Surfing Waves

So I got my significant other to come with me to finally take some videos of me surfing. It's been a long time since I had some somewhat close-up videos. Usually I only get Surfline rewinds that don't show my bad habits.

Lo and behold: I am horrified by what I saw in the videos. The most glaring and scary thing: when I pop up, my back knee is always pointing out. Despite me making some effort to keep my eye down the line (I'm always surfing backside). Is this the dreaded poo man stance?

The scary thing is if I didn't these videos I'd still be ignorant of this issue.

See the few waves captured:

(this wave 1 is interesting, the surfer who dropped in on me was so stylish, and her pop up is impeccable; but looking at this I don't know what "fix" I can read off)










So, a sincere question -- since Waikikikichan has said how many years it takes to form the bad habit = how long it takes to break, I want to start today -- How do I fix my popup? What on-land drills should I do? What should I "think" about or tell myself when popping up?

A second question: Please help point out other issues in my surfing!!

If you want to do a proper poo stance you need to stick your rear end off one side of the board and your head off the other side. So that's not your problem. I used to have a stance where my back foot was perpendicular to the stringer but my front foot was angled toward the nose right up the stringer, so it was something like the stance I used to shoot pool. It was a very solid stance which allowed me to do backside bottom turns on humongous waves. My back knee would at times point out depending on what I was doing. I have not much advice but maybe others do.

I didn't see any Stink Bug stance / riding in any of your four videos. Like OMS said, Stink Bug or Poo stance looks different than how you are riding.

Here's an old post of mine on the subject.
http://alohaki.jugem.jp/?eid=828

BTW, your pop up is fine, so I'm not sure why you're asking "HELP my popup". The problem is in your RIDING.

Hmm, thanks OMS, WKKKichan. I'm not sure why you guys think my pop up is fine. Here are a few screenshots. Top 2 rows are me, bottom row is the stylish goofy surfer in Wave 1:



Isn't it the case I look very different & much more "locked" than the other surfer?

I also feel like her pop up is like a sprinter getting ready (see 1st pic of bottom row), two feet almost parallel after popping up. Mine is... well, weird: my back knee seems higher than my front knee, and is pointing perpendicular to the stringer. Don't I need to fix these two problems?

waikikikichan wrote:The problem is in your RIDING.

Please help point out the the riding issues

I am not a surf instructor and more so I have never had any real surf lessons. Other than a guy shoving me onto a couple waves 9 years before I tried to learn to surf I have worked out all my own problems myself. I had a problem with my stance in that when I took the drop on backside waves with around 40 foot faces I couldn't handle the pressure at the bottom of the wave to make the bottom turn that was needed. I decided to change my stance to make it stronger and just on the ground tried to find something stronger and came up with a stance where my back foot was perpendicular to the stringer. However on the part of the board on the tail where i wanted to place my foot there were only a couple of extra inches so I needed my foot placement to be exactly in the middle so it didn't hang off one side or the other. I made a cutout of my board out of cardboard and practiced daily until my foot was exactly in the right place and it became my stance when I was out in the water. It took at least a couple months of daily practice to get there. In addition I strengthened my legs by jumping out of a tree in my yard from increasing heights until I could jump and land in my surfing stance from a height of about 12 feet. this took several months but before that I could tell my stance was better for backside surfing on big waves. It was another year before i got to try it in on 40 foot faces (it worked). Anyway I am not often sure if my advice is of any help to others because it has become markedly apparent that what I was doing was very different from what others were doing. I think for most people if you are enjoying surfing then that is the main thing. It's a often prolonged process for many surfers to learn to surf taking a vastly greater length of time than it took me. There used to be several people who taught surfing on this site but now Waikikichan appears to be the only one and I want to say I greatly appreciate his presence here because I am clueless about what it takes for the average person to learn to surf.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:I also feel like her pop up is like a sprinter getting ready (see 1st pic of bottom row), two feet almost parallel after popping up. Mine is... well, weird: my back knee seems higher than my front knee, and is pointing perpendicular to the stringer. Don't I need to fix these two problems?

Uhhhhh....... she's a girl and has a lower center of gravity. You're a boy and are built differently. Maybe you sit on the bus/train with your knees set farther apart ( if you get what I'm saying ).

"Don't try to fix what ain't broke". What are you saying is broken or bad ? Your knee facing the rail ? So what ? I don't mind / worry if you put your left hand finger in your right ear when you pop up, so long as you're getting the board to do what needs to be done.

Your pop up ( and subsequent bottom turn and trim ) on video #2 and #3 are SMOOTH LIKE BUTTER. No hesitation, just up and gone, down the line.

The way I see it those waves don't offer much but there were some places where you could be doing some maneuvers either going up and down the wave or forward and backward. The poo stance in my mind involves your arms pointing forward and backward in line with the stringer and the side to side balancing being done with your butt on one side of the board and you head on the other side. I think in the poo stance your knees are pointing outward. Instead of the poo stance your arms should be balancing side to side moving them as needed and also for turning and you keep your weight over the board by moving your butt to adjust your balance and weight distribution, keeping it centered over the board. You should also learn to move up and down the board, back for turning and forward for speed. But basically it looks like you're doing okay to me.

