Categorising Levels of surfer Skill and wave size

[jaffa1949]

Katsura brought this up as a topic and I thought great but it needs its own thread, because there will a lot to be said, so here is Katsura's quote

Good thought mate let's see what comes of it

Good for ya.

The reason I brought this up is, we need a set of common measured standard for the diff skill levels - everyone have their own definition of beginner, intermediate and advanced. So when different people chime in on a topic, it can get 'lost in translation' quickly.

So what do you say guys, shall we define a common set of skill standards and post it somewhere on the site so people can measure against a common scale?

(The same goes for wave size, people either underestimate or over estimate it).

This, Katsura, is a really interesting idea, and I'm not knocking it, I've seen wonderful ways of measuring wave size and opinions of surfing ability.

I'd like to see it nailed.
So these are my ideas, consider overhead = 6ft unless you are a young grommet or vertically challenged, double overhead about 10 to 12ft triple about 15 to 18ft measure trough to crest at the front of the breaking wave, This does not take into consideration the bottom contours but it does consider a sudden pitch in size. In some waves there are different consequences a 12ft Teahopou wave does change in size but has massive heaving thickness that is beyond size. The Wedge at Newport beach has a very sudden increase in height and consequences but not the thickness of Teahopou so a size comparison is not adequate.

Measuring from the back Hmmmmm? any other ways and then when you get to the tow in hunt the 100ft wave measurements come back to scale against the size of the rider against the wave.

I don't know, and then the assessment of the wave you are riding yourself, it gets a pretty good reality shake up when you actually see photos or videos of yourself. The rider's engaged perception of the wave is not the reality, only the experience ( which is what it is about ).

Now my thoughts on ability are something similar "The rider's engaged perception of skills is not necessarily the reality, only the experience ( which is what it is about ). As the rider becomes more experience their self assessment of their skill increases.

Personally, I wouldn't want to put lines in the sand as to ability too much, as it can really spoil the learning experience at each stage if learners get too strung out on crossing those lines.

Example, there are in many surf guides, breaks listed as intermediate, expert or all surfers, sometimes at say some of the intermediate spots I think somebody who has been told ( by the chart they are intermediate) would get a severe hammering.
Better to let their innate experience tell them whether they can handle it or not. Not some third party assessment.

That's my rant, but there bound to be other valid points of view, rack em and stack em

[RonG]

Just from my own limited experience, it seems that surfing involves a long list of skills that (for many of us) don't progress at a uniform rate. I know that my paddling ability and success at catching waves has progressed a lot faster than my skills once I'm up and riding (turns, trim, etc.). I've seen people who are exactly the opposite though - they're riding pretty well once they're up, but they have no sense of wave selection and awful paddling ability, so they're lucky to catch one out of 20 waves they try for.

I wonder if you need to establish skill categories, and grade ability according to those, rather than trying to assign a single grade to a surfer?

Also, should equipment choice play a role? Does the "intermediate" who started with a short(er) board get points for being able to turn decently, but get marked down for having a tough time catching waves? Similar for the guy riding a longboard with the opposite set of problems?

[travelzomg]

nice first input jaffa... post is a good idea...

well, i dont know about you guys, but ill lay down a rough scheme as i see it:

wave hights:
well i allways messure it at the front of the wave.. this is where you surf.. this is where the wave can be compared to a person riding it.. this is the side most looked at and most percepted.. so from my point, this is where it makes the most sense...
(back of the wave times two etc is only complicated and comes to me a lot as a show off - you know, everybody mesures from the front, but the guys who know, mesure from the back bla bla bla... )

4 ft - waist high
4 - 6 ft - shoulder to head high
6 - 8 ft, over head
9 - 12 ft double over head
etc..

as for the skill lvls...
i think you do can set some levels, but they come naturally imho...
yet again, its a lot more about just the waves you are able to ride...

beginner - you surf white water, you can get get up on your board most of the time, have attempted the one or other small green wave... you think this is the coolest sport on earth and that in half a year you will attempt to join the ASP...

intermediate - you can drop/paddle into 4 - 6ft green waves and get to ride most of em.. you work on your turns and lines and try to convert what you learn every session into your own surfing.. you have an understanding of ocean dynamics and how waves function, you understand surf etiquette and can apply it. You understand the idea of recon - sitting at the beach, watching the waves and figuring them out, you can hold position in the line up. its the first time you think about a short board and you realise, that there is waaaaaay more to surfing than you ever thought and it needs a lot of practice to get anywhere... you start to asses your own surfing skill more propperly and are able to judge your abilities...

advanced - you can surf every green wave you paddle for and you dare go into overhead+ conditions, you have developed an understanding for the ocean and can read waves... you can turn and do basic trick manouvers (cut back, floater etc) quite easy now, you have attempted the one or other barrel where you got smashed most of the time but you got the one or other and it all starts to come together until the point, where you can ride barrels propperly

dunno.. thats about how i would put it...
yet this is no strict guide thing...
as both said above, it realy depends on the skill of the individual surfer...
yet those beginner - intermediate - advanced/experianced skala is used all over the place... so it would make sense, to try putting a rough scheme on it...

