Turning off face of wave

[Andy92]

Hi, I'm a new member and this is my first post on here!

Was wondering if anyone could help. I've very recently transitioned from a 7"2 funboard to a 6"6 hybrid board (6"6 x 21 x 2 11/16), plenty of volume.

I took the new board out in fairly small surf( 2-3 ft) the past few days. It was very peaky and the waves didn't have too much of a shoulder to them although in similar waves I've had no problems on my bigger board. On new board I've found that when I'm surfing down the line on the wave face that I've ended up going up and over the face of the wave. I've tried weighting my front foot/ moving it up the board and compressing to try and get back down the face but this hasn't helped any. Was wondering if anyone had any advice to help me out a bit? Cheers

[oldmansurfer]

maybe the speed of the turns is faster and you need to turn back faster too? Also the smaller board may need more of a push so maybe you can try to stay back a bit? When I am in small mushy surf I try to do turns off the foam and floaters since they are easy to do in small mushy surf and it keeps my board in a more powerful part of the wave so I can make more powerful turns. I also sort of nose ride a bit on small mushy surf so if I feel like the wave is going to pass me by I step up to the front of the board so that my weight stays in front of the wave then when I drop down I step back to the tail again.

[Andy92]

Thanks for the reply oldmansurfer!
I'll try shifting my body forward a bit more towards the nose when I'm in smaller surf when it starts to happen again. It's a really weird feeling because it's almost as if I'm parallel to the wave and then it just rolls over me and I lose it. Since getting the board I've been paranoid about losing speed so I've maybe been overtaking the wave a bit aswell? I'm also not used to cutting back so it's a skill I'll have to develop.

Could I ask when it's most appropriate to start cutting back/ what sort of gradient and steepness to the wave would you start cutting back? I've never really attempted it before because my old board planed really easily even in weak waves.

When I was out I did try a few more acute turns in the whitewash and it was great fun. They're probably the first real turns I've ever done so definately for me the best way to start learning. Cheers

[oldmansurfer]

Generally I think most surfers learn a bottom turn first. That is the most important thing you do because it sets up what else you can do. Then most learn to do a top turn so you turn off the bottom go to the top and turn back down. The cutback is a longer more difficult turn so it is usually the third turn you learn. Initially you want a flatter part of the wave to cutback but you want some speed to hold you through the turn. Once you get good it can be done in steeper sections of the wave (requires more speed). However you could try cutting back now, you will have to at some point.

[Andy92]

Thanks again oldmansurfer!
I'll think have to keep practising my top turns in the foam because I don't quite yet have the timing or speed/flexibility on the open face to get them done. After a few days my hips have been killing me! I'll maybe leave the cutbacks for a bit and nail down some of the basics.

Generally how acute should the bottom turn be when setting up for a top turn like a snap? I've been finding that my bottom turns more often feel really drawn out and I'm finding myself often parallel to the wave instead of going back up the face. Any ideas on how I could improve this?
Thanks, your replys have been great!

[oldmansurfer]

Surfing is all about moving your center of gravity around and turning can be thought of weighting and unweighting. So a bottom turn is where you weight or push your weight down into the board. I usually will also crouch down a bit. I think of it like compressing a spring. Drop down and compress the spring and as you come out of the turn you release the compression. You can chose to release it in several different ways. If you want to go back up the wave it is kind of like jumping up the wave you turn up and release the compression in the direction you want to go but your lower half of your body goes up the wave while your upper portion stays more level. Coming out of the turn you extend your legs up but as you hit the top of the wave you compress again this time to force the board back down the wave once you finish the top turn. You can go down the line on a wave from a bottom turn. I will do that on a long walled wave to get up speed or sometimes I will make a prolonged bottom turn and lean forward then release the compression forward to get around the section of the wave that has passed me by while taking off or making my bottom turn. If you find yourself riding parallel to the wave you can suddenly crouch down to compress and immediately stand up while turning up the wave so there are two forces your weight falling down as you bend your legs then the force from extending them again. Also you have additional compression from changing the direction of the board while you do this. Also when wanting to go slow then you can just slowly release the compression and dissipate it to take speed off. You have to look at the wave and determine what you need to do or want to do. This may seem a little complicated but usually you should have an idea what you are going to do after the bottom turn before you pop up. It's freaking amazing to me what surfers do or even what I do when I surf. I will often do something and be thinking "Did I just do that? WOW! How did I know to do that?" It all takes practice. I am in the process of relearning to surf so maybe I have some latent skills.

[drowningbitbybit]

Generally how acute should the bottom turn be when setting up for a top turn like a snap?

