Surfing Waves

Hi guys, I'm new to the forum. I'm joining because I have been surfing since this past winter on and off because school, so probably about 10 times total. I play water polo so I'm pretty good with paddling, and from years of bodysurfing as a kid I'm already starting to get good (when I say good I mean for someone at my level of experience) at reading waves and positioning. My only real problem with the basics now is getting up. I've been doing the slow way up with my back knee down and then stepping through with my front foot, and slowly transitioning to standing up, and I'm able to do that consistent enough that I wanted to start working on a full pop-up. While trying it out over the past week, I've had two separate problems which both bother me at separate times.
1) Sometimes I jump up and my front foot lands fine always, but my back leg is still landing with my knee and I'm not managing to bring it through fast enough to get up and I tend to get stuck with my leg down for about half of the ride.
2) Sometimes I manage to pop-up completely, and on those rare occasions, whenever I use a soft top board, my back foot always slips off to the toe side. I didn't have this problem while trying out harder boards with wax, so I realize my problem is traction, but I'm pretty sure that you can't wax the beginner soft top boards I rent or the beginner costco foam boards my friend gave me.
Anyways, all help or criticism is appreciated and duly noted, thanks!

Everyone has problems popping up at first, then suddenly you dont. The reason - muscle memory.

the act of popping up isnt actually too complex or hard, but its unnatural and made worse by the unnatural situation and the stress of doing everything else and once and falling down and all the rest.

But once you figure it out, it will just work - for example, your knee problem is just your body doing what it is used to doing. You have to think about things to fix that, when you arent concentrating the muscle memory takes over and ...knee. So you have to re-learn so your body does it automatically

Obviously dry land pop ups are quite useful, so pratice them. Just find a line on your carpet (this is the stringer of your board) and lay down, then pop up and make sure your feet are landing in the right place. Dry land pop ups are actually harder than on water, because on water your board is dropping as you get up, so there is more space.

One thing that really helped me was to keep my right hand (I am a natural footer ie left foot front) really low, around my hips. The left hand a bit higher, around lower rib cage. Reverse hands if you are a goofy foot. That gives a much stronger push and makes getting up easier.

Secondly, try and pop up as soon as you feel you have the wave. Yes, you will find a fair few times you are too early and the wave will pass you by. But you will get used to the act of popping up and get used to the timing and so forth.

As to the foot slipping off - I think you can wax softboards but you shouldnt have to. It suggests to me that you are landing on your heel with your foot coming through at an angle and you just arent getting enough grip when you land. I'm not sure why, could be any number of reasons. It could be that you are leaning backwards as you are popping up.

One thing that often helps is to remember to keep low - pop up and keep low - hips low, not shoulders. Hips well below shoulders, like a squat, bending at the knees, not at the waist. What this does is force you to sit flat on your feet, weight evenly balanced. Worth a go - might not be the right reason but its a good thing to do anyway

good luck - there are a few threads on pop up around so try the search function and you can find some other suggestions