Surfing Waves

hey everyone
my first post + first question
i've read the other posts about duckdiving and i think im starting to get the hang of it but could someone please decribe the steps needed to perform a duckdive in detail to help me get the hang of it and understand what i need to do.
Thanks in advance

This is what is on the main site under surfing lessons:

Place both hands on the rails out in front of you and push downwards, sinking the nose of your board under the water.

Keep your arms straight and lean forward to help get more of the board under the water.

Just before the wave breaks over you most of your board should be submerged - make sure that you take a deep breath.

As the wave starts to go over you you should lay out flat creating as little resistance as possible your knee or back foot (for extra deep dives) should be putting pressure on the back of the surfboard, leveling it out under the water.

As the wave passes over, angle your board back up to the surface. If you have duck dived correctly you should be in a position to immediately start paddling again. The quicker that you can resume paddling out, the quicker that you will get out back and the less energy you will be expending.

Extra tip:
Pratice timing the most as this can make or break your duckdiving success. (that was my main problem anyway).


Good luck!!

click on surfing lesson on the main site there is a big bit on there about it

Hope this helps!



KS

Thats awsome! Really helpful i reckon. Nice one KS.

hehe, i was about to go find that animation and post it till i saw it was already here, in fact the whole article that animation comes from is pretty definitive for anyone wanting to learn duckdiving.

good stuff ks

...Sure is taking him/her a long time to get out to the lineup.

I don't think that animation is right! I reckon if you tried exactly that you'd get wiped out pretty bad.

The animation suggests that once you're under, you'll just naturally pop out the other side.

In my experience you need to push down hard on the tail once you're under or you don't come up nose first!

sorry to pick holes!!

Agreed! Need to have a kneeramming down on that tail to begin to upward movement.

But great animation, nonetheless.

Dec wrote:...Sure is taking him/her a long time to get out to the lineup.

yeah, hes getting dragged back a lot after each dive it seems, fair play for not giving up tho, hes got some impressive stamina

^^^ thats great!

Hmm i just noticed i was doing it wrong by pushing down on my knee once the front was underwater.
im gonna try that, probably works better and then an extra push on the knee. Ausome!!

when i duck dive i still love a couple of yards, maybe 3-5 yards, is this normal??

ive been watching afew folks, ( not like that ) and alot of them tend to put a leg vertical just as the wave passes over them to bring the nose back up. Not sure if this is sound advise, but seemed to do the trick.

also remeber to shift your weight, thats really important. I like to start off with my weight near the nose of the board to get the dive completly under the wave then i like to push myself towards the tail so when I come up the board is not still sunk in the water.