Surfing Waves

Hey guys. Can you guys help critique my pop up?

40yo, surfing 1 year, weekend warrior. Average fitness, but improving; I can stay out for 3-4 hours at a time, now. Been on a 9’0 73L and just bought a 7’6 55L which is working well for me.

What I’m working on:
Hands placement
Front foot orientation

Hands: after a coaching session, realized my hands were too far forward. I’m trying to place my finger tips between my nipple and bottom of my pec muscle. My wrist flexibility is a huge factor here. (wrist stretch recommendations?)

Foot: my habit is to point the leading foot very forward. If forward is 0deg and pointed to the side of the board is 90deg, then I’m trying to get the inside of my foot to 60deg.

You’ll notice that I paddle, plant hands, and then rock forward to set my pop up. Part of this is the dry land dynamic; the board is never flat in the water and the pop up is so much easier in the water. So I think it helps get the body closer to an declining angle and makes the pop up easier. I can’t seem to do the flick pop from the knees without doing this. I don’t have the upper arm strength to just push myself up. Thoughts from a training perspective?

Also, I notice I drag my trailing foot on the board. Not sure what happens in the water or if this is a problem area.

My setup, a yoga mat and balance pads. The pillows make it a little less wobbly. The top mat is to protect the board from hard landings. I’m keeping my feet off the tail to make sure I’m only popping up from the knees.

Clip 1

Clip 2






Thanks!!

Thats quite a set up!

Now, all of the following are 'technical' points, but if your pop up is working on the wave ie you stand up and dont fall off, then its working. So there is no need to necessarily change what works, although i think some of my points are still worth looking at - they dont affect your pop up, but they will affect what you can do after popping up

Obvious points

- whats with the rocking forward just before you pop up? that actually might be worth it at times when surfing, but other times will unbalance you. You should be able to pop up from the arched position. If you cant, move your hands down even further (they are in an ok position at the moment, but if you move them down further it will assist more)

- your back foot drags. You are going to kill your toe doing that (and if you ever get a foot pad, then you will hit it all the time). Need to bend your knee a bit more and give your foot some clearance

- back foot should land at 90deg, yours is about 120 deg (ie pointing backwards). That is makes it easier to stand if you are facing sideways, but contrary to 'expectations', when you are surfing you should be facing more forward (ie your shoulders should be more square to the side of the board rather than parallel to the side of the board). The result you get is partly because your front hand is too straight - it should be more behind your body (to the left)

https://boostyoursurf.com/blog/2016/11/ ... the-water/

it also creates a slight poo stance - your knees are facing away from each other, your butt has to stick out to balance. This restricts your ability to weight transfer and move your upper body. Moving that back foot around to 90 deg will bring your back knee to face more toward the front knee and give you much more freedom (just try the 2 stances and see what feels better)

- I suspect your feet are just slightly too far apart. They dont look terrible, but the way you end up suggests they are a bit spread. Move both of them in just a little bit, so they are more under your shoulders.

Btw, I dont think there is a particular need to practice on an unstable board. In the water your board isnt unstable side to side like that. your set up I guess allows you to know your feet are landing in the middle of the board, but you can probably do that by drawing a line on the floor (or putting down some string or a ribbon etc) and having a look after you have finished.

Stance links

https://barefootsurftravel.com/livemore ... ing-stance

Question before I give my critique:

1) why are you rocking forth and back ? ( ditto DTC )

2) why are your fingers point forward on the deck ( initially ) when you go to push up ?

3) are you an avid snowboarder ?

4) how come you are using a board that was broken/buckled in half ?

Sevitzky wrote:40yo, surfing 1 year, weekend warrior. Average fitness, .............................. I don’t have the upper arm strength to just push myself up.

5) so do you or don't you have "Average fitness" if you don't have enough upper arm strength ?

Sevitzky wrote:I’m keeping my feet off the tail to make sure I’m only popping up from the knees.

6) what is wrong with having your feet/toes on the tail ?

Thanks, DTC & Waikikikichan!

dtc wrote:Now, all of the following are 'technical' points, but if your pop up is working on the wave ie you stand up and dont fall off, then its working. So there is no need to necessarily change what works, although i think some of my points are still worth looking at - they dont affect your pop up, but they will affect what you can do after popping up

I has some video coaching and a bunch of stuff was pointed out, which I could see affected my riding. I’m able to ride a lot of waves and draw lines down the face, waist to head high, I’m working on better turns.

dudes wrote:- whats with the rocking forward just before you pop up?

