Surfing Waves

Not of the video quality mind you, but of the lack of surfer's skill?

Anything I should be working on other than committing to the pop-up (got caught on one knee again) and not standing straight up rigid-ly like a robot?

I think you're right on. Keep working on your pop-up a bit. Once you are reliably and smoothly getting to both feet, then time to go a bit farther outside and work on catching clean waves and angling across the face.

Bend your knees a little more, and spread your feet wider, you are a little stiff and wobbly.

And yea, stop using your knees LOL

ohh, brave man, putting your video up on the net for all us anonymous posters to pick apart.

As said, bend your knees but also bend at your hips - watch good surfers and they are crouched down a bit. Or a lot, depending on wave. Its hard to do when you are just surfing into shore cos you dont usually need to get into a perfect position, when you are on the wave proper its easier because, well, if you dont then you may fall off.

Btw, when you are getting near the shore, stomp on the tail of your board and lift the nose right up, and you may be able to just 'bog' the board - so you stop and the wave carries on and you dont end up floundering on the shore.

Because you asked for comments .... when paddling, your arms are going very wide with shallow paddles. Paddling is similar to swimming - stretch out as straight ahead as you can and then a nice long stroke back to about shoulder/rib level, then lift your hands up. Wide shallow paddles puts all the stress - and the work effort - on the shoulders (meaning, at best, you tire quickly because your shoulders arent the strongest muscle, at worst rotator cuff issues). Straight ahead strokes and your back muscles take up some of the strain.

But these arent serious issues, you are looking pretty good. You should defintely start trying to surf across the wave - just paddle at a bit of an angle (for this wave, aiming slightly to the right of straight from where you are out on the water) and try a turn across. A simple tip is to literally point your front arm at where you want to go, your shoulder turns to follow and your weight moves and (hopefully) so does the board.

dtc wrote:ohh, brave man, putting your video up on the net for all us anonymous posters to pick apart.

Yeah, I definitely thought about "not" posting it. But since I don't know anyone locally who surfs to be able to see what I'm doing and tell me what to fix, my only choice was to post it and cover my head. If I didn't expect good, constructive criticism like I did get, I wouldn't have posted it.

Out of 5 "sessions" so far, this was only my 3rd time being on my feet while in motion and my longest "ride" to-date. The advice on weighting (stomp the tail so I don't eat a sand-sandwich), paddling, and stance is exactly the type of stuff I was hoping to hear.

Thanks all. I'm more likely to post more in the future, though if they are too bad I'll just PM a link to those who have responded.

cbouza3 wrote: The advice on weighting (stomp the tail so I don't eat a sand-sandwich), paddling, and stance is exactly the type of stuff I was hoping to hear.

I'm probably being a bit obvious here, but by 'stomp' I mean do something like in this video at about 1.10 and 1.30



ie put the weight on the tail, nose in the air and, if you can, swing the board around so you are facing across/back into the wave. You cant always do it, esp in white water - we have all ended up jumping off at the last minute and doing an elegant face plant.

dtc wrote:

cbouza3 wrote: The advice on weighting (stomp the tail so I don't eat a sand-sandwich), paddling, and stance is exactly the type of stuff I was hoping to hear.

I'm probably being a bit obvious here, but by 'stomp' I mean do something like in this video at about 1.10 and 1.30

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU8ue-CIKEA

ie put the weight on the tail, nose in the air and, if you can, swing the board around so you are facing across/back into the wave. You cant always do it, esp in white water - we have all ended up jumping off at the last minute and doing an elegant face plant.

Its an amazing stunt in surfing, he had a great cool stuff to entertain others through his style....!