Surfing Waves

I've read a number of threads on the forum about popping up, so why not add another. . I am able to stand all the way up and surf...but instead of popping up to my feet directly, I bring my hands below my chest and when I try to explode up, with my back foot/leg I go to one knee, being my front foot forward and place it properly and then stand up. I can pop up on my floor at home and on my bed consistently...in the water I feel like I'm a mess. Any suggestions?

Big Florider, is your one knee pop up causing you difficulties,really, because if it works and you can stand up fully as the next stage, all is good.
the knee stage could be a habit that you are just finding hard to kick, or it is what your physical condition in the knees require.
Maybe try a different hand position and try planting your front foot first if your hands are too far back you cannot get your foot though to a frontline position.
New hands position will feel awkward at first maybe get a marker pen and mark where your hands should go

One more thing don't depend on your knees entirely to pop up push your board down hard with your hands this will have a double action forcing the board into the gravity drive down the wave and rebound you upwards with the extra of the board going down beneath you, add inches to your pop up which you don't get if you just use your hands as balance.See how that goes

Hi Jaffa,

It is causing me difficulties in terms of how slow I am to get to me feet. Right now waves are small here in Cocoa Beach FL, so you don't get a very long ride as it is...and I know when bigger waves come I want to be on my feet as quick as possible. My knees, my body is healthy...I probably still need to lose some weight and get more flexible. I just want to make sure I break this muscle memory of popping up on one knee.

I was trying this at home to see if I could replicate the issue. I'm wondering whether you are trying to stand up too fast, that is bringing your shoulders and head to vertical too quickly. What happens is that you push with your hands, but by trying to bring your upper body to vertical before your feet at through, it pushes your hips downwards and hence reduces the space for your legs to swing through.

What should happen is that your upper body remains more or less horizontal until your legs are through and you are on your feet, then you move your body to vertical (its pretty simultaneous, but its definitely feet through then lift).

Anyway, just keep this in mind and see if its something you are doing.

Or, as jaffa said, play around with hand position.

Pop up is weird. It takes forever to learn, but once you learn then 90% of the time you pop up without an issue. If I do not surf for a while, I struggle to catch the wave but once caught, pop up without too many issues. So you will get there!

Thank you all for the tips. You may be right DTC...I will keep practicing on land and when I get in the water I will try to be patient and let muscle memory take over instead thinking about it so much.

Hi,
This is one BAD habit you need to get rid of if you ever want to learn to surf properly and go for bigger/steeper/faster waves. I have watched a few people in the water do this. Unless you got superdodgy knees, are old, have injuries that prevent you from getting on your feet, try hard to kill it now before it becomes a reflex. Because once you get into waves that are not as forgiving on take off, you will curse your habit and get hammered every single time or you will hold onto your rails for dear life and scramble somehow on your feet. It also doesn't make for a very stable position overall on your board. If you watch other surfers, notice that they DON'T generally look down at their feet position when they get up. They just get up and look where they want to go. Have a go and try getting onto your feet without looking down. The more momentum you have, the easier it is. And timing and practice. Don't worry, we've all been there

Stop surfing and start practicing your popup, get back to the basics.

What's happening is that you are getting better at catching waves, so now when you do you can't kick the bad popup habit.

So, eat some crow and start from the beggining. Go to waist high surf and catch a bunch of short ride specifically to work on your popup. I know it sounds weird, but it seems you skipped the good popup portion of your learning, so go learn it. Try it, I bet just a couple of go outs where you practice like I suggested you'll be up and going in no time.

Lol! The last couple of posts are exactly why I started this thread in the first place. I know it's a bad habit and I want to break it. I am practicing my pop up in knee to waist high, even broken waves. I was looking for a tip to help break the habit.
One tip I was given was to life the hip of my power foot/leg off the board after pushing up into a cobra positions and then slide my feet under me. This supposedly gets my lower body, my feet, in position to be perpendicular to the stringer. I tend to pop up straight down the board without turning my body during the pop up.

Ok then, here is another: walk your way up on purpose, back foot first then front second. If you look up youtube videos on pop ups in slow motion you will see that the front foot goes down first, then the front. When begginers pop up the do both feet, they either end up on one knee or end up with thier feet together. Exagerate this during your popup, back foot then front. It will force you to land sideways, will put your foot down befroe your knee, and seperate your feet. Try it

themathteacher wrote:Ok then, here is another: walk your way up on purpose, back foot first then front second. If you look up youtube videos on pop ups in slow motion you will see that the front foot goes down first, then the front.