I never do this in the water – it would be way too slow and add to much motion (obviously). But I started doing this for the on-land exercise, since it’s hard for me to pop up on a flat board. I’ve tried reducing it in the next videos, below.

dtc wrote:- your back foot drags.

Also never happens in the water! In the water, the board is 15-40deg declined (or more!) and the water gives way to give me more space.

dtc wrote:- back foot should land at 90deg, yours is about 120 deg

Noted.
Can I land on the ball of my foot and then plant the hell? Or does it need to land “in place”

dtc wrote:Btw, I dont think there is a particular need to practice on an unstable board.

You’re right. I can add the stability component later, after hashing out these details.

dtc wrote:when you are surfing you should be facing more forward (ie your shoulders should be more square to the side of the board rather than parallel to the side of the board). T
……
it also creates a slight poo stance -

I am super bummed. I watched all those videos a bunch of times and thought I was ok. My habit has been to have the hips squared pointed forward on the board. My coaching session said the hips should be more pointed at 90deg and the shoulders would open up to point forward (or whatever direction). So I’m working on that.

dtc wrote:2) why are your fingers point forward on the deck ( initially ) when you go to push up ?

I thought they were supposed to be. As I move my hands lower, they point out, and my thumbs begin to point forward. I’m trying not to grab the rails, too. I made new videos below, is it fixed?

Waikikikichan wrote:3) are you an avid snowboarder ?

No serious board sports before this one.

Waikikikichan wrote:4) how come you are using a board that was broken/buckled in half ?

I bought it new, buckled it in big waves, fixed it. It still works, so far as I can tell. It’s by baby!

Waikikikichan wrote:5) so do you or don't you have "Average fitness" if you don't have enough upper arm strength ?

I’m a dude with a job and I try to get to the gym a couple times a week.

Waikikikichan wrote:6) what is wrong with having your feet/toes on the tail ?

Nothing wrong with it. The pop-up with a foot plant feels super easy to me. But a single motion pop is quick, can help me in steeper waves, general skill development, going to shorter boards, eventually.


Awesome of you guys to teach me like this – I appreciate it! A lot of details. I don’t overthink it in the water, but I like the challenge of on-land training while waiting for weekends.

New videos!

Group B
IMG 0201 https://youtu.be/eZV4tikDNL0 New pop up.
IMG 0202 https://youtu.be/yFYEVVBsZLU Hand position??
IMG 0203 https://youtu.be/4-UFjmhlWW0 Back foot – how to fix?
IMG 0204 https://youtu.be/EXHPrmaHkA8

New hand position. Not rocking, but trying to flick the legs like this video: https://youtu.be/wG9IjdkE-cM?t=217

My coaching videos in the water.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... c4EjqfUpmW
Don't laugh. It was not a great day for me, yada yada. It’s hard to get into your groove when trying to do a bunch of things consciously, but yeah, this is me on the water.
• I normally don’t turn my head like that (was trying to respond to their instructions to LOOK!)
• Nose always about to pearl: yeesh. paddle speed and also probably need to scoot an inch back.
• Massive “forward hinge”. Talked about using hips and also I just need to unglue the feet.

Interesting forward rocking motion I guess to get momentum but the momentum should start with the arching of your back. I haven't really thought about it but usually when I paddle my back is arched somewhat. When I paddle for a wave then the arch may go away depending on the wave I sometimes use my head to push the board down a little or because the slope of the wave requires that I reach further down to contact the water but if everything is all good I don't then I arch my back even more to start the popup. I am pretty sure this is the first time I have ever seen the extra rock to start a popup. Interesting but guess that would waste a second of time in popping up. Most likely most of the waves I catch are steep and the board is falling away from me which helps to make it easier to popup although requires it to be quicker too, no time for forward rocking motion. Otherwise popup looks good to my unexpert eyes.

To fix everything you need to slow it down break it into parts and fix each part first off the rocking and foot kicking. Then work on using the initial arch of the back to start the motion upward followed by pushing up and then hips going upward while legs don't move in opposite direction.

