Surfing Waves

Hi everyone,

My name is Wallie and i'm new over here. I'm skateboarding since i was 5 years old and now longboarding for six years. Last year i suffered a knee injury but next year im planning on going on my first surf trip. I have two questions:

- is being an experienced longboarder (on the streets) a benefit when it comes to starting with surfing? And if so, how can i practice already to do some excersises that could help me before picking up a surfboard next year?

- how stressful/painful is (wave)surfing for your knees?

Thanks in advance for helping me out, it means alot

Wallie

The skateboarding may help slightly but only once you are a bit more than a fresh beginner. Surfing requires several skills not required by skateboarding such as wave reading (you need to know where to be and which waves to catch and what to do when), paddling (90% of surfing is paddling), getting out through the waves (if you have never tried it this is a common problem for beginners), popping up (when you first catch a wave you need to get up to your feet). Once you get those things down then skateboarding may help. I guess the stress on knees for a beginner is similar to skateboarding except that waves are less predictable and this may end up messing with your knees. Once you get better then knees hold a lot of stress on bottom turns on bigger waves. My knees have a problem sometimes from me jumping off the board and landing on my feet in shallow water when I am riding a wave all the ways in to the beach.

Adding to what Old Man Surfer said...

The biggest difference will be weight placement.. On a surfboard heavy turns are carved by stepping back, weighting over the fins and moving your upper body like a Coleman slide. As you know, on a long skateboard this is done by weighting the front wheels and kicking out the back. Surfboards also have a sweet spot usually 2/3 forward where they will trim at the same speed as the wave. That said, waves don't move at a constant rate and you will have to step forward (speed up) or step back (slow down) to stay with the flow. It's one of the things I like most about surfing!