Surfing Waves

Hi folks!

I am a beginner and I've been taking lessons everyday for a week now, so in total 7 lessons straight (1/1.5h each)

I started with a 8' foam board learning how to stand up, paddle and catching broken waves.
With the last lesson I switched to my first hard board, a 8.9'.

It's been a total new world. I have felt like I have to start from scratch, I couldn't stand up and my balance was really bad... I feel so frustrated.
Plus my physical condition were not great, I felt really heavy on my legs, probably tired, but that's for sure not the reason.

I wonder if it's normal to feel like that when moving from a foam board to a hard one, if it's part of the learning process...
what you guys think?

Second question... you guys think anyway that's the correct size I should move to?
I am 173cmx71Kg (5'67x158lb.)

I am 50 sessions in, still haven’t switched.

What are the full dimensions for your new board?

Foam boards are easier paddlers and often more stable/wider. They are designed to be big, thick and wide (ie easy paddlers, stable, lots of margin for error) to be easy to learn on. That is why they are good for beginners. Hard boards are usually narrower, a bit less thick etc - enough to make a difference.

Are you catching waves themselves or are you mostly in the white water? Foam boards are more buoyant than (most) hard boards, so in the white water or at low speeds the difference is quite noticeable. On the face of a wave, when you have some speed, the difference is less noticeable (personally I find that hardboards are actually better on the face because they have better rails and bottom contours and foam distribution)

that said, on day 8 you might just have hit the limit of your body's fitness and ability to recover. 8 days of surfing in a row is tough for most people, let alone a beginner. Have a good sleep, eat some protein, maybe take a day off, then give it another go. You may find its not so hard after all.

dtc wrote:What are the full dimensions for your new board?

Foam boards are easier paddlers and often more stable/wider. They are designed to be big, thick and wide (ie easy paddlers, stable, lots of margin for error) to be easy to learn on. That is why they are good for beginners. Hard boards are usually narrower, a bit less thick etc - enough to make a difference.

Are you catching waves themselves or are you mostly in the white water? Foam boards are more buoyant than (most) hard boards, so in the white water or at low speeds the difference is quite noticeable. On the face of a wave, when you have some speed, the difference is less noticeable (personally I find that hardboards are actually better on the face because they have better rails and bottom contours and foam distribution)

that said, on day 8 you might just have hit the limit of your body's fitness and ability to recover. 8 days of surfing in a row is tough for most people, let alone a beginner. Have a good sleep, eat some protein, maybe take a day off, then give it another go. You may find its not so hard after all.

Thanks for your reply. I decided to take a day off to rest, my legs sore this morning. I think it's a good advice.

I m mostly catching waves on a reef break with the instructor help, not by my self and I guess mostly in white waters.

The full specs of the new board are:
Length 8'4"
Width 23"
Thickness 3 3/4"
Volume 89L

noodles83 wrote: my physical condition were not great, I felt really heavy on my legs, probably tired, but that's for sure not the reason.

How were you so sure that "for sure being tired" was not the reason ? Did your instructor tell you that ?

waikikikichan wrote:

noodles83 wrote: my physical condition were not great, I felt really heavy on my legs, probably tired, but that's for sure not the reason.

How were you so sure that "for sure being tired" was not the reason ? Did your instructor tell you that ?

Hi buddy!
Well it's a feeling I had because I moved to the new board and I found it was difficult to adapt.
I m pretty sure that being tired made it more difficult.

What I wonder is if it should be an easy step, like not feeling much difference, moving from a foamy to a hard board or if instead what I am facing it's part of the normal learning process and it requires some time to adapt to the new one

So you were SURE it was been tired that made it more difficult ? Okay, glad you cleared that up.

Soft boards are FORGIVING. They absorb the wave motions and your own body reactions. Like high volume balloon tires on a beach cruiser at 40 psi. versus the tires on racing road bike at 120 psi. the ride is soft and compliant. The harder board will reward if your give smooth input, but buck you off quicker with herky-jerky actions and bad foot placements/stance, where as the soft board might stay upright ( due to it's flex, boxy rails and volume ).

