Surfing for a newbie

[pm17]

Hi
I am trying to learn surfing. I had just tried it for a couple of times basically to do a pop up . I could not continue on because of an injury (not due to surfing) but i would defintely like to continue or rather start again . Are there some drills that i can follow (even if i am not surfing) like on land.
Second thing is that I am not good at swimming free style/crawl but good enough in breast stroke . I am not sure how important is to be good at crawling in order to learn surfing . Or maybe as a restart i should start by becoming better in free style ??
You thoughts
pm

[jaffa1949]

Hi and welcome , the swimming part is very lifesavingly important. You need to be able to swim in under the beach conditions you go out in.
Breast stroke probably won't cut it, you need to be able to freestyle to a level were you can catch a wave and body surf at the very least. You don't need to be strong enough to swim against rips ( no one is but strong enough to swim across them parallel to the beach or to swim in from where they have taken you. Importantly neither your board or your leash is a lifesaving device, they are aids to your skill to save your own life.
Swimming is a great fitness start for surfing, body surfing boogie boarding are great ways to understand the sea and waves.
There is plenty of pop up advice on the forum and links to other videos and stuff have a browse.
For more specific advice, tell us about your injury, is it permanent or a healing thing.
One champion surfer does it with only one arm ( shark attack) and another who is blind (how he does it I have no idea), there are a few one legged surfers, so an injury we can probably advise around.

[oldmansurfer]

Swimming is great to build arm strength. You can practice popups on land. If you look at the top of this page there is a link that says Learn to surf. If you click there, there are many instructions for beginners. or ask us something specific.

[oldmansurfer]

Freestyle is what you should be practicing because it builds the right muscles but knowing breast stroke is good too because with waves sometimes freestyle is difficult and if you have to swim a long way sometimes you will tire doing freestyle and breast stroke uses slightly different muscles so you can continue swimming breast stroke and rest your freestyle muscles a bit

[Jester]

I'm a breast stroke swimmer and the paddling is definitely more related to freestyle but you won't have too much trouble, the excitement gets you paddling and you just build it up! I sometimes still breastroke my board forward when I get tired..get some funny looks mind you!!

[oldmansurfer]

If you have never lost a board and had to swim a long distance in the ocean boardless then you might not understand what I said. With a board it is your personal flotation device without your board then freestyle is generally the fastest and therefore safest way to swim. It also uses the exact same muscles as surfing so once you surf a bit freestyle should be the quickest way to the beach without your board regardless of you favorite stroke before surfing. Or actually generally in most situations you want to swim for your board which may or may not go to the beach. I guess that reality (losing a board) is a bit more likely for some surfers than others but still freestyle builds the muscles you need for surfing or vice versa surfing builds the muscles you use for freestyle

[billie_morini]

You can't quit until you go over the falls! And once that happens, you can't quit because you did!