Surfing Waves

Hi all,

I am a new Surfer from Germany and started just last year. I am 50 years old and started surfing to join my daughter, but now got hooked myself Our nearest surf spot is the pretty weak North Sea >2 hours drive away, and the nearest good coast is the French Atlantic coast, more than 1200km away. So given time and location, I will mostly surf on long weekends and during vacation. At my age that means I probably will never be a very good surfer anymore, and my main goal is to be able to catch the waves I want to catch, riding down the line with a few turns on my longboard. So far I have been on a board for about 20 days.

I have no problems getting into the lineup with 5 foot waves with my 9ft longboard, turtle roles work well and I have significantly improved in paddling power and efficiency.

My main struggle is with the takeoff. I works well on the ground, But after paddling, I feel I am not fast or strong enough to jump into position as needed (always come short, and then stall the board), and also feel my aged back in that process. I know I should be working on Core strength and fitness (and I do), but in order to get more waves soon, I want to try the two step Takeoff, where you plant your back foot first and I have seen some fluid takeoffs that way.

Now I have seen two versions. One is the "Chicken Wing" Type as described here: https://youtu.be/TFhQ6kdDmfE?t=4m6s. Here you position your back foot while still lying on the baord. That does require some body twisting and means the back foot will initially not be on the center of the board. The other is more along what I read as "Aussie Sprinter" like here https://youtu.be/yXTrMU3JBCM?t=2m24s. This seems faster to me and the back foot has a better chance to land in the center, but mabye it is less precise?

What is your view on these two versions, which one would you recommend? Thank you for your help!

Cheers, Lars

An interesting thing to me is the statement in the second video that bending your knees increases your speed and straightening them slows you down. I wonder what is the physical principles that governs that perception? I would say whatever works for you, but to get good at it you need to practice it frequently.... more than you have. Recently I improved my popup speed by doing dumbbells. I use 15 pound dumbbells and lay on my back on the ground then hold the dumbbells straight up to let my old back adjust to the weight then I bring my elbows down to my sides. Then as rapidly as I can I push the dumbbells straight up from their position at the side of my chest. This usually results in my back lifting off the ground due to the weights pulling on my arms at the end of the push. I just do 10 reps 2 times a week but it seems to have helped me. I noticed within a week my popups improved speed wise. Mostly I notice this on smaller waves as my pop ups are better on bigger steeper waves for whatever reason. I am not sure how exactly I popup but recently I popped up and got hit by a wave while I popped up and my front foot was already firmly placed but my rear foot failed to contact the board however my knee was over the board so I braced my knee on the board and made my bottom turn in that position then stood up. I have lots of core strength but working on arm and leg strength.

I say go out and try both and see which one feels better and is quicker. I've never tried the "sprinter" but I have done the "chicken wing," I'll admit it helped me popup on the shorter boards when transitioning down, but I was concentrating too much on my foot positioning before I even caught the wave so I abandoned the technique before I got it dialed in. It's not optimal to have a 2 step popup, those split seconds can be the difference between making a section or not(wave dependant), but it's worth a try.

However, if your popup works well on land, not sure why you would have problems in the water. Have you tried moving your "inside" hand further back when doing your popup, like almost at your waist and not your chest? Might want to try that as well, it helped me with my popup.

this to me looks way harder than popping up on a surfboard, so if you can master this you should be all set...

The oldgrom method of putting your back hand (right hand for natural footer) way down to your waist works really well and should be your first try. Left hand should be around nipple level, right hand around belly button level (reverse obviously for goofs)

But if that doesnt work, the aussie sprinter for sure. Its only useful for a longboard (say anything more than 1.5ft longer than your height give or take) and it doesnt work at all for a short board. But if you are staying long, then its perfectly fine. If you do it quick enough, you dont spend too much time with the back foot weighted

The chicken wing isnt feasible for a long board. You need to push your back foot against something, like the tailpad. On a longboard, you would have to have the tail pad about 2 ft from the tail for that to work, in which case you will (a) look really really silly and (b) have a stupid tailpad in the way whenever you wanted to move your back foot back over the tail.

If you do try the aussie sprinter, then a tip: wax your board all the way to the tail really well. Nothing beats trying to stand up on an unwaxed part and having your foot slip and you face planting back into the board just as the wave is pitching you forward.

oldmansurfer wrote: Mostly I notice this on smaller waves as my pop ups are better on bigger steeper waves for whatever reason. .

This is just because on steeper waves the board is falling away below you, which does 1/2 the work for you

dtc wrote:

oldmansurfer wrote: Mostly I notice this on smaller waves as my pop ups are better on bigger steeper waves for whatever reason. .

This is just because on steeper waves the board is falling away below you, which does 1/2 the work for you

And because the adrenaline boost I get from looking over the edge makes me react faster....and maybe ......something else

oldmansurfer wrote:

dtc wrote:

oldmansurfer wrote: Mostly I notice this on smaller waves as my pop ups are better on bigger steeper waves for whatever reason. .

This is just because on steeper waves the board is falling away below you, which does 1/2 the work for you

And because the adrenaline boost I get from looking over the edge makes me react faster....and maybe ......something else

For sure - some of my fastest pop ups are on steep waves that I think are going to close out straight away because I was in the wrong spot with the shifty peak. I'm up and heading down the wave before I even know whats going on.

Definitely....steeper waves in a way are easier because the board is falling away and because you can definitely "feel" that rhythm beat in terms of when to go....you also know when it's going to happen, can actually start to go before getting that catch feeling because you know that if you have reached a certain position and just paddle one more stroke you are 100% sure to have caught the wave and just go....fatter waves you sometimes aren't sure if you're in and have to arch up for a sec, push down on the nose or some other wiggle to finish the catch which screws the rhythm up.....I rode steep waves on a shortboard this week on one day and had a great sesh then the next day went out on my longboard on fat small waves and fell on my first attempt, tripping over myself mid pop up because the board didn't press down when I went to stand up from a combination of buoyancy and the wave shape....have to push a lot harder in that situation and feels like practice on the living room floor rather than the flowing blinding quick murky magic of a popup on a steeper, bigger wave. On a fair amount of those I still am surprised to be up and surfing away.....

Many thanks, very helpful feedback. With max 20 surfing days per year, I dont think I will ride a shorboard in a foreseeable future, so will try the Aussie sprinter version next time.