Surfing Waves

Hi Everyone,
I was watching a video in youtube and there is a guy paddling for a wave on a short board, before he pops up, he goes into a cobra press up position and holds it for 3 seconds looking left and right and pops up. The wave is not steep or anything but I am just curious what makes the wave carry him on top of the wave until he pops up? Will the feet in water not create drag? Thank you.

In the video you can see it is at 1:00 minutes.

He has essentially caught the wave and is pausing to look at how the wave is developing and what the other surfers are doing. I can understand perhaps you worry about drag from feet but realize that people catch waves without a surfboard, it's called body surfing and their whole body is causing drag. The surfer(s) doing this can obviously popup much quicker if they want to.

Waves are plenty powerful enough to overcome the drag of feet - once you have caught the wave. If they can fling your 70 or 80kg around when you fall off (or push a body surfer) then a smooth board and a foot is nothing (the usual drag problem is the feeble power of humans trying to overcome the drag of water to get speed - waves are massively more powerful than us)

He is able to do that because the wave hasn't broken; if it did he would be sent down to the bottom of the wave by the lip. He is surfing on the wave but not standing - you can see people standing and surfing in the same position (on the wave) quite often

Thanks guys. It makes sense that if the wave is caught early, few seconds before it breaks, I will have more time to pop up.

It may not make sense, but he has the performance paddle to get in early and the wave knowledge to know NOT to stand up just yet. He is waiting for the wave to stand up so he can get a good pump off the bottom turn. What you might not see is the rail engaging to slot into the wave even though his feet aren't on the deck yet. ( and the dragging of the inside foot might have something to do with that )

The long pause before popping up he will look down the line to see which way to take but is still in a position to pull out (I think)

Yes he can sit up and drag legs straight down which will make the board go over the back of the wave or perhaps even just sticking an arm straight down will stop the board. I do this once in a while trying to figure out - do I want this wave or not?