Back then front?

Its really one (or a combination of) three things:

1. hips not getting high enough, so no room for your legs to come through
2. hips high enough but legs too slow

Both the above assume you are trying to 'do it right' but just cant get the legs in the right place. You should be able to tell if this is the case because your pop up will feel all wrong as you are not landing as you expect to land - you are hitting your knees and its a bumpy transition.

Or, (3): just doing it wrong! That is, your muscle memory means you are getting to your knees as a matter of course. For this, your body will feel like its 'ok' - doing the right thing, it thinks, and the pop up will feel fairly smooth. So its just like a flaw in your golf stroke - you need to focus (eg through white water practice) until you have broken the muscle memory.

dtc wrote:
Back then front?

Yes, in a split seconds, which is why I said in slow motion. I was offering a visual and practical way to correct the stance.

It's like when I go to the driving range to hit some golf balls Someone can tell me I slice because I pull back my shoulder, but I rather know hot to hit it straight.

(Sorry to BigFlorider for the slight hi-jack..but it is on topic)

If I'm falling under this same described problem (body not reacting as fast as I'd like). For me, even on a land based push-up/pop up, I'm not landing with my feet as far forward as I believe I need. I also seem to need the tops of my feet to act as levers if I'm ever to get my feet as far forward as I want, and I expect that will work on the longboard but a horrible habit to get into if I ever have plans for a shortie. I'm not sure I do, but I don't want to put myself in a hole.

Will the proper placement/speed just happen over time/practice/muscle memory? I'm athletic and played sport(s) my whole life but have never been considered "quick/fast/agile". Should I concentrate on a more deliberate approach of a slide intto a back foot plant then front foot plant....with plans to speed it up over time?

(I"m still in whitewash with a longboard)

themathteacher wrote:

dtc wrote:
Back then front?

Yes, in a split seconds, which is why I said in slow motion. I was offering a visual and practical way to correct the stance.

It's like when I go to the driving range to hit some golf balls Someone can tell me I slice because I pull back my shoulder, but I rather know hot to hit it straight.

Yeah, I was just clarifying cos you had written 'front then front' - indeed, I think concentrating on getting the back foot in position is the key, since your front foot will follow.

Nick Carroll, who has written a surf instruction book, posted on another forum recently: A lot of "surf instructors" pay an odd sort of attention to the pop up thing. They seem to think it's a question of strength. It's not. It's a question of timing. The term pop up itself is a misnomer. In fact what occurs in most cases is that the board itself falls away from underneath you. You don't so much pop up as let it fall and slide to your feet as it does.

For this reason, popping up on land and on flat water is actually harder than on a wave. That said, if you can't pop up on land or white water, then you are at least not going to feel very confident when you get out onto the waves.

The thing about using your feet to pop up I reckon is just a natural reaction you are going to struggle with when practicing on land or on a longboard. Your body will use the feet push because it can and because your toes have to rest on something when you are laying down. But, when you get onto a shorter board and cant use your feet, then you will find you actually can pop up without your feet anyway (assuming you are doing a pop up rather than an 'aussie sprinter' type of pop up). If you want to try this out, I guess lay on something so your feet are off the end and see what happens - you may be surprised.

cbouza - In terms of feet being too far back, from watching beginners there is a common error that people try to push their upper body back over their feet, rather than bringing their feet under their upper body - not sure how to describe this. Maybe think about if you are laying on the floor, how you would normally get up. Probably you would bring your feet under your hips then push your upper body backwards and upwards. Of course, for a pop up you want to bring your feet a lot more forward and also twist sideways at the same time. So perhaps you are just doing what is natural. Also, my painfully learnt experience is that hand position is vital - if your hands are too high (shoulder level) then its very hard. You need your hands low (as I've said before, I put my left hand just above the bottom on my rib cage and my right hand below my rib cage ie quite far down my body and at slightly different levels - which assists in the twist as you stand up. Im a natural footer, so obviously reverse if goofy)

IMO just being out in the water as much as possible is all you need to break this habit.

