Surfing Waves

A long hiatus...What could I have done differently on this wave to improve?



One obvious improvement is that I didn't immediately look to the right as I was popping up! It seems to me now I could've stayed high on that wave instead of dropping down to the bottom (which I did, and then I lost speed).

ConcreteVitamin wrote: I could've stayed high on that wave instead of dropping down to the bottom (which I did, and then I lost speed).

So you surmise that if you stayed high you would have more speed ?
Do think you could've gone much faster ?
Was the speed your were riding at feel "wrong" ?

I would suggest that , on this waves which in itself was slow that you had no awareness of your board’s trim spot, neither high nor low mattered there for most of the wave. As you progressed you slapped the nose up,and down a bit, meaning you were provoking the board in a stall, if you had taken a step or two forward after slapping the nose up,and down the board would have accelerated through the last section where you didn’t have enough speed. Your board position is to static to respond to,changing wave speeds!

waikikikichan wrote:

ConcreteVitamin wrote: I could've stayed high on that wave instead of dropping down to the bottom (which I did, and then I lost speed).

Was the speed your were riding at feel "wrong" ?

It felt wrong when I was at the bottom and started feeling deacceleration

jaffa1949 wrote:I would suggest that , on this waves which in itself was slow that you had no awareness of your board’s trim spot, neither high nor low mattered there for most of the wave. As you progressed you slapped the nose up,and down a bit, meaning you were provoking the board in a stall, if you had taken a step or two forward after slapping the nose up,and down the board would have accelerated through the last section where you didn’t have enough speed. Your board position is to static to respond to,changing wave speeds!

Good tip Jaffa, yeah I had this habit of trying to stall and then only attempting to shift center of mass forward by moving hip/knee, instead of actually moving the feet.

Another way of creating speed is to do,appropriate size turns ( in this case small) tick tack turn like skate boarding bottom turn slightly up the face, small turn back down. Add a small bit of speed sort of zip zap as you see a section build stall a little then step forward, feel the board accelerate, a sequence I would use on that wave from the start angled take off light bottom turn but not fully to the bottom turn higher , then I would either turn down or stall slightly after either I would step,forward .accelerate, step back try a stall step then fully step forward as smoothly as possible.
I note you whack the board up and down at least twice, that really slows the board and breaks any glide you might have had.
Watch the video and see if that would fit!
Watch the good guys doing their stuff on similar boards and see how they deal with nice fun waves like that one!

You recognized that you didn't look down the line on the pop up, but things were already going wrong before that. 1) You realized your were missing so you brought up your feet up to shift your weight forward. Means, wrong paddle, wrong position on the board, wrong position on the wave, wrong timing.
2) Your arms were too far in front on the push up, leading to a squatted stance before you straightened up, which took time. Squatted / hunched stance may have seen more stable, but you locked out the suspension of your legs.


3) You take off and then take a step forward. Again wrong position on the pop up.
Front hand/arm closed when it should be pointed down the line where you want to go.


4) You drop and drop but never go back up the face. You only "head turn" way after. You should have head turned before you reached the bottom.
Front arm still closed and now back arm bracing on a invisible railing.

5) You do these hops thinking it will help pick up speed. But look where you're bouncing up and down....... in the flats. The curl is way behind you. The rise and fall , the resist and relax, the roll from inside to outside rail is how a board picks up speed. Yes, there are times when you need to hop to make sections, where you displace water from under you board to make little troughs to fall in and out of. But what you're doing isn't that.

You are doing everything in the book, throwing the whole kitchen sink of actions to try to pick up speed. Moving back and forth, bouncing up and down, twisting / flinging your arms right and left. But you never were "WITH" the wave. You were using all these techniques but not making contact with the ball.
What could you have done differently ? LESS. Simple is best, Less is more. You need to learn TRIM, to flow across the face of the wave no faster or slower than what the wave is, all the while almost doing nothing. Once you learn TRIM, you can then break trim make the rail go up or down, rise or fall.

To learn how to stay with the wave, I recommend you do a "Race Car", where you take off and instead of popping up to your feet, you throw your feet forward and sit on your butt, feet straight ahead. Use you back hand to feel the wave and shift around you weight to engage the inside rail. When the wave gets too step or fast, you can listen you grip and shift away and back you butt weight. This will cancel out you ability to hop and teach you how to use your rail and weight distribution to stay with the wave.

Waikikichan has good advice. I look at the wave and think what would I have done? I think I wold have taken off a little deeper and jammed a hard bottom turn so that maybe I could get at least one good top turn or cutback out of the wave. That wave doesn't look like it has much to offer.

It looks to me like you’re out in front of it, almost in the flats, the entire time, and it keeps catching up to you. You should be turning and trimming much sooner and then cutting back when you outrun it (which just looks inevitable on that wave).

Tom

EDIT- I think I just dumbed down what WKK said lol.