Body Surfing Skills

[BoMan]

I was inspired to learn about body surfing skills.

I spent a year in West Africa relearning to body surf, ..... put the image, ego aside and ride the right tool for the job, love what you do stay healthy and respect other ocean dwellers/ users........ sound like an old hippy? yep... except I grew up listening the Sex Pistols ..... perhaps we should look back o the George Greenough era... just surf and stop worrying abut how -NickR

Using fins on the shore break, I can ride straight or make short slides to the right or left, but I know there is a lot more to it. Can you share your experience?

[IanCaio]

I've never bodysurfed anything bigger than 1ft-2ft maybe and I don't know if I could call it a real ride. I was thinking about trying to body surf something bigger, getting a feel for it. Could be really useful if my leash snapped someday. My small wave leash, that I've been using in not so small days too, has been showing some tiny cuts that makes it a possibility.

Problem is when the surf is up, I'm rarely in the break without my board

[oldmansurfer]

There are many styles of bodysurfing. In the picture is the extended arm which is a common one. I think the arm extension allows your chest to act as a rail holding an edge. I used to do that one sometimes and developed another one where both of my hands were at my sides. Hands at your sides is another style but I went further to push my hands up under my chest so that I was hydroplaning on my hands. I needed about a 4 to 5 foot or more drop to get out of the water but once I did I could do bottom and top turns like what we called roller coasters. In addition on bigger waves then I would start to skip out of the water when I made a bottom turn ( like a flat stone thrown across the water) and I would extend my inside arm down into the water while airborne and this would result in me pivoting around that arm and my legs would hit the top of the wave and I would take off again. With bodysurfing as with board surfing wave reading skills are important. You need to line up for wave differently than you would surfing. The arm forward style was popular at Brenneki's beach where I spent much of my youth bodysurfing. It resulted in numerous broken arms by those who weren't as agile as me. They would take a drop arm out and go right down into the sand arm first. I guess that is better than the arms at the sides going into the sand which would cause concussions and broken necks which also occurred but much less.

[waikikikichan]

One of my most memorable waves in 20+ years of surfing wasn't on a surfboard. I wipeout and my board went all the way in. Not having a leash at the time, I started to swim in. A wave came, picked my body up, and I was gliding along the wave. Both my arms and chest were fully out of the water. I was waving at the other surfers as i passed them by. I couldn't believe the rush and the freedom. Guys were asking how I did that, I said "I don't know, first time ! "

Waterman_Duke-Kahanamoku_David-Davis-600x400.jpg (39.46 KiB) Viewed 2295 times

Looked exactly like how Duke Kahanamoku is in this photo.

[oldmansurfer]

One of my most memorable waves in 20+ years of surfing wasn't on a surfboard. I wipeout and my board went all the way in. Not having a leash at the time, I started to swim in. A wave came, picked my body up, and I was gliding along the wave. Both my arms and chest were fully out of the water. I was waving at the other surfers as i passed them by. I couldn't believe the rush and the freedom. Guys were asking how I did that, I said "I don't know, first time ! "

Waterman_Duke-Kahanamoku_David-Davis-600x400.jpg

Looked exactly like how Duke Kahanamoku is in this photo.

Very interesting. I have also bodysurfed like that and didn't know what it was that made that work

[pmcaero]

isn't that like hanging 10 where there is suction on the tail of the board keeping the nose out of the water?

[jaffa1949]

Love body surfing here is a short video of Mark Cunningham who is probably the KS of body surfing at pipeline. at pipeline https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3DfEgSKpjM
Body surfing was taught to Australians around the early 1900s by a native from Vanuatu Tommy Tanna ( named after island).
If the outgoing US President
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keX_gLjg6cQ can do it so can you, good swimming skills required.

[BoMan]

I had no idea body surfing was so much like riding a board.

Oldmansurfer
The arm extension allows your chest to act as a rail holding an edge.

Using the "superman style" I had to kick furiously to move across the wave, so switching to the arm extension should make it a lot easier. If Obama can do it, so can I.

Hands at your sides is another style but I went further to push my hands up under my chest so that I was hydroplaning on my hands. I needed about a 4 to 5 foot or more drop to get out of the water but once I did I could do bottom and top turns like what we called roller coasters.

This is AMAZING! Do you think using webbed gloves would make it work better?

[BoMan]

No body surfing thread would be complete without a look at the Wedge in Newport Beach, California. When firing, the wave is powerful, shallow and crowded.

[oldmansurfer]

This is AMAZING! Do you think using webbed gloves would make it work better?

Back when I did this I weighed much less than I do now and I practiced daily putting my hands back along my sides while laying face down on the floor then pushing as hard as I can. When I actually did this style of bodysurfing I locked my elbows on my ribs so that I didn't need as much force to keep my body out of the water. I don't think gloves would be needed or help but then again I never tried it. but basically my arms and hands and fins were all that touched the water. On the bigger waves I couldn't handle the g-force of the bottom turn and my chest would touch the water causing me to skip across the water like a stone. I would bounce higher than my arms could reach down to the water. It took me a few waves to figure what to do about the skipping but if I kept skipping eventually the wave would pass me by and I would skip multiple times. It was above 10 foot faces that I couldn't help but skip. I was really into bodysurfing. My parents tried to get me to enter competition but that would have meant going to Oahu and unfamiliar waves and having to please the judges (and only winning a couple hundred dollars if I won)

[waikikikichan]

No body surfing thread would be complete without a look at the Wedge in Newport Beach, California.