I was delighted to see that your horror was not echoed here by the surf gurus of the forum.

Nothing to advise exceot maybe next time have an overhead drone shot to appreciate the portions of your skill you like....and tap into sport psychology which appears to hold that focussing on what you do efficiently, and elegantly is the point of focus for improvement (rather than the stuff you dislike or the "mistakes").

Also for larger perspective here is a quote I enjoy (from the zen of oceans and surfing):

"Surfing, alone among sports, generates laughter at its very suggestion, and this is because it turns not a skill into an art, but an inexplicable and useless urge into a vital way of life."

Video analysis for Peak wave 1

Too wide of a paddle stroke. Elbows needs to be deeper in the water.

After the girl kicks out, you shuffle back your front foot, gain your composure for a split second, then mini shuffle back with the same foot then back step with the back foot.

That leads to a turn down and a "Hi" wave to your significant other filming ( or was that a unconscious movement to counter falling forward ? )

After you rebound off the white water, you do this high left elbow movement to set your inside rail, which is quite jerky and abrupt.

After the climb, you may have got stuck with the wave becoming soft but you do this jump off the back of your board move. Can you explain what happened there ?

Btw, did you notice the rider behind you, also uses the back hand between the knees pop up ?

oldmansurfer wrote:It was another year before i got to try it in on 40 foot faces (it worked).

40 foot wave faces?! I almost surely will not ever surf waves that big

waikikikichan wrote:"Don't try to fix what ain't broke". What are you saying is broken or bad ? Your knee facing the rail ? So what ? I don't mind / worry if you put your left hand finger in your right ear when you pop up, so long as you're getting the board to do what needs to be done.

Yeah, maybe this is a style thing that I feel should be fixed, more than function. (The widened distance between the knees may have made me pop up slower.) I looked for male goofyfoots popping up, Tudor & Machado:



They look similar to the girl surfer except with stance widened a bit. I'll try to emulate these. First, to keep the back knee lower than front. Second, don't let back foot be so perpendicular to the stringer.

oldmansurfer wrote:You should also learn to move up and down the board, back for turning and forward for speed.

waikikikichan wrote:After the girl kicks out, you shuffle back your front foot, gain your composure for a split second, then mini shuffle back with the same foot then back step with the back foot.

Thanks. Totally, my feet are shuffling. I'm at the stage where I need to very deliberately concentrate & force myself to make a cross step forward/backward. If I don't do that, my instinct is to shuffle.

waikikikichan wrote:That leads to a turn down and a "Hi" wave to your significant other filming ( or was that a unconscious movement to counter falling forward ? )

Lol, it's a Hi!

waikikikichan wrote:After you rebound off the white water, you do this high left elbow movement to set your inside rail, which is quite jerky and abrupt.

After the climb, you may have got stuck with the wave becoming soft but you do this jump off the back of your board move. Can you explain what happened there ?

Btw, did you notice the rider behind you, also uses the back hand between the knees pop up ?

At the end of that wave, I caught my left rail. I was trying to toe turn but entire body weight was too far forward; water grabbed my left rail.

By "the back hand between the knees pop up" do you mean we both swing our front foot forward of back hand? Whereas the good examples in the pasted screenshot have front foot backward of the two hands. Hmmmm.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:Yeah, maybe this is a style thing that I feel should be fixed, more than function. I looked for male goofyfoots popping up, Tudor & Machado:

They look similar to the girl surfer except with stance widened a bit. I'll try to emulate these. First, to keep the back knee lower than front. Second, don't let back foot be so perpendicular to the stringer.

So you would rather have ( and others to notice ) a STYLISH pop up versus a FUNCTIONal pop up ? Again, your pop up is great and your board is moving great, you do not need to fix it. BUT..... if you want to keep analyzing and comparing your pop up to others ( with decades of experience over you ), then you will be taking two steps back.

Before you saw yourself surfing, were you fine with your pop up ? Now you're all paranoid. This over analysis will be detrimental for your surfing.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:At the end of that wave, I caught my left rail. I was trying to toe turn but entire body weight was too far forward; water grabbed my left rail.

I don't agree with you on that. Why ? because you do a similar jump off on wave #3 and you fall back on wave #4. You tend to LEAN and PIVOT separately. You catch your front rail because you are not pivoting off the tail/rear fin(s), you just LEAN.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:Thanks. Totally, my feet are shuffling. I'm at the stage where I need to very deliberately concentrate & force myself to make a cross step forward/backward. If I don't do that, my instinct is to shuffle.

