Surfing Waves

Hopefully the above link works. It is a link to a video of my pop up I've been practicing. I'm not entirely sure if this is what I do every time while in the water, but it definitely feels similar, and is what I have seen most videos teach, referring to it as the "chicken wing" pop-up. However, when I watch videos of most pros doing it, they don't seem to use this technique but somehow spring up on short boards in one quick motion. Is what I am doing wrong? And if so, could you show me what to do differently? I appreciate the help. I live in Virginia Beach and started surfing about 2 years ago, but have just the past couple months started to see any improvement in my surfing, though still very small. I only get out every week or two unfortunately. Thanks for the help everyone.

questions:
1) What size board are you actually surfing on ?
2) Are you making the drop, bottom turning and getting out onto the face ? If YES, then it doesn't matter how YOUR pop up looks or what technique you choose to utilize. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
3) In those videos of the Pros, are they riding similar waves to what you're riding in Virginia beach ?

1) I typically ride either a 5'0 Odysea foam board (in the video), or a 5'10 board with a little more volume
2) Its about half and half. If I nailed all my pop ups and drops I wouldn't be too worried about it, but it seems like I screw up a decent amount of them
3) For the most part no, but there are days where its similar. Especially when I watch videos from the Outer Banks, or pros surfing the wave pools (the shape isn't similar but size is)

Firstly a lot of people even after a few years mess up their pop ups, so it might just be part of your progress. Especially given how short your boards are.That said your pop up looks pretty balanced so it might not be that

I suspect on a 5’ board, and also a 5’10, ramming your back foot against the tail will disrupt the balance of the board. The tail will sink, if your foot is off centre then it may twist around. You could be causing a sudden reduction in speed causing the board to end up in the lip. You jump forward a bit with your back foot, meaning that as you stand you are moving around - it’s harder to keep your balance moving than it is by landing and staying put for a second. Also by doing so you might be throwing your weight forward slightly rather than keeping it centred

If you want to pop up ‘like the pros’ it’s really a matter of breaking down your muscle memory and starting again. You look flexible enough that there should be no physical reason not to be able to do it. It’s a hip first movement - push, hips go up, then legs. Your pop up is push, leg, hip, legs. You ‘just’ need to stop the first leg part!

Move your hands down toward your hips a little bit more, focus on moving the hips. Like doing ‘the worm’. It’s not a complex movement, it’s just that you are used to doing it differently

Is this any better?
It feels quicker but I definitely feel more off balanced on the landing (I guess just because I'm not used to that motion). I really appreciate y'alls help

There's a difference between fast and quick, you're trying to do the action faster and faster. But try do it S L O Wwwwwww. Just like you see people do Tai-Chi. Work on form and being smooth first, then increase the speed.
This is the problem I see, you are NOT getting to your FEET. You are getting to your FOOT.

Opposites. You're really low, so low your back knee almost touches the deck. More distance, strain and TIME to get back upright.

Look at the weight distribution. How much weight is on the front foot versus the back foot ? 70/30 ? 80/20 ?
Trick question. To me it looks like 95% is on the front foot and 5% on the back BIG TOE.

Now as you rise up, notice your back foot comes off the deck and you rock back to place the foot back down.

Think about what's going to happen after the pop and the drop ? The Bottom Turn, where your back foot needs to be firmly planted over the fin(s). Your down-up, front-back, see-saw motion is eating up too much time and effort.
You need to land your back foot FLAT, not on it's toes ( or toe ).

It’s going to feel radically different in the water, but doing the motion on land is still a good idea, because if you train your muscles to react a certain way when you pull the pop up trigger, it will happen.

As Waikikichan said, if you’re getting up and on the face your golden, but I have some reservations about the chicken wing. I tended to get hung up in the lip until I broke that habit. My knee created drag as it came off the side of my board.

A lot of the take off is tied into the dropping of the nose of the board when the wave picks you up.

LostAtSea wrote:A lot of the take off is tied into the dropping of the nose of the board when the wave picks you up.

I find it helps to remember that your take off (first part of your ride after popping up) is due to gravity, not the wave pushing you/your fins. So you need to get up and over the ledge and start going ‘down the hill’.

dtc wrote:

LostAtSea wrote:A lot of the take off is tied into the dropping of the nose of the board when the wave picks you up.

I find it helps to remember that your take off (first part of your ride after popping up) is due to gravity, not the wave pushing you/your fins. So you need to get up and over the ledge and start going ‘down the hill’.