But like most people trying to solve a problem, one blames the arrow not the Indian. "Ride the wave, not the Board" is what Duke Kahanamoku said. Agreed changing boards, fins, surf breaks takes some adjustment time. But you may be over analyzing what's right or wrong ( yet not knowing what that is ). Being a bit too over confident in your past accomplishments on previous equipment, saying to yourself "shouldn't I be getting better ?" The more you "TRY" to do things to stay on the board, the more you end up falling. Just surf, ride the wave.

waikikikichan wrote:So you were SURE it was been tired that made it more difficult ? Okay, glad you cleared that up.

Yes, I am also sure I would have failed anyway even if I wasn't tired.

waikikikichan wrote:Soft boards are FORGIVING. They absorb the wave motions and your own body reactions. Like high volume balloon tires on a beach cruiser at 40 psi. versus the tires on racing road bike at 120 psi. the ride is soft and compliant. The harder board will reward if your give smooth input, but buck you off quicker with herky-jerky actions and bad foot placements/stance, where as the soft board might stay upright ( due to it's flex, boxy rails and volume ).

It makes a lot of sense. Great explanation.

waikikikichan wrote:But like most people trying to solve a problem, one blames the arrow not the Indian. "Ride the wave, not the Board" is what Duke Kahanamoku said. Agreed changing boards, fins, surf breaks takes some adjustment time. But you may be over analyzing what's right or wrong ( yet not knowing what that is ). Being a bit too over confident in your past accomplishments on previous equipment, saying to yourself "shouldn't I be getting better ?" The more you "TRY" to do things to stay on the board, the more you end up falling. Just surf, ride the wave.

Yeah, probably you are right. I would say I didn't know what to expect with a change, I knew it would have been difficult but probably not such a big change or maybe yes I was too confident.

Tomorrow I ll go and remember to ride the wave not the board!

A question... why a beginner should start with a foamy and not with a hard board right away?

What's your thoughts about that?

noodles83 wrote:A question... why a beginner should start with a foamy and not with a hard board right away?

The real truth is it's NOT for the Beginners sake ..............it's for the safety of the rest of us !!

Yep, a soft board is purely to protect the beginner from hitting their board and protecting other surfers from being hit by the beginner. Originally - 10 or 15 years ago - only surf schools used soft boards because they have lots of beginners in a small area all running over each other. Everyone then just bought a hard bought and taught themselves

There are benefits to a foam board but they certainly are not essential to learn

Thanks guys for your replies!
Yesterday I went out alone for the first time with the new board, to get comfortable with it and some confidence in the water. I could catch one wave by my self in 2h but I felt incredibly happy to be there alone and trying trying and trying...
I hope I will get better by keep practicing.

One more question... Do you guys think I should keep going with lessons or now I should just try by myself as much as I can?

You could only catch 1 wave in 2 hours seems sad, but how many waves came thru the break in that hour ? 20 waves ? 2 waves ? Did all the regulars and school learners take all the waves ?
Of those waves where you did only catch 1, how many did you go for ? 5 waves or 50 waves ? If you only went for 2 waves during that time and caught 1, than you’re at 50% success rate. Not bad.

Well, I really don't remember, I probably tried 5-6 times, buy it was really the first time without the instructor, and the second time at that spot, so I had to paddle a lot to find the right position to understand the waves, plus I wanted to take some confidence with the board, which was also my goal.

Today I went again with the instructor and I caught many waves with his help of course. I feel like I found the right fit with the new board.

Perhaps your positioning on the board is off. Maybe you need to get a little more forward on the board. A common beginner problem is staying too far back causing the board to push water as you paddle slowing it down.

In terms of lessons or not - I think it depends on how much help the instructor is actually giving. Is s/he just around and perhaps going 'paddle paddle' or actually giving useful tips (most instructors tend to do the former...). Are you totally reliant on the instructor or starting to be independent?

You obviously need, at some stage, to start getting confidence in being out there by yourself and you need to start figuring out how to do things by yourself (and not, for example, rely on an instructor to say 'paddle now' to get your timing right, or give you a push into the wave).

My general feeling is that people should take a few lessons and then aim to spend maybe 20 sessions or so by themselves. If you feel that some more lessons at the end of that will help, then take some more. If you feel after 10 sessions that you are getting nowhere and just cant progress, then get another lesson; in both situations you should try to understand what exactly is not working and get some instruction on more specific skills (eg is it timing, or the pop up, or bottom turns etc)

Your learning curve is steep and progress will be slow. It may be quite a while until you are catching and standing up on 50% of the waves attempted - that is pretty normal. Just stay optimistic and persistent and you will get there

dtc wrote:In terms of lessons or not - I think it depends on how much help the instructor is actually giving. Is s/he just around and perhaps going 'paddle paddle' or actually giving useful tips (most instructors tend to do the former...). Are you totally reliant on the instructor or starting to be independent?

