Best instructional book

[spencerfunk]

I just moved out to Hawaii and I bought a long board. I've been going about 3 times a week for the past 2 months. I feel progression every time I go out, but I want to find good instructional material for even faster progression. What is the best instructional book available? Amazon.com has good reviews on "Surfing: The Manual: Advanced" by Jim Kempton and people in this forum have referenced "The Complete Guide to Surfing Your Best: Vol. 2" by Nick Carroll (Amazon.com has no reviews on this book). Are these good? Which one is better? Are there even better instructional books I'm missing? Nick Carroll's book is twice as expensive as Jim Kempton's book, but is it worth it?

P.S. I think instructional DVD's would be really helpful too, so I'm going to get "110% Surfing Techniques Volume 1" based on recommendations in a recent thread. Has anyone in the US had problems playing this DVD in their US DVD player? Someone on Amazon.com said it wouldn't play in theirs.

Thanks

[Jimi]

The Jim Kempton book is good. I bought it myself, and it pretty much covers everything from a bottom turn to aerials to fitness regimes, so it's thorough. Better that Taj Burrow's book of Hot Surfing - which focusses on individual "moves" more than technique.

Can't comment about the other stuff you mentioned, since I haven't seen the DVD or read the books.

Did it help me? Well, maybe with time, I will improve, but so far it's been more useful as a tool to make me analyse my surfing and identify where I need to improve.

It is very shortboard focussed though, and if you're on a log, you will just ignore 50% of the book because going vertical up a face and breaking out the tail is not applicable.