[drowningbitbybit]

I dont know where to start with this... I dont mean its a bad idea... just that there are so many factors that I really dont know where to start....

I'm not going to suggest a scale, but just add a few more things to think about...

The beginner/intermediate/advanced division is nowhere near enough. Once you're out of the whitewater you're intermediate?
You said that round my way and you'd be laughed out the water. If you're in the whitewater, you're not a beginner, you're a learner, you don't have your license yet.
You can do a few turns and you're advanced? Jeez... I can 'do a few turns' and I still consider myself at the bottom of the pack. So what is the guy who can do a 360 air? Super advanced++?

Where in the world are you? As you might have guessed from above, I surf with guys where a 360 air is a routine trick (although not for me). But when I was back in the UK, I thought I was pretty good... my 'english intermediate' is very different from my 'australian intermediate'. From the forum's point of view, perhaps we can establish some kind of ranking, but if you're reading about spots in a surf guide, you need to know that difference.

Ditto wave size. 3ft in the UK is a nice chest high wave, easy stuff. 3ft these days is a headhigh board-snapping monstrosity. It would be nice to standardise what one foot exactly is, but as the guides and the surf reports use their local version of a surfer's one foot, thats not as easy as it sounds.

Style... is the guy on a shortboard who can catch every wave at a steep dumping spot better than a guy who can catch every gentle ripple on a longboard? Or vice versa?

Experience versus skill... this is one I feel strongly about
I've been surfing years, I have lots of experience... but Im still crap
The young grom will get out there and throw himself into a barreling reef over 1ft of urchin-infested water, while me? I'd rather play it slightly safer and surf with my mates on a 2-3ft beachie. Yet I know all the rules, can judge the conditions, can make the drop, do the turns, so is that guy on the reef better than me? Well, yes
But Im definitely not a beginner, on a good day I can hit my definition of intermediate, and despite the fact that Ive been surfing for longer than I care to admit, I'm never going to reach what I think of as advanced.


One last point - when you read a forecast or a guide, its almost certainly been written by an experienced surfer who will have his own idea of size/grade (and who will, in all likelihood, also be prone to the macho bull$^!t of calling a 10ft wave 3ft) yet this forum is, for the most part, inhabited by "nice" people who either are beginners, or at least remember what it was like (not sure whether Jaffa's memory can reach back that far these days ) so what we say on here is not necessarily what the rest of the world is saying. Which is fine, as long as we all know that.

[travelzomg]

i see why you want to refrain from putting down some scale...
yet its something, that is used all over.. so i realy can understand that some might want to have a pointer..

and i wouldnt say, that as soon as you get out of the white water, you are an intermediate.. but you arent a beginner anymore, when you can ride green waves...

i realy think, the better you get, the less is this beginner-intermediate-advanced thing of any importance...
yet its the first grasp of what might be something you can head towards, when you start surfing... so for those, something like this could be useful..
to provide a certain route that you can follow for learning to surf...

[jaffa1949]

One thing I didn't mention in the initial post was fashion!!! WTF mainly about some items of surfing that become fashionable!
Often on a newbies post they will ask questions about doing the tricks first and foremost and include bottom turns , cut backs and other basic skills as tricks and they do not understand the basic skills as providing the base for tricks ( aerials etc).
Much of the approach is to be able to do skate and snow boarding moves on a wave and you see kids trying punt etc without the knowing how to get there, because, it is fashion and they think that is surfing.

Lots of people especially the older ones can't do airs and wafty tail slides but they can drive into and out of a barrel on whatever craft.

Another little fashion statement, shortness and the need to have it. All boards in the hands of a good rider can just about surf anywhere..

More grist for the mill. once there is a set of standardised levels of surfing some bureaucrat without surfing experience will then apply and match levels to breaks, sort of like double black diamond runs in skiing.
IMO surfing needs to be self policing, self categorising by experience, surfing needs its individuality to survive do everything you can to keep governments and their regulations out of it.

[jaffa1949]

A link to a very definitive article by Surf research have a read

http://www.surfresearch.com.au/awaveheight.html

[travelzomg]

John Kelly Jr.in Surf and Sea 1965, proposed two ways of measuring waves - "you can over estimate or you can under estimate".

win.

