Surfing Waves

This last month I made a deal with a friend photographer to get some video footage of myself surfing. The main goal was to find out where I should improve, but it was also cool to see me surfing from another perspective. I had never seen any clips of myself besides some pictures.

Here are some of the clips. I'm trying analyze them too, but I was wondering what advice the more experienced can give me to improve as well. They are in slow motion to make it easier









The yellow board is my current everyday board, also the smallest I've ever had. It's a 5'8", which I like a lot because it's looser than the others. I can disengage the fins easier when I'm trying to carve, and it's quick to maneuver. The blue board is my groveler board. It's 5'10" but wider and thicker. I haven't used it a lot, usually when my main board is damaged. I think it was a good fit for the conditions of the videos where I'm using it though..

Thanks for any help and a happy new year for everyone!

On the second video, where you drop down and the wave in the foreground slightly obscures the view, I can see you wind up for the big hit. Your back arm comes across your chest and the upper body twists into the face of the wave. But coming out of the bottom turn, you just fling back your back hand without much purpose. The roll of your board from inside rail to flat bottom to outside rail didn't happen at the right time or place. You didn't set it up to be under the lip, and went too far out on the shoulder. Look what's happening to your legs at the apex of the turn, where your legs absorb the hit, instead of deliver the hit.

You're doing the right "motions" ( dance steps ) but in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Throwing a baseball, shifting gears or even jumping rope need coordinated effort and timing to have the desired results.

Awesome videos. The only thing I can say is the waves seem lumpy which probably affects what you can do but looks like you are loosing speed in your backside top turns could be due to the lumpy waves

waikikikichan wrote:On the second video, where you drop down and the wave in the foreground slightly obscures the view, I can see you wind up for the big hit. Your back arm comes across your chest and the upper body twists into the face of the wave. But coming out of the bottom turn, you just fling back your back hand without much purpose. The roll of your board from inside rail to flat bottom to outside rail didn't happen at the right time or place. You didn't set it up to be under the lip, and went too far out on the shoulder. Look what's happening to your legs at the apex of the turn, where your legs absorb the hit, instead of deliver the hit.

You're doing the right "motions" ( dance steps ) but in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Throwing a baseball, shifting gears or even jumping rope need coordinated effort and timing to have the desired results.

Thanks Waikikikichan, you always have some good insight to give!

Good to know I'm at least doing the motions kind of correctly, so it's more a matter of enhancing them and getting the timing right! I think on that wave I noticed I was going too far on the shoulder and at the last moment decided to do the carve to go back to the pocket, but since it was a last minute decision I ended up doing that "uncommited" turn. Bad wave reading, guess also because the conditions were a bit difficult that day. Swell was just hitting, so there was some size but formation wasn't great.

Next time I'm on the water I'll try to make more intense arms and torso movements. See how it turns out

oldmansurfer wrote:Awesome videos. The only thing I can say is the waves seem lumpy which probably affects what you can do but looks like you are loosing speed in your backside top turns could be due to the lumpy waves

Thanks OMS! The two clips where I'm with a short wetsuit the swell was just hitting, so it was a little difficult. The waves weren't hollow, but were breaking with some volume, already a little annoying to duck dive the set ones if you were right under it. It took a few waves for me to realize there was basically only room for trying cutbacks!

The other two videos are in a day where the waves were smaller, but there was some offshore wind. They were breaking more cleanly!

IanCaio wrote:Next time I'm on the water I'll try to make more intense arms and torso movements.

No, you need to do the exact opposite of what you think. You need to do LESS intense swinging of the arms. You need to slow things down.

okay so some other thoughts are doing multiple maneuvers on a wave involve getting speed and it does seem you are getting speed but you could get more and once you do have speed you could start to do more vertical turns but to do so you need to get down to the bottom of the wave and jam a hard bottom turn straight up the face. It looks to me that you can do lots other than cutbacks on those waves but you need to do them at different places like sooner. There are several sections that break and you kind of go by them but it seem to me they are just about perfect place for a off the lip turn where you turn off the top and the wave breaks and helps to get you more speed back down the wave but you need to get to the bottom and jam a hard turn up the face. Where you can do a cutback, if you turn sooner you can do a hard top turn then fade back and then do a cutback. The walls seem to hold up but my point in the above post was there seems to be a less than flat face on many of the waves. I find this affects my ability to do hard turns sometimes depending on the location of the lump. Overall though it seems like you are doing great. It's all taking steps so for me one of the steps I did was to try to turn sooner. I still work at that but this is what pros can do so well compared to beginners, turn much sooner and more vertical and keep speed throughout a wave.

waikikikichan wrote:No, you need to do the exact opposite of what you think. You need to do LESS intense swinging of the arms. You need to slow things down.