I was doing the same thing for the first couple months.Surfing twice a week, maybe 3 times. Then had the oppurtunity to surf every day straight for a week. By the end of that week i was popping up as fast a the next guy (well maybe not as fast) but fast enough to actually surf the wave. They key is not actually popping up at all, but pushing the board down super hard, so your feet just fall onto it. Once you get it youll know, and will be an A-HA moment. After that its all gravy.

I also found the opposite of a few of these posters. Bigger waves with more push and momentum are far more easier for me to pop up on, than small grovelly ones, that dont really give you any momentum. The more push, and faster the wave pulls you in, the easier to pop up IMO. Thats not to say double overhead pipe is easier to pop up on than 2ft malibu but momentum is everything here.

FWIW

dtc wrote:

themathteacher wrote:

dtc wrote:
Back then front?

Yes, in a split seconds, which is why I said in slow motion. I was offering a visual and practical way to correct the stance.

It's like when I go to the driving range to hit some golf balls Someone can tell me I slice because I pull back my shoulder, but I rather know hot to hit it straight.

Yeah, I was just clarifying cos you had written 'front then front' - indeed, I think concentrating on getting the back foot in position is the key, since your front foot will follow.

LOL had not noticed that, yeah back to front. Thanks for the correction

Ok...here's an update on my progress...today was the first time in the water since I originally posted.

DTC - I believe my problem is my hips get high enough I am just dropping my back knee and not moving my back foot.

I tried the walk up method and it worked...I was able to stand multiple times planting my back foot first on the board then the front. My pop up on land works great, I just can't seem to get my feet moving in the water.

I'll keep at it and see what happens.

Good stuff - if you can stand up, then mission accomplished. Now just surf, the pop up refinement will come as you get more used to everything - indeed, if you need any refinement (even really high class longboarders, a lot of them just use a 'step up' type action because its smoother and suits their 'laid back' style). But your stepping will get quicker and quicker and eventually be indistinguishable from a 'normal' pop up.

So now only another 10234232 things to learn .... (I'm on about number 6).

You are off to a good start, if you can stand up the rest comes with time, it's when you can't stand up that surfing gets frustrating and tedious. Enjoy the stoke!!!!

Hi guys,
This is my first post in this site. Thanks to all the surfers around, this forum is really a great help.

Hey BigFlorider, i was doing my popup exactly the way you have described. It was ok for me (i thought) because i started surfing only a few months ago, however as i was getting more and more comfortable catching waves, i started to notice that this method made me lose a lot of speed (placing back feet first = braking), so i decided to get rid of that bad habit and try to do it properly.

My one step popup is still not perfect but i am able to do it and trust me, the difference in speed is significant.
Here are the things i have learned so far (just my experience...)

- I started practicing on the floor and was not able to do it. Then i moved to white water... and the same. I tried for a couple of days and was starting to get really annoyed and think that i just couldn't do it... until i decided to give it a go in green water. My experience is that doing the one-step popup is much easier on unbroken waves. I guess it is because you are pushing the board down so there is more space for your legs. Once i managed to do it, i went back to the floor and again i'm unable to do it... maybe it's lack of agility or that unconsciously i'm afraid to hit my knees against the floor... i don't know.

- All the tutorials i have seen on youtube say that you should look straight. That doesn't work for me (at least for now). Looking to the direction you will be facing once you are up on the board is helping me a lot. I'm goofy so when i am about to do the push, i look to the left. It sounds kind of stupid but it helps a lot to turn the body doing the popup.

- Related to the previous point, i always heard that both hands have to be in the same horizontal. That was not working for me either. Right now i am placing the hands NOT in the same horizontal but leaving a bit of space. So, if i'm turning left (i'm goofy) i place my left hand a few centimeters below my right hand. This, together with the previous point, is helping me a lot turning my body.

- As many people has mentioned, don't grab the rails. I was doing this before and it's taking me a lot of effort to get rid of it because it's already in my memory (i really have to think about not doing it, if not the hands go to the rails automatically). I don't know the explanation but even doing correctly the three previous points, if my hands are on the rails i don't manage to do the one-step popup.

As i said these are the 4 things i have changed regarding my popup and it's working for me. I guess once i get more experience i will not need to follow each point (such as look to the left instad of straight) but right now i have to fight against my body which is telling me to do it in the wrong way (the way i have been doing it for the last few months).
Hope it helps somebody.

Cheers from New Zealand!

Good post SP