Surfing Waves

Hi new to this site and everyone here so hello everyone , I need some advice please,
I went out Saturday and I felt like a was going backwards , could not catch waves balance was poor lying on board and I havevtrouble sitting up on my board , I'm just at the stage. Of popping up but very disheartened after Saturday .
Do other people have this problem ? Or is it just me lol any advice would be greatly appreciated

How long have you been surfing? How many times have you gone out? Are you on a foamie or a real board?

Yes, everyone goes through that. Learning to surf is a long slow process... but it is supposed to be fun, so don't let frustration ruin a session

Join the club - sometimes everything clicks, somedays nothing works. Some days you catch every wave you go for and some days you don't.

The only tip I can make is think about what is going wrong and see if you can figure out why it is going wrong and fix it where possible. If its a skill you just haven't fully developed, what can you do about it (eg: practice on land, do some swimming or strength or mobility work)? If its a mechanical issue (for example, you aren't stable on your board), can you figure out why you are suddenly unstable and what you are doing differently - eg perhaps you are laying differently, so find out the right spot. If you are missing waves, are you in the wrong spot and how do you fix that (for example, commit next time you are missing waves to moving more toward the beach) or is it your paddling (are you paddling too slowly because you are getting nervous)

There are a never ending number of things that can go wrong in surfing and sometimes too many emerge at the same time and you have a bad session.

Remember everyone goes up and down in all physical activities; otherwise you wouldn't hit one golf shot 280m down the middle of the fairway and the next one 75m sideways onto the wrong fairway (or is that just me?)

I don't golf But yeah it is common to backslide a little now and then. I think when you are first starting it is like "OH NO!!! Do i have to learn that all over again?" But there will be another day and another wave. For me it is when I can't surf often enough then I have to work at what I learned before. I think the older you get the more quickly you get out of practice. But it will all come back. When I was learning I had weeks where I pearled all the time. I would worry so much about pearling it just made it worse. You need to learn to focus on what you are doing and what the wave is doing and don't worry about how you are doing.

Thanks everyone for your replys very helpful I will stick at it.