You mean like focusing less about the torso and arms movements and more about the timing?

Usually when I'm on the water things are kind of happening fast, so I'm trying to figure out something, even small, that I should concentrate on next time I go in. There's a swell about to hit tomorrow, maybe saturday. Last swell was over by Christmas so I'm happy that flat spell is about to be over

oldmansurfer wrote:okay so some other thoughts are doing multiple maneuvers on a wave involve getting speed and it does seem you are getting speed but you could get more and once you do have speed you could start to do more vertical turns but to do so you need to get down to the bottom of the wave and jam a hard bottom turn straight up the face. It looks to me that you can do lots other than cutbacks on those waves but you need to do them at different places like sooner. There are several sections that break and you kind of go by them but it seem to me they are just about perfect place for a off the lip turn where you turn off the top and the wave breaks and helps to get you more speed back down the wave but you need to get to the bottom and jam a hard turn up the face. Where you can do a cutback, if you turn sooner you can do a hard top turn then fade back and then do a cutback. The walls seem to hold up but my point in the above post was there seems to be a less than flat face on many of the waves. I find this affects my ability to do hard turns sometimes depending on the location of the lump. Overall though it seems like you are doing great. It's all taking steps so for me one of the steps I did was to try to turn sooner. I still work at that but this is what pros can do so well compared to beginners, turn much sooner and more vertical and keep speed throughout a wave.

I know what you mean. Some days I find it easier to do a faster and more vertical bottom turn than others, guess conditions have a big influence on that. Those days where waves are not too small and also not big are the ones I manage to get it right slightly more often.

On your frontside you hit the sections but not backside or so it seems. I find it easier to do vertical turns on my backside. On frontside off the lips when the wave whacks back the board comes really close to my face sometimes but backside it's no problem

IanCaio wrote:You mean like focusing less about the torso and arms movements and more about the timing?

No, it's not just movements, timing, vision, stance, board, fins, wave........... it's EVERYTHING working in unison.

IanCaio wrote:Usually when I'm on the water things are kind of happening fast, so I'm trying to figure out something, even small, that I should concentrate on next time I go in.

So you need to be one or two steps ahead. Just like a master chess player who knows his opponent's next move, he already takes step to counter it beforehand. By the time you are going up out of your bottom turn, mid way you should already be making thoughts, movements to turn down. When you get up to the top, then think to turn down, it's too late.
That is where wave knowledge comes in, knowing the motion of the ocean.

I purposely didn't bring up your frontside, because like OMS said, you seem to do better that way. But since we're on that subject, you have a massive problem. Go back and look at just your front arm. Forget about everything else in the video, just your front arm. It is not leading the action, it reacts after or too early. In the first video, even in the screen shot, it cocked up and locked up high.

In the 4th video, your front arm is swinging/flinging not leading or controlling the movement. It's being used more for balance than steering or drive. Look closely at your two frontside hits, which way is you palm facing ? Up or Down ?

oldmansurfer wrote:On your frontside you hit the sections but not backside or so it seems. I find it easier to do vertical turns on my backside. On frontside off the lips when the wave whacks back the board comes really close to my face sometimes but backside it's no problem

My impression is that I'm more consistent on frontside, but at the same time it's easier to kick the tail or get a bit more vertical going backside. Just also easier to miss the trick completely..

waikikikichan wrote:So you need to be one or two steps ahead. Just like a master chess player who knows his opponent's next move, he already takes step to counter it beforehand. By the time you are going up out of your bottom turn, mid way you should already be making thoughts, movements to turn down. When you get up to the top, then think to turn down, it's too late.
That is where wave knowledge comes in, knowing the motion of the ocean.

