Surfing Waves

I've been practicing my backside bottom turn for a while.

So far, the best I could do was look, backhand across chest, forehand point/touch the wave to pivot. But there's not enough coordination or twist or bent to generate the "slingshot up the wave face" effect. I.e., it's not a fluid, holistic sequence of motions yet.

Looking at Joel Tudor:


Action 1: board flat, looking at the wave, probably decided to do a bottom turn


Action 2: bent knees and put board on rail first. No arm movement or rotating yet.


Action 3: after the board is fully put on rail, backhand cross across chest, forehand drops. Knees still bending, pushing against the fin (I suppose)


Action 4: board going up the face; front leg straigtened, upper body fully twisted.

----------

Is that the correct sequence of steps that need to happen?

I think what I did incorrectly was: (1) not enough knees bent, (2) trying to push the fin AT THE SAME TIME as twisting arm/upper body.

I am going to guess that the surfer is delaying the turn so that the other surfer on the wave is out of the way. If the surfer was on a shortboard he would have been able to complete the turn in front of the surfer on the wave but with a longboard that might be difficult. It's supposed to be all functional so moving your arms and upper body is to get ready to move the lower body that way along with the board in that direction. My method is to stand tall on the drop so from a crouch on the popup I extend my legs down the wave then as I get to the bottom I crouch for the turn and rotate upper body at that point then extend legs and lower body follows rotation to up the wave then crouch again at top of wave for top turn. I think others can help you better. I ride an in between board neither a longboard nor a shortboard but when I rode a longboard I did the same thing and it worked for me.

Here is the secret to bottom turns at our level - throw your leading arm up, not down.

https://kookbitches.com/2016/09/01/bein ... trocities/

ConcreteVitamin wrote: But there's not enough coordination or twist or bent to generate the "slingshot up the wave face" effect.

Using your analogy of a sling shot, do get more energy released if you pull back on the surgical rubber tubing all the way taut or just loose ? How can you get that resistance from the wave fighting against the board ( and vice-versa ) ? ( Joel may have tapped into that moment )

Surfing has a lot of opposites. To go further right, you sometimes have to go more left, If you want to speed up, sometimes you need to stall/slow down. And if you want to go further UP, first you need to go more _____ ( ? )

I've been doing it all wrong. Have to remember to yell "WAPAAH"

dtc wrote:Here is the secret to bottom turns at our level - throw your leading arm up, not down.

https://kookbitches.com/2016/09/01/bein ... trocities/

Wow this is very useful! I like her blog posts + videos but missed this one.

So it seems what she's saying is consistent with my observation of Tudor. Put on rail + forehand touching, rotate the whole deal, then LIFT forearm up.

I will try it out.

waikikichan wrote:Using your analogy of a sling shot, do get more energy released if you pull back on the surgical rubber tubing all the way taut or just loose ? How can you get that resistance from the wave fighting against the board ( and vice-versa ) ? ( Joel may have tapped into that moment )

Surfing has a lot of opposites. To go further right, you sometimes have to go more left, If you want to speed up, sometimes you need to stall/slow down. And if you want to go further UP, first you need to go more _____ ( ? )

Down?

I see what you mean. The surfer pushes the fin, which pushes against the water, so then the surfer releases back foot pressure at the right moment (lifting whole body up), that energy pushes the board up.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:I see what you mean. The surfer pushes the fin, which pushes against the water, so then the surfer releases back foot pressure at the right moment (lifting whole body up), that energy pushes the board up.

Surfing is so complex. The push from the fin is part of it, the shifting of the center of gravity up the wave by moving arm and body motion is part of it but also turning changes the direction of your mass from horizontal to vertical. The reason why just turning isn't often enough is that turning create friction and slows the board down. All the rest of that stuff is to makeup for the loss of speed created by friction in turning and not needed for some turns on some waves. To me backside bottom turns seem easier since I am often already upper body rotated just to see the wave better because my neck is not as flexible as before. I learned to surf and quit for a while and when I restarted I could do backside bottom turns much better for some reason. I think the mechanics of doing a backside turn is easier and the main reason people have trouble is because they spend too much time learning frontside surfing.

Don't worry about going 12 o'clock vertical, but check out how Freddie focuses on a hard long drawn out bottom turn.

By the way, what board are you trying to backside bottom turn on ? A mid-length or your sponge softboard ?

oldmansurfer wrote:Surfing is so complex. The push from the fin is part of it, the shifting of the center of gravity up the wave by moving arm and body motion is part of it but also turning changes the direction of your mass from horizontal to vertical. The reason why just turning isn't often enough is that turning create friction and slows the board down. All the rest of that stuff is to makeup for the loss of speed created by friction in turning and not needed for some turns on some waves. To me backside bottom turns seem easier since I am often already upper body rotated just to see the wave better because my neck is not as flexible as before. I learned to surf and quit for a while and when I restarted I could do backside bottom turns much better for some reason. I think the mechanics of doing a backside turn is easier and the main reason people have trouble is because they spend too much time learning frontside surfing.

Yea, totally, a holistic fluid sequence! Being a goofy in California, 99% of the time these days I'm surfing backside

waikikikichan wrote:

Don't worry about going 12 o'clock vertical, but check out how Freddie focuses on a hard long drawn out bottom turn.

By the way, what board are you trying to backside bottom turn on ? A mid-length or your sponge softboard ?

Will check out the vid. It's on my 7'4 x 22" x 3" egg.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:It's on my 7'4 x 22" x 3" egg.

What is the fin set up and size of the fin(s) ?

waikikikichan wrote:

ConcreteVitamin wrote:It's on my 7'4 x 22" x 3" egg.

What is the fin set up and size of the fin(s) ?

I have been using 8” 4A as single. I found a 7.5 Frye to feel very different: its much more sensitive to input, less smooth than 4A (guess Frye is more pivoty - often swings the board around hard on less than perfect backfoot pressure) so at my level I like the Frye fin much less.

Also tried putting some 3.25” sidebites with either single fin and found that too be very sticky / unnecessary even for 5-6ft waves. (Likely because either single is large enough)

I suppose you're using Futures 3.25" sidebites. Trying finding a shop that has a Futures Fin Tree so you can borrow some T1 twin fins. See how that goes. ( even better if they have a tiny 3" trailer box fin you can try out too )