[one more dude]

Hi Jaffa,

A note on this:

All boards in the hands of a good rider can just about surf anywhere..

Well, this is not necessarily related to my previous post, and I'm not defending it or anything... anyway, a couple of cents.

To be able to run a basic board at a good level requires an advanced skill that was not obtained on a basic board. A paradox

[jaffa1949]

I would tend to believe the majority of surfers started on a secondhand or a dog board and progressed up both in skills and board quality.
Maybe some had rich parents or big pocket money and went the other way fancy boards to start

IMO a good board to start is nice but the skills come from experience

OBTW, the late John Kelly jnr would be a great roll model for any aspiring surfer, much of Hawaii's surf spots would lost without his and others activism. He surfed well and contributed in design for boards.
That was an understatement of his aloha!

[one more dude]

definitely, Jaffa, agreed. Like in any sport (or nearly, in chess as you get better you don't want better chess pieces, you just want better opponents!)

Another comment by DBBB echoed my sentiment:

Code: Select all

But Im definitely not a beginner, on a good day I can hit my definition of intermediate, and despite the fact that Ive been surfing for longer than I care to admit, I'm never going to reach what I think of as advanced.

I never became advanced in snowboarding. I never took the risks. But the most enjoyable rides I had was when I was starting out and discovering everything. And the surfing is exciting now, despite (or thanks to?) the fact that I don't know much about it.

[zebroo]

A really interesting thread!

I agree with RonG:

Just from my own limited experience, it seems that surfing involves a long list of skills that (for many of us) don't progress at a uniform rate. I know that my paddling ability and success at catching waves has progressed a lot faster than my skills once I'm up and riding (turns, trim, etc.). I've seen people who are exactly the opposite though - they're riding pretty well once they're up, but they have no sense of wave selection and awful paddling ability, so they're lucky to catch one out of 20 waves they try for.

I'm a beginner and I am definitely better once I'm up and riding, but pretty useless at catching waves and my pop up leaves a lot to be desired.

As for size, I think that the nature of the wave can be equally important. At the minute I feel confident in maybe up to shoulder high waves if they are are of the crumbly, slower variety and it's a calm day. I would probably regret paddling out in the same height waves if they were steep and fast, or if the conditions are rough. Did I mention I'm a wuss?

[Katsura]

Thanks for bring this one up and give it's own space.
All good discussion, Iooking at what people have written so far, my original point of 'everyone everywhere has their own measurement' rings true. Hence a common standard *for this board* would be useful. It may differ from your personal Hawaiian scale for example, but if you post on this board, then convert it to the board standard here would be useful for other posters.

Some other random thoughts:
- I tend to think beginners *WAY* overestimate wave height - that wall of water rushing towards you when you are flat on your board may seem like a monster, but to someone standing on the shore it could be an ankle snapper. I suspect most beginner's 3/4 is probably a one footer.

- Case in point: This last swell we've just had in Noosa - some choppy 3 footers, with occasional 4 footers mixed in, but I would *NOT* recommend any learner to go out on Tuesday, especially out back.

- If a wave chart/ forecast says 3 footer, it usually refers to open sea, if you are in a bay, or anywhere sheltered, it would be a lot less. I've lost the count the number of times forecast said 3 footer yet there's barely a ripple at my local points.

- I tend to agree with the idea that 'beginner' shouldn't mean graduating at catching that first green water. 'Learner' might be a better definition. I am comfortable up to about head high, nose ride with some effort, and I think I have barely broke into the intermediate category.

- Don't let this discourage if you are just starting and learning though, surfing is a life long pursuit, and as long as you are having fun and want to get better, that's all that matters. I suspect I will still be 'learning' 10 years from now.

[surferdude_scarborough]

What seems to be the general theme is we can mostly all agree when you stop being a begginner. In My opinion you are no longer a begginner when you can bottom turn consistantly. Just riding a green wave straight in is not really all that much different to catching white water.

After this it really is a grey area between intermediate, advanced, experienced and just plain awesome.

I would consider myself an experienced surfer but im by no means advanced, not really at the level where i would consider entering contests but not too far off really if i could surf more than once a week.

If we need to categorise i think another category between intermediate and advanced could be "Competant". Maybe this would mean someone who very rarely misses a take off, can surf hollow reef breaks at sensible sizes (maybe up to head and a half) and reads the waves well enough not to get into any trouble or get in the way at crowded spots. This would cover a lot of people really.

More importantly than trying to classify surfers into categories is knowing your own limits. I think most people beyond begginner levels would know when to walk away....... And for those who don't the sea has a wonderful way of putting people in their place.