Don't think of it in turns of preparing for the snap yet - to do a proper snap off the top means you need to turn almost 180 degrees during the bottom turn and keep all the speed, and then if you don't make the snap you'll wipeout.

So the bottom turn for a snap is much more committed than a "standard" bottom turn. Your bottom turn should put you nicely on the face of the wave, so maybe begin the turn earlier rather than running all the way to the bottom of the wave. You can then use the remainder of the drop to get some speed while riding along the face, and start to turn back up the wave.

As OldManSurfer says, its all about weight transfer.
On a shortboard, this will usually mean a lot of action with the arms and the shoulders as well as your hips and feet.


As for when to try out cutbacks - just try. You don't learn much going in a straight line

[dtc]

A smaller board wont generate its own speed as well as a bigger board. Remember that the water in the wave isnt actually going the same direction as you are (across), its going from the bottom of the wave up to the top. So if you are going too slow, the water pushing you up the wave may have more impact than your speed across the wave, and you end up up and over. So you need to go faster (pumping, perhaps). Also the rails should deal with this a bit, so perhaps you arent setting your rails quite right (might require a slight ankle lean into the wave - old man describes this well in some of his other posts).

Although I'm not always a big fan of watching pro surfing in terms of learning, have a look at the recent JBay stuff (last week's comp). Because they had pretty big waves on the final day (quarters, semi and final) and the wave was really long (30sec rides?), all these turns were really noticeable. Bottom turns, top, around a section/white water etc. Was useful to watch - and if you can find the heritage surfing heat with Tom Curren, his style was fantastic, well worth a good watching. Obviously none of us can do what they do, but you get a good chance to see how they set up the wave, do the turns, snaps out of this world!

Otherwise, read old man's stuff well, very good descriptions. Its actually a pretty natural action - crouch down and springing up as you turn, its how you do it skateboarding and skiing in even when you run and turn there is a bit of crouch and spring. But when you get to the unnatural feeling on a surf board, you (ie all of us) often dont let our bodies do things naturally, we are stiff and uncertain and too tentative. Relax and go with the flow...

[oldmansurfer]

Yeah watch Jbay you can see how they try to speed the board up around sections that break in front of them. Sometimes when a section passes them they do a floater or foam climb but if the timing isn't right (too much foam) they try to go around the section using a bottom turn. Either they just do one turn and either make it past the section or hold their position and hope they get around it eventually or sometimes they make a series of small bottom turns compressing and releasing to goose the board forward a little. Of course things are different on small sloppy waves but then the danger level is much less so you may feel free to take a chance and do something new. I ride small sloppy waves much more frequently than anything else so I do things to challenge myself. I try to see how long I can ride a wave..... milk it to the end....and sometimes it will reform on the inside so I may get a chance to do something more fun. I may take off way back so that I am forced to do foam climbs and floaters. I get such a kick from doing them because they are maneuvers that I had much more trouble doing long ago when I was a much better surfer. I may try to see if I can find a place to do a cutback which would be just a snapping cutback with a snapping turn back down the line so 2 snapping turns in an S shape. Anyway just find things to challenge yourself and have fun.

[Andy92]

Thanks guys, some really great stuff here thanks for all the replies!

I definitely haven't been using my body to spring through turns so I'm going to go out next time and just get used to the feeling. What I've been doing is dropping, looking at the section and either toe/heel pressure but I never thought about what the rest of me was doing! Really good descriptions of what I need to do.

I seen some of JBAY although work stopped me watching it all. It's good watching and they make it look so effortless. Looking at a lot of it though I can see how low most of them are through the bottom turn as try project out of it.

Dtc I've also heard a lot of the commentators speak about" setting the rail," does this just mean digging it in before using your spring to get through?

Like oldmansurfer described I also seen a lot if the guys adding in what looked like bottom pumps in the trough of the wave before bottom turning on the really fast breaking sections. Are these similar to do in terms of regular pumps? It looks like sometimes they're hopping their board forward?

Also cheers drowningbitbybit for clearing up the top turn for me!

[dtc]

Setting the rails just means getting the rails (edge) of the board into the water, which is what gives you control. ie you dont surf the board flat across the wave, you actually surf from the edge and if you try to turn before your rails are sufficiently connected to the wave, then you will skid / not turn etc. It might not be an issue - if you keep your board level then the rails are usually set properly.

Rail setting nicely shown by Jaffa's famous picture (jaffa is our resident guru)

jaffa.jpg (59.73 KiB) Viewed 1359 times

I was actually thinking again and wondering if your up and over the wave is being caused by you leaning back a bit too much, and without really realising it you are slightly turning up the wave. Maybe, maybe not

The other thing about turning, of course, is your upper body and head turn.

[jaffa1949]

Of course I had to like that! Thanks for the ego stroke!