You need to stop thinking ( deliberately concentrate ) and LET GO. "My foot needs to be here, my knees to be there, my .............. " , doesn't that sound like dance steps drawn on the floor ? You ever see someone at the club "trying" to remember his/her dance steps versus someone just feeling the beat and letting their body just groove ? Notice the person that thinks too much is STIFF on the dance floor. While the others that don't care, really move.
Now which are you in the ocean ?

And that's why you need to stop emulating Joel Tudor, or Machado, ( or MJ or Tiger ). You will go down the path of PARALYSIS by ANALYSIS.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:

oldmansurfer wrote:It was another year before i got to try it in on 40 foot faces (it worked).

40 foot wave faces?! I almost surely will not ever surf waves that big

Yeah well the few times I went out in waves bigger than 15 feet, (bigger than 30 foot faces) it was a spur of the moment decision. The waves called to me. I couldn't help it. It's not like I wanted to surf big waves but when I saw them I had to surf them. I also knew if I didn't go I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. I got lucky. It's unlikely I will ever surf waves that size again......but you never know. After watching big wave surfing on the internet I realize that the three biggest days I went out, the waves were exceptionally smooth faced. I watch all these guys dealing with huge chops and for me the faces were smooth like butter. How fortunate I was to survive. But my stance that I worked on was also good on smaller waves and worked for both frontside and backside waves. I think my back knee pointed forward except when I was cranking a hard turn then for a short period of time it went sideways

ConcreteVitamin wrote: (The widened distance between the knees may have made me pop up slower.) I looked for male goofyfoots popping up, Tudor & Machado:

They look similar to the girl surfer except with stance widened a bit. I'll try to emulate these. First, to keep the back knee lower than front. Second, don't let back foot be so perpendicular to the stringer.

Try searching Ben Aipa and Donald Takayama. They have wide stanced, back knee facing the rail turns.

https://eos.surf/video/entry/donald-tak ... land-1959/ fast forward to 1:52

still photo at 1:52

Video analysis for Peak wave #2

1) Great line weaving between the others surfers on the face and paddling out. Smooth pop and down the line.

2) Why didn't you hit the oncoming section ? Was it because you knew the shorterboarder ( who snaked you ) was behind you ?

3) Right before you get to the oncoming section, you SQUAT down ( or I suspect you went to paddle the wave ). Why / what reason for doing the SQUAT ?

4) The shorterboarder is really moving around, swinging his arms and doing the hip jive watusi. Lot of over action But I think your surfing is more intuned to the wave.

5) The kid longboarder is on a way too big board. He/She is swinging and leaning, but the board has too much rail for him/her to control.

waikikikichan wrote:You tend to LEAN and PIVOT separately.  You catch your front rail because you are not pivoting off the tail/rear fin(s), you just LEAN.

Yes, I think this is my biggest problem.  It's a bad habit. Either from snowboarding prior to starting surfing, or just a bad habit.  I need to learn to instinctively put weight back when turning...

One potential factor: I rotate between this 8'10 and some ~7' range boards. For the latter I can plant my feet and not move and simply shift weight using the hip/knee. For 8'10 I can't.

waikikikichan wrote:2) Why didn't you hit the oncoming section ?   Was it because you knew the shorterboarder ( who snaked you ) was behind you ?

By my recollection I did try to float/hit it. But my weight distribution was wrong (at mid board) so I didn't get the board to face down the beach after hitting.  Currently, I have about 50% land rate for hitting white foam.

waikikikichan wrote:3) Right before you get to the oncoming section,  you SQUAT down ( or I suspect you went to paddle the wave ).  Why / what reason for doing the SQUAT ?  

By recollection I think I was trying to get more forward momentum to push the board forward.  I felt the wave was catching up.  Maybe I was thinking I was too high on the wave, needed to go to the bottom then back up to hit.  Good, bad?
Thanks for the analysis and encouraging words!!

ConcreteVitamin wrote:Yes, I think this is my biggest problem.  It's a bad habit. Either from snowboarding prior to starting surfing, or just a bad habit.  I need to learn to instinctively put weight back when turning...
.

Oh, now it makes sense, you snowboard ! On on snowboard you pressure the front and slide the tail. On a surfboard you pressure the tail and slide the nose ( except on highly advanced maneuvers like airs and blow tails )

ConcreteVitamin wrote:One potential factor: I rotate between this 8'10 and some ~7' range boards. For the latter I can plant my feet and not move and simply shift weight using the hip/knee. For 8'10 I can't.

If you want to learn to move around better and unconsciously, try renting/borrowing a 9'6"-10" single fin and surf it for 2 weeks straight.

ConcreteVitamin wrote:By my recollection I did try to float/hit it. But my weight distribution was wrong (at mid board) so I didn't get the board to face down the beach after hitting.

Look at the video again and focus on the spray coming off the Left outside rail. You never rolled off the inside rail to the outside rail. You say because you were too late to shift weight, etc. You need to start your turn down MID FACE ! You can get to the top they have your eyes tell your brain, "well, we are at the top now, maybe best we turn down". It's too late, by the time your eyes give info the brain and the brain send commands down to the legs, you're off the back.