[newquaynath]

Hey everyone Im really new to surfing I am definatly a learner not a beginner. From what i can gather (ive only recently surfed porthcawl - rest bay in Wales) It is near on impossible to define a surfers skill level as it is dependent on the other surfers skill that they are surfing with? For example the other day in wales there were only one or two surfers catching the majority of waves and dont get me wrong the looked "advance" but as we were all useless could that not affect the opinion you have? As in the surfers that were catching the waves probably thought that they were better than actually are cause all the others were beginers not catching a lot at all! But then when thier next to some who is better than them, they will then think the are worse? Surley there is no way to actually determain how good you are? Or is it just me being a newbie? I definatly think there are catagories such as; Learner (First time surfing, Rarly catching waves, when you do manage it and actually stand up losing your balence), Beginner (Can catch majority of white water, stand up and stay up ), Intermediate (can catch majority green waves, stand up stay up, turn and such), Advanced (Can catch nearly all green waves, easily handle a 5-6ft wave without to much thinking, striving for tricks), Pro (NARRRLYY)

obv i am very new to surfing so i could be barking up the completly wrong tree but from what ive seen so far (which i know isnt a lot) its next to impossible to determain how "good" a surfer is without hosting some sort of scale of what is expected of a beginner, itermediate, advanced surfer as everyones idea is slightly different.

[sambotc]

I'd say i'm a beginner but in some of the posts above I could be classed (not by me) as intermediate!

Personally I reckon you would need about 20 class's to accurately place someone into one. Also at the end of the day, does it really matter? unless you are pro (entering competitions etc) then you should be going out to enjoy yourself surely, whether it be on a longboard, shortboard fat board or match stick.

I also agree with one of the earlier posts about different aspects of surfing progressing at different rates e.g board control, pop up technique, paddling etc

think my take on it is that experience of all the different things that happen in different scenerio's is the only way to learn, getting wiped out, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, missing waves, pearling you can't really teach that although I have found that I can relate back to tutorials or advise once i've felt 'that' feeling, if that makes sense!

as far as wave height is concerned, I've always waited for it to cast a shadow over my little head as i'm laid in the most awkward spot that I don't want to be in, waiting for the inevitable to happen before going 'whoa thats a big and it's going to land on my head' !

[jaffa1949]

I'd say i'm a beginner but in some of the posts above I could be classed (not by me) as intermediate!

I have found that I can relate back to tutorials or advise once i've felt 'that' feeling, if that makes sense!

as far as wave height is concerned, I've always waited for it to cast a shadow over my little head as i'm laid in the most awkward spot that I don't want to be in, waiting for the inevitable to happen before going 'whoa thats a big and it's going to land on my head' !

Have to poke a little fun at you here Sambotc, you are absolutely right about having to experience the experience to know it, and then the tutorials making sense.
But lying down in awkward spots with the wave about to pound you is not anyone's idea of a fun experience nor is it a way of say I surfed it at overhead today

Sounds like you need a slightly easier learners break with easy paddle outs and some room to and time to set yourself up. Advice on this take some time to read and understand what the waves and water are doing and it will make life easier. Find your sweet paddling spot on the board.

Take your time surfing is a slow progression of skills learning

[sambotc]

I'd say i'm a beginner but in some of the posts above I could be classed (not by me) as intermediate!

I have found that I can relate back to tutorials or advise once i've felt 'that' feeling, if that makes sense!

as far as wave height is concerned, I've always waited for it to cast a shadow over my little head as i'm laid in the most awkward spot that I don't want to be in, waiting for the inevitable to happen before going 'whoa thats a big and it's going to land on my head' !

Have to poke a little fun at you here Sambotc, you are absolutely right about having to experience the experience to know it, and then the tutorials making sense.
But lying down in awkward spots with the wave about to pound you is not anyone's idea of a fun experience nor is it a way of say I surfed it at overhead today

Sounds like you need a slightly easier learners break with easy paddle outs and some room to and time to set yourself up. Advice on this take some time to read and understand what the waves and water are doing and it will make life easier. Find your sweet paddling spot on the board.

Take your time surfing is a slow progression of skills learning

Hah poke away I even laugh at myself sometimes! It was said in jest rather than a regular occurance, although I would be lying if I said it has never happened at all, those fantom set's that come in just as your on your way back out and all that!
I have surfed in unsuitable conditions before though for my skill 'level' but again all part of the learning experience, I soon realised that it can be too big as well as too small!

3-4ft is ideal for me, as you know I struggle with 4ft (not safety wise, but riding skills wise) which is why i say 3-4ft, but you have to be in it to win it and keep trying to push the boundaries.