[Andy92]

Cheers guys. Great picture illustrates it perfectly. Is there anyway of being able to feel when your rail is set (ie like the feeling when yours fins start holding). There's so much I've not actually thought about at all while I've been out in the water. I'll try and see if some of my buddies can record me or point out anything that I'm doing that's really wonky, it's entirely possible that my positioning is all off and that I'm leaning back. It's also possible my foot position is a bit off, I've been making a conscious effort to look where I'm going so maybe neglecting the feet

[oldmansurfer]

Like oldmansurfer described I also seen a lot if the guys adding in what looked like bottom pumps in the trough of the wave before bottom turning on the really fast breaking sections. Are these similar to do in terms of regular pumps? It looks like sometimes they're hopping their board forward?

I am not sure what you mean by regular pumps but if you mean speed pumps where you turn trying to generate speed that is not what they are doing and they are moving the board forward. In a typical speed pump you climb up and down the wave (and go forward). I thought these guys illustrated the forward or down the line jump. Getting around a big section is a problem I face regularly, one way is to use the power and speed from dropping down the wave but changing it to down the line velocity by turning the board. Sometimes this will be enough but most often on the end of that is a maneuver where they unweight in a more forward direction sort of tossing the board forward. It looks so simple but some of them get incredible forward (down the line) motion from that maneuver. I can do that a little but years ago I could do much more of that. And the little pumps are jumping the board forward or down the line and the speed only increases during the jump.

[Andy92]

Cheers oldmansurfer, I was just getting a little confused with terminology etc thanks for clearing it up! Thanks for explaining the motion, I've seen people use it a lot to get around fast breaking sections, definately will give it a go next time I'm out (also apologies you've explained it well in one of your other posts aswell!!!). I spoke to my friend that I surf with and he says I'm too stiff When surfing so going to have to try and loosen up a bit. Been flat for the past week driving me insane.

I got myself a cruiser skateboard to ease the boredom and I have to say it's helped me loads in terms of understanding body movement and weighting in terms of turns, especially bottom turns. It's taken the board to really understand what the spring compression/ release movement and back foot pressure really means, obviously in the water it will be more difficult though! I tried some of the points everyone has made trying to mimic bottom/top turns on the skate board and definately improvement, by the end of the session a lot smoother and a heck of a lot faster comming out of turns. Just need a few bumps in the ocean now to wet my feet a bit! Cheers

[oldmansurfer]

I don't know terminology well as most of what I do I discovered on my own surfing so don't take my terminology as the absolutely correct one. I can still remember when I learned to do speed pumps..... I was so thrilled and every wave I would take off on and fly down the line. I could go so fast, make incredibly fast waves and it lead to me doing floaters (didn't know what to call those either) because I was going so fast I couldn't stop. With speed pumps you gain speed because you are falling down the face of the wave and you can increase speed on every pump till you reach your boards limit. The forward pump or forward unweighting is different. When I first did it it was feeble but I could tell it was something different. It didn't look to me as I surfed that I should have been able to do that. After a lot of practice I could do it really well but some of the guys at Jbay get so much forward projection from that maneuver, it's just amazing. I have no idea what anyone else calls that maneuver so don't take me as the end source for this maneuver. So if anyone knows other terminology for that forward pump let us know and here is something I would like to know also if you or anyone knows it......When you get real high up in a big tube, the wave will sometimes push you at incredibly fast speeds sideways. So your board is angled down the face but the way it appears and feels like you are moving is sideways. I know other surfers have experienced this but I wonder is there a term for this situation? I always called it getting into the power pocket but I have only talked to a couple surfers about it in my life and they both knew what I was talking about but no name for it.

[surf patrol]

Old man: your description of the normal speed pump and that forward hop pump are spot on.

OP: Here's a video with really good examples of both types of pumps in slow motion (along with a bunch of other moves):

Old man: I think the thing you're describing can best be described by a snowboarding analogy (so I hope you've been before!). We all know that the slope of the wave (fat/steep) determines how much speed you can get from it. This is like the steepness of a ski slope (green/blue/black etc.).

When you're snowboarding, if you're on an edge (i.e. not going straight), you're sliding mostly sideways down the mountain, but also a bit forward. The steeper the slope, the faster you slide, but in both cases, you're sliding way faster downwards than you are forward. In surfing, we don't appear to be sliding continuously down a huge slope because the surface of the slope is moving with us. The high line in a barrel is pretty much the steepest part of the wave, so I think you feel like you're moving sideways because you're sliding down the wave really quickly (and going forward very quickly too).

[Andy92]

Cheers guys thanks for the replies! Have a lot to take into next session. Somedude that video was great, wish I could surf like that