustrated by my lack of progress that doesn't detract too much from my overall experience when I'm on the water. I love paddling out through the broken waves, trying to time my duck dives correctly. I love sitting there waiting for a wave, thinking how lucky I am to be sitting there, not in some souless stuffy office, doing a shitty job to pay the bills. I love the fear I feel when a big one is going to break on me. I love the exhaustion I feel after challenging myself do do 100 hard paddle strokes when there is a lull in the waves. And I love the way my body has changed, after being in the water every day for 4 weeks.

Anyway enough of that sentimental stuff.

I'm not sure if now is the time to buy the perfect board, because I don't know what that perfect board is. I've used a longboard before and had big problems getting the thing out through the white water. I have to balance that against the probability that I'll ride far more waves on one. Which experience will be the better one for me? I want to enjoy myself...

Can I cycle to breaks with a longboard on a rack? That's what I'll be doing in Spain, I know I can do it with a shorter board.

I reckon I might need to try several different boards, and not just for a few days, before I know what that perfect board is. Once I know what that board is I've no problem spending 300 quid on it, but I don't want to spend that kind of money then realise it's not right. I can spend 100 quid now, get most or all of it back, maybe repeat the process, and then I'll know...

A little bit of good news there are bike racks that can carry longboard available in the UK at about £40.
If you get to thinking long, 8ft will be a good work horse, at this stage nothing fancy and you will probably need to learn to turtle roll, you can duck dive them you will get quite a lot of value out of it as it will be suitable for your needs for some years.

Everything in surfing is a learned skill most of it doesn't quite come naturally, so truly water time will fix almost all the things that seem impossible now!
The English crew may be able to help you, some might even have a board to sell !

the tip I give the kids is that it is easier to stand as you are dropping down the face.

a critical moment occurs when you have the wave for sure and you should stand.
any waiting beyond this critical moment makes standing all that much harder.... when you are out on the flat in front of the white water it is very hard to stand.

OK I was offered a nice funboard 6'6". It was much lighter than the one I'd rented, and seems much more bouyant in the water. It's also more rounded at the front. The only problem with it is that it's a pig to duckdive. Possible with practice maybe, but I think I'm going to have to learn to turtle roll.

Anyway the paddling is a lot easier. I'm catching loads of waves. I'm standing and riding a good few of them as well. I'm still not getting it right as regards popping up but now I've bought this board, I'm happy. Practice now...