Exactly. That's what land pop ups don't teach, nor do white wash pop ups. Land pop ups get the body mechanics/ muscle memory ready for the moment you spring into action, but it's really all about the drop.

To the OP, you may find you're creating too much drag with the chicken wing - if you are, you will feel your leg catching water, as well as your weight transferring to the back of the board when you step down on it (getting hung up in the lip). If that's the case then you will either have to adjust by catching waves later, or better yet, have both feet "flick" up under your body right when the board drops down the face.

As the board breaks over the ledge, put your hands back by your ribs, push up and forward as you look down the line with your head up, throw your butt up in the air and pull your legs up beneath you. Once you get the feel of that start transferring the speed from the drop into a bottom turn.

I got out for a short session this morning in some 2 ft waves. It was high tide, and a sort of difficult day to catch waves on a shortboard. I stated to practice the new pop up. I screwed up about 6 waves trying it. It is much quicker, but I find myself off balance when I land. I find it difficult to get my back foot firm while still staying fairly compact. I think the main thing I did is put too much weight on the front foot, or to one side, and dug in to the wave too far.

It's a sad hard call as i see it, you are trying to ride too small a board in sloppy waves, matched with a poor pop up technique A foam board that size for a beginner is a glorified boogie board, and difficult to get paddle speed even for sloppy waves, the a rear foot stomp, breaks speed into a stall, then even the sloppy wave begins to lift the tail Next front foot stomp to try to correct drive nose in = wipe out!

Really try your learning with a bigger board, if you were a skilled surfer then what you are trying to ride would be a good beater toy mess around board
But not yet!

Beater boards are a lot of fun for what they are, but very unstable and not a great substitute for a real surfboard, especially for a beginner. They are really squirrelly and don't give you a good base to pop up on, which is probably the main reason for your problems now. As you get better and your pop up gets smoother, then you move from larger boards to smaller boards and go from there.

I would highly recommend a larger foam board for now, if you are doing okay on this one then you should do great on a ~7 ft. foam board, or a $99 Wavestorm from Costco (8 ft.)

Here are a couple of my favorite vids on popping up (first one is best because he does it so smoothly)-



I think of it as a 2-step process- first you plant your hands near your waist and lift your upper body (doesn't have to be a hard or fast push), and then you swing your bent/tucked legs underneath you using the space you created by lifting your upper body. You look easily young enough to do a streamlined pop up without having to chicken leg it. I am guessing the reason why you ended up with the chicken leg pop up was to compensate for the instability of the board.

Here's another good vid of pros popping up in slow-motion at Kelly's ranch-


Doing it on land is not the same as doing it on a wave, but it's still very good practice IMO and starts your muscle memory so it's more effortless in the water.

steveylang wrote:Here's another good vid of pros popping up in slow-motion at Kelly's ranch-

This video just never gets old. So good and so much to learn from it. Every time I watch it, I get something new out of it.

For noahb: notice the hand position of most of the pro surfers in that vid compared to yours. Rather than having both hands equal on the rails like you do, most of them have their leading hand closer to the center of the deck. This means that almost all of their weight is on that lead hand for just a moment as they pop up, helping to get the nose of the board into the wave faster. It may seem less stable to weight one hand rather than two, but small weight shifts on the rails cause greater instability than centering your mass along the stringer. This is especially true on shorter boards. On longboards you have a bigger, more stable platform to work with, so hand placement is less critical. Because of that, I had to break the habit of placing my hands on the rails to pop up when I moved to short boards. Hopefully, this will save you that trouble in advance.

noahb2710 wrote: I find it difficult to get my back foot firm while still staying fairly compact.

Why do you want to be compact ?

Thanks for the help everyone. I surfed a lager board for about a year and half and just the last few months have started trying to transition to a short board. Maybe I'm trying to progress too quick, and should go back to a larger board. I just figured throwing myself into it would be a good way to make myself better at short boarding.
I've always heard that during the pop-up you want to stay as compact as possible because you are most sturdy then. Is this not true?
There looks to be some decent sized waves tomorrow so I think I'm going to go out and practice (especially my pop-up) on my 5'10 actual surfboard

Get a friend and practice being in your surfing stance at different heights - standing up, slightly crouched, really low. Have your friend give you a little push at each height from a couple of angles.

You will probably find that at standing fully upright you will be pushed off balance fairly easily. At really low it’s the same thing (unless you are really flexible). But a partial crouch is the strongest (which sumo wrestlers and gridiron players etc use a partial crouch).

Forgot to add - try shifting your weight around (front, back, twist) at the different heights and see how it feels