About hand placement, I usually keep mine in the line of my chest, so slightly more forward than where you're keeping them, but I'm not sure if there are any disadvantages to the position you're keeping yours to be honest. It just should be on a spot where you can get some good impulse from the push up. Something I also do that people advise against (so take this with a big grain of salt) is to hold the rail when poping up. People say you risk slipping the hand and hitting your face on the board, but I don't remember it ever happening to me and it also helps when I need to grab rail on late drops at a steep waves (also not something I think you'll be worrying about now). Anyways, you can, and maybe should, keep your hands fully on the deck, but I'd say keep them pointed at around 45º.

As people already said, the back foot pointing back is not a good thing. You have to get used to keeping it perpendicular to the stringer. I noticed on a later video where you tried to fix it and landed mostly on your toe, when you should have landed with your weight distributed between heel and toe. You probably just lost balance there, but that's just another thing to notice when you're practicing, the weight distribution on your feet.

On the third coach video you landed the front foot way outside of the stringer, very close to the rail. You usually want to land your feet right above the stringer (on very particular cases that are not very common on the beginner stage you'll want to land the feet a little away from the stringer, but that's something to be thought about way later and that has to be a decision based on the wave, not a mistake). If you notice, the foot was so off that you tried to fix it later during the ride because you were probably having trouble controlling the board. So keep the stringer alignment of your feet in mind too.

With that swing forward and back looks like you're trying to take some effort out of the push up motion. Sort of like when we cheat doing sit ups. I'd avoid that. Land practicing is a good place to build the arm strength you need and I think that will slower that progression.

And keep practicing, always noticing the small mistakes and trying to fix them. It takes a while to get used to it, but give it time!

thats looking pretty good

re the back foot and landing on the ball of your foot. This is ankle mobility (lack thereof) and many of us suffer from it. What you have to try to do is bend your knee in even further (twist your hips a bit more) and put your weight on the inside part of your foot. See the photo at 'rule 4' of this link http://www.indasurf.com/cn/blog/things- ... -beginners The foot isnt flat on the board, its tilted. You can weight transfer back to make it flat if you want your weight to go back (turns or stalls) just by moving your hips backwards. Remember that on the board your weight is hardly ever evenly weighted over both feet - its often forward (down the line) unless you are turning (when its back). So to that extent the dry land pop up / stance is a bit artificial, because we tend to try to make things evenly weighted

Rule 5 of the link above is also relevant to you from your coaching videos - as you pointed out, a lot of hip hinging. Because your weight is in the middle of your knees and you are balancing using your head and butt. Bring chest over the front knee, keep your head over your butt, the centre of gravity remains down this central line all of the time (even when you are turning, you are leaning but there remains a line down the centre). Flex the knees not the hips (most of the time). Here are a bunch of posts from waikikichan's blog on this and similar issues http://alohaki.jugem.jp/?search=Keep+yo ... +your+butt

But knowing what to do and doing it are different things - rather than be too focused on breaking down every little point and technique issue, focus on landing the feet properly and keeping your knees supple and bending, using your lower body to balance rather than upper body. Most everything else will come from doing that

i just spent a while going over those photos from wakikichan awesome

Ok awesome. I've got some good stuff to work on, here:
stop the cheater rock
back foot
arms at sides
stop squatting/poo'ing

Those photos from Waikikikichan are definitely awesome! Major work for me to do, there.

If you want to become a good surfer, you need to stop jumping off your board.

Your paddling is way too shallow and straight.

waikikikichan wrote:Your paddling is way too shallow and straight.

I see the shallowness, what do you mean by straight?

Look at the good surfers at your particular break. How is their paddle different than your ? The difference might not be that obvious, since it’s hard to see.
( it’s hard to see is the hint )

Sevitzky wrote:

waikikikichan wrote:Your paddling is way too shallow and straight.

I see the shallowness, what do you mean by straight?

https://barefootsurftravel.com/livemore ... -surfboard

Go down to para 2 'Maximizing Propulsion' and have a look at surfer No 6.

Then scroll down a little further to 'Bend your arms when paddling' and have a look at surfer No 2

Compare them to your paddling

I wasn't really paying a lot of attention to my paddle (so much else going on), but it's pretty ugly to watch and looks like water slap more than pushing myself forward. Now it kind of reminds me of this:



When I'm padding out, I think I have pretty good, deep strokes. It's that moment catching the wave, I need to stay a bit calmer and trust that a good stroke will move me forward. Break the elbows, arch the back.

Alright, I'm gonna work on this and repost when I have something.