And also Point Panics on the Southshore of Oahu, Hawaii. This break is reserved ONLY for bodysurfers. No boards allowed bodyboard or surfboards.

[dtc]

Wow how good is mark Cunningham! And was that someone dropping in on Obama at 1.20 - surely the very last person to want to drop in on...

I have been at a beach several times seeing people stretchered off after body surfing accidents - so be mindful of the water depth and I really urge the front arm out style. Sure it might lead to the odd broken arm, but arms are fixable.

To start off, so long as you dont have shoulder issues, a hand plane can be useful. Well, not as an absolute starter but once you have the hang of going straight and want to start the across the wave thing. You can see that most of the surfing by Mark Cunningham is done based on the front hand planing on the surface - he raises his other hand increase the pressure on the front hand. A hand plane helps out with this

Fins are also quite useful - just the small body boarding ones, not long scuba / snorkelling types

[oldmansurfer]

No body surfing thread would be complete without a look at the Wedge in Newport Beach, California.

And also Point Panics on the Southshore of Oahu, Hawaii. This break is reserved ONLY for bodysurfers. No boards allowed bodyboard or surfboards.

If I recall correctly Point Panic was where the bodysurfing competitions my parents wanted me to enter were at. The wave is more mellow and less steep than Brenneki's where I bodysurfed. Awesome bodysurfing footage. I like the no paddle takeoff thing they do. I guess they kick with their fins but don't paddle with their arms.

[oldmansurfer]

Wow how good is mark Cunningham! And was that someone dropping in on Obama at 1.20 - surely the very last person to want to drop in on...

I have been at a beach several times seeing people stretchered off after body surfing accidents - so be mindful of the water depth and I really urge the front arm out style. Sure it might lead to the odd broken arm, but arms are fixable.

To start off, so long as you dont have shoulder issues, a hand plane can be useful. Well, not as an absolute starter but once you have the hang of going straight and want to start the across the wave thing. You can see that most of the surfing by Mark Cunningham is done based on the front hand planing on the surface - he raises his other hand increase the pressure on the front hand. A hand plane helps out with this

Fins are also quite useful - just the small body boarding ones, not long scuba / snorkelling types

I think Mark is just using his front hand to hold him up higher in the wave. Out of all the best bodysurfers I ever saw exactly zero of them used a hand plane.

[BoMan]

And also Point Panics on the Southshore of Oahu, Hawaii. This break is reserved ONLY for bodysurfers. No boards allowed bodyboard or surfboards.

The Wedge should be limited in the same way. I wonder how many are hurt in the chaos of flying bodies and boards!

[BoMan]

A hand plane can be useful. Well, not as an absolute starter but once you have the hang of going straight and want to start the across the wave thing. You can see that most of the surfing by Mark Cunningham is done based on the front hand planing on the surface - he raises his other hand increase the pressure on the front hand. A hand plane helps out with this.

Good stuff. I did a quick search and found different hand planes types. Is there one you recommend?

[oldmansurfer]

The thing with hand planes is the bigger they are the more they help but when you approach the size of a body board, you might as well be body boarding. The smaller they are the less hassle they are and the more similar to just using your hand. It limits what you can do on a wave but in the right instance it may help. Over all not useful but something different to do in the waves not the same as bodysurfing. On bigger waves they get in the way of your catching a wave. I started bodyboarding because you could go much faster than bodysurfing. I started surfing because you could go much faster than bodyboarding. Hand planes are good for small fast waves but a bodyboard or surfboard would be even better.

[dtc]

which hand plane creates as much dispute as which surfboard

I have only used a small one, sort of like the middle one, that you Velcro around your hand. Mine was just hard plastic, didn't cost very much. I think they help when you are learning but they do limit what you can do because you have a lump of plastic tied to you hand. But they help along the face, well they helped me. But as OMS said, you go slower bodysurfing, so you need a slow breaking wave to do much other than straight to the beach, but if the wave is too fat then you don't get enough push. So its hard to find the 'perfect' wave - easier to use a board.

[oldmansurfer]

Yeah boards allow you to go faster. Skills help you to ride waves just like surfing. I guess for many bodysurfing is a straight to the beach thing but for me that would be rare and even when riding whitewater as in leash broke and coming in bodysurfing, I go sideways to get to the power if I can. I guess board surfing is also a straight in to the beach thing for many but never was for me. Riding straight into the beach hasn't held my interest since I was a little kid just learning to bodysurf. If you learned to surf when I did you also learned to bodysurf if you didn't know already since there were no leashes and you had to go in and get your board.

[BoMan]

Both my arms and chest were fully out of the water. I was waving at the other surfers as i passed them by. I couldn't believe the rush and the freedom.

I love this! Does anyone know how to do it?