You obviously need, at some stage, to start getting confidence in being out there by yourself and you need to start figuring out how to do things by yourself (and not, for example, rely on an instructor to say 'paddle now' to get your timing right, or give you a push into the wave).

My general feeling is that people should take a few lessons and then aim to spend maybe 20 sessions or so by themselves. If you feel that some more lessons at the end of that will help, then take some more. If you feel after 10 sessions that you are getting nowhere and just cant progress, then get another lesson; in both situations you should try to understand what exactly is not working and get some instruction on more specific skills (eg is it timing, or the pop up, or bottom turns etc)

Your learning curve is steep and progress will be slow. It may be quite a while until you are catching and standing up on 50% of the waves attempted - that is pretty normal. Just stay optimistic and persistent and you will get there

Yeah I think I am at the point where I feel I want/need to get some confidence by myself out there and maybe as you said taking some more lessons if I feel I m going anywhere.

And yes... At the moment is just positioning me and tell me "paddle paddle" and of course correcting me when I do mistakes but... I really feel like trying now by myself as much as I can.

waikikikichan wrote:Soft boards are FORGIVING. They absorb the wave motions and your own body reactions. Like high volume balloon tires on a beach cruiser at 40 psi. versus the tires on racing road bike at 120 psi. the ride is soft and compliant. The harder board will reward if your give smooth input, but buck you off quicker with herky-jerky actions and bad foot placements/stance, where as the soft board might stay upright ( due to it's flex, boxy rails and volume ).

That sounds like a good solid reason to start on a soft board; much like learning to ride horses on a forgiving, slightly geriatric horse that ignores your spurious inputs and just gets the basic message of where and how you want to ride, before progressing to a more reactive horse later on. Micra vs Porsche, Cessna vs Pitts: same sort of thing.

However, having understood the above, this then confused me:

waikikikichan wrote:The real truth is it's NOT for the Beginners sake ..............it's for the safety of the rest of us !!

That seems to contradict what you said initially. Could you explain further? I'm genuinely asking, because I've never surfed a hard board, I'm still on a foamie. I always thought beginners surfed foamies for both of the above reasons.

I don’t see a “contradiction” at all. I see a “dual benefit”. Safer and easier for the beginner to learn on ........ and safer for others around the beginner.

25+ years ago I was the only one surfing on a sponge board in Waikiki. All the rentals were mainly 10 feet traditional heavy fiberglass boards. Lots of the “older” forum never learned on a “sponge” because there just weren’t any back then. Now there are sponge boards you can buy at big box stores. Plus now it’s way way more crowded, due to “blue crush” movie, beach culture fashion, snowboarders cross-sporting back and kooks thinking they can surf by watching YouTube “rip like a pro in 20 minutes” videos. So starting on a sponge is a good thing.

Nothing wrong with sponge. I'm on sponge now and can usually get a couple of YEWWWWs from people around me in a session. They might not expect a sponge dude attempting a late, steep, or a big takeoff. So it won't hold you back & you'll know when to switch!

waikikikichan wrote:I don’t see a “contradiction” at all. I see a “dual benefit”. Safer and easier for the beginner to learn on ........ and safer for others around the beginner.

25+ years ago I was the only one surfing on a sponge board in Waikiki. All the rentals were mainly 10 feet traditional heavy fiberglass boards. Lots of the “older” forum never learned on a “sponge” because there just weren’t any back then. Now there are sponge boards you can buy at big box stores. Plus now it’s way way more crowded, due to “blue crush” movie, beach culture fashion, snowboarders cross-sporting back and kooks thinking they can surf by watching YouTube “rip like a pro in 20 minutes” videos. So starting on a sponge is a good thing.

Sorry, a misunderstanding I guess. You said in capital letters that learning on a foamie was not for the beginner's sake; whereas you said earlier that there was a benefit for the beginner: that they're easier to surf. If it's both though, that makes sense.

I was curious because it's often not that crowded where I surf and I keep my distance from more experienced surfers. I've certainly never come close enough to run into someone.