Surfing Waves

so the waves have been hitting my local point break pretty well recently. not a lot of take off room and usually all it takes is about 5 or 8 guys sitting on it to fairly well shut it down for the likes of me. the main-peak take off is a bit critical, with water sucking up off of the rock bottom, sometimes making it visible, so you either make it or you maybe get skinned. and those guys'n'gals do make it. me, i'm sitting slightly on the inside, taking smaller ones and the occasional bigger one that swings wide. but sometimes i don't feel like i'm getting my fair share, which gets me to thinking, how else am i going to up my wave count but by sitting on the peak and taking the rocky hit if it happens? I don't have any problems riding the waves i do catch and they, too, have sections where you can see rocks fairly close up. but those sections aren't nearly as critical as taking off at the main peak.
hmmmm. i'm sure i left a question around here somewhere. oh yeah. i know if i do venture out, i'm going to waffle and pull back and not catch waves and in general face a learning curve until i do learn. but you know how it goes: miss one, okay, miss two and no one's going to give you a third chance. so ... how do you manage such situations and get where you really want to go?

When you miss two then go to the end of the line and let everyone else catch a wave

That’s the rub; how do you get experience enough to hold a place in the lineup if you can’t get it into the lineup to get experience?

Surfing is definitely a meritocracy; you have to earn your place in a lineup, no such thing as a “fair share”. You have to be able to take a wave when you have a chance and in many places, fight for the opportunity. But you know that as you are on the outside looking in.

What is the reason you don’t try to take your chances on the peak?

Is there somewhere else you can practice to get your skills up so that you can join the peak lineup without getting shut out?

Can you surf better on a bigger board than you are on now?


When I was developing early on, I moved from a longboard to a mini mal. I struggled with it and moreso as I couldn’t hold a place in a lineup to develop my ability on a shorter board. So I went back to the longboard and won my lineup spot back and just kept surfing the big board until I was more than ready for a smaller mini mal; better timing, positioning, fitness, paddle, pop up. I moved to the mini mal and managed to keep my place. This repeated several more times as I learned to ride shorter boards, always stepping back up if I found I was not able to keep my place on a shorter board.

I will say that fortunately this is how most lineups work. At learner beaches every peak is open to all levels. I surfed one of thise with my daughter this morning and had to kick out when a learner took off way inside and turned right straight at me on the left that Id been riding from deep outside. Imagine if every wave/break was messy and lawless like that; it’s nice when you graduate to the grown up table where structure and rules prevail and yiu get a chance to enjoy your surfing without shoulder hoppers cutting you off inside when they get tired of leftovers.

Go bigger or practice at a learner or less crowded break or subsist on inside crumbs at your current break, occasionally trying your luck on the main peak. I don’t know what your exact issue is for not being able to join the main peak other than not being good enough; figure out how to get good enough is the advice since no one is entitled.

1/ Miss two and there's no end of the line, pretty much. Instead, you're considered out of the rotation, such as it is, and fair game to get dropped in on even if you did manage to finally catch one.

2/ Geezer: thanks for the considered response. I think one big issue now is fear of taking off over the rocks at the most critical juncture. It's not the board holding me back, i don't think, it's the trepidation that causes hesitation that leads to me not going for it. I wish there was a less crowded break or a learner break that featured similar suck-out boils, etc, on the take off, but there ain't. It's just a bunch of dumping beach breaks and I guess I'd prefer the inferior inside waves at the point rather than get closed-out on after one turn.

And now that I think about it, I do have to watch out and not become that shoulder hopper who cuts you off after getting tired of leftovers. Sometimes I just get pissed off and can't help myself and I will say that to the other surfer: damn, sorry, couldn't help myself, wave fever, which usually gets a smile or a shrug. at least i'm halfway honest and halfway apologetic about my sin.

Reading all of the above again -- and i thank you both for it -- I think what I need to do is go to the main peak, try for two waves, and if I catch neither, then go sit inside as penance for the day. If I catch one, and don't wind up bloody on the rocks, then I'll keep going until I miss two, then it's back inside I go. Or something like that.

update from this morning. well, i was the third person to the point at dawn and was having troubles with the suck-out boil. the wave is a right, so i was attempting to take off just to the right side of the boil and having no luck. one of the other surfers, hot stuff on a longboard, no leash, paddled up and suggested i try taking off to the left of the boil, much easier to catch waves there, but you have to stay high upon entry and not do a bottom turn, 'cause of the rocks under the boil. sounded easier said than done but after watching him on a wave, I got the general idea and did what he said. what a freakin' game changer. got 4 or 5 waves in rotation, angled high on the take off and managed to avoid the rocks, through there were some close calls. i thanked the other surfer profusely.

then the crowd showed up and I figured that was enough at the peak for one day, so i sat inside, caught two or three there, then a bomb came in that took out a guy on the peak, allowing me to do about 5 or 6 happy-me turns almost to the beach.

whew. take off on the intuitively wrong side of the boil. go figure. but he also said: yup, that's what's working today, meaning of course tomorrow i might have to learn something else new. but man o man was that fun.

It might be of benefit to just watch the other surfers and see what they are doing. I usually surf by myself so I attempt different lineups if I have trouble catching the wave. Deep to the peak is often what the better surfers do on those waves where it's difficult to takeoff on the peak. I guess fear keep newbies from attempting that.

i do a lot of watching, maybe too much, but then you're often just left with your thoughts about what's going on, which may or may not be accurate. having this one guy tell me what to do and how to avoid the rocks took matters out of my thick skull, gave them a place in empirical reality, and made all the difference. but i take your point, and i have learned a lot by watching.

I am fortunate to have learned to surf in uncrowded conditions so I could try lots of things without interfering with others. Where I learned is on Kauai which is basically and island surrounded by waves. It's only been recently that crowds have gotten crazy. It helped me that I knew almost everyone who surfed or some relative of theirs so I was just considered as one of the guys and people would offer me tips frequently. If you are nice to others and frequent the same place enough the regulars should accept you and offer advice.

oldmansurfer wrote:I am fortunate to have learned to surf in uncrowded conditions so I could try lots of things without interfering with others. Where I learned is on Kauai which is basically and island surrounded by waves. It's only been recently that crowds have gotten crazy. It helped me that I knew almost everyone who surfed or some relative of theirs so I was just considered as one of the guys and people would offer me tips frequently. If you are nice to others and frequent the same place enough the regulars should accept you and offer advice.

These are wise and generous words, but is really dependent on where you are. Here it’s mostly a jungle and often if you’re in a lineup and don’t prove yourself right away you’ll get burned all day long. there are exceptions; I l’ve surfed a couple breaks for years that isn’t as famous as others but has a strong local presence so there is a little bit of order and familiarity though bith are really overwhelmingly toursit populations that change day to day.

just another update. after those successes above, the surf doubled in size and, at the point, doubled in surfer population, so i stayed south at a lesser break. caught one screaming left after about 20 minutes and then lost both my mind and all sense of time, wobbling out of the water 5 hrs and 21 minutes later without catching another wave. just couldn't figure out where to sit with these larger waves and when i did luck into good position, there were about 40 zillion other surfers of all kinds sitting inside of me or already paddling like mad for whatever madness was rolling our way. yup, total freaking time in water: 5hrs 41m. one wave. and one helluva sunburn. still can't believe it.

This sounds like you need to find another break. Slow learning at one wave per 5 hours 41 minutes. Or pick days with less people out