I see, like anticipating the trick. I guess with time I've been improving my wave reading, but still make some mistakes. Think that's a matter of getting more water time under my belt, right?

waikikikichan wrote:I purposely didn't bring up your frontside, because like OMS said, you seem to do better that way. But since we're on that subject, you have a massive problem. Go back and look at just your front arm. Forget about everything else in the video, just your front arm. It is not leading the action, it reacts after or too early. In the first video, even in the screen shot, it cocked up and locked up high.

In the 4th video, your front arm is swinging/flinging not leading or controlling the movement. It's being used more for balance than steering or drive. Look closely at your two frontside hits, which way is you palm facing ? Up or Down ?

You're right! I also remember your advice a long time ago, when I posted another clip, about having my palm facing up when pulling my body back. And it's still facing down . I'm not sure what's going on with my leading arm, maybe as you said I'm using it to balance. Do you think simulating the carves on land focusing on my front arm could help?

IanCaio wrote: I also remember your advice a long time ago, when I posted another clip, about having my palm facing up when pulling my body back. And it's still facing down

No, your palm IS facing up ( with knuckles down ) but it is in the wrong arrangement. Which way is your front shoulder pointed towards, into the wave or out of the wave ? When you cutback, are you turning into or away from the wave ?

IanCaio wrote: Do you think simulating the carves on land focusing on my front arm could help?

Most definitely, but IMAGE TRAINING the wrong way will just make you better at wrong. Like I said earlier, you need to slow down. Look at the old people in the park doing Tai Chi. See how they flow from movement to movement.

waikikikichan wrote:

IanCaio wrote: I also remember your advice a long time ago, when I posted another clip, about having my palm facing up when pulling my body back. And it's still facing down

No, your palm IS facing up ( with knuckles down ) but it is in the wrong arrangement. Which way is your front shoulder pointed towards, into the wave or out of the wave ? When you cutback, are you turning into or away from the wave ?

IanCaio wrote: Do you think simulating the carves on land focusing on my front arm could help?

Most definitely, but IMAGE TRAINING the wrong way will just make you better at wrong. Like I said earlier, you need to slow down. Look at the old people in the park doing Tai Chi. See how they flow from movement to movement.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant, but looking at the 4th clip (the f/s wave, yellow board) when I'm doing the first top turn I do get my palm facing up but I twist the arm the opposite way I think I should. So my shoulder ends up pointing towards the face of the wave when I'm about to turn away from it. I should have twisted the arm the opposite direction, pulling the shoulder to my back, right?

I'll try to simulate the movements very slowly while on land, trying to correct it and feel how I should flow from one turn to another. On the ocean some waves allow me to take my time, but others are a bit faster and I end up having to react quicker (sometimes resulting in those weird arm movements I guess).

IanCaio wrote: looking at the 4th clip (the f/s wave, yellow board) when I'm doing the first top turn I do get my palm facing up but I twist the arm the opposite way I think I should. So my shoulder ends up pointing towards the face of the wave when I'm about to turn away from it. I should have twisted the arm the opposite direction, pulling the shoulder to my back, right?

Correct.

IanCaio wrote:On the ocean some waves allow me to take my time, but others are a bit faster and I end up having to react quicker (sometimes resulting in those weird arm movements I guess).

So if you can not "React" quick enough then you have to be move Proactive than Reactive.

After that flat spell, these last couple of days I've surfed a lot. Bad habits are hard to break, so I'm still often making the wrong arm turn, but at some waves I managed to consciously turn it the other way. On both the backside bottom turn and on the frontside cutback. Guess it's a matter of getting used to it now.

Here's one of the cutbacks I tried to turn the arm the other way:













On those photos this particular wave didn't cooperate (it got chubby really fast, only the set waves were holding the wall steeper), but you can see the motion at least.

I'm using a board that I just added to the quiver. 5'11", which is slightly bigger than my everyday board, but thinner, looks like a "rocket" board (is that a thing you say in english too?) and also just a bit more tiring to paddle. It also has a swallow tail, which I wanted to experiment, and smaller fins. I got in sync with the board in the first session, think it was a good addition to the quiver