white wash

[SadisticNature]

when you are surfing in the white wash broken waves do you pop up before it hits you or after?

[dtc]

After - once the board is moving along under the power of the wave. If you pop up before, then (a) its hard to stand because the board is stationary, (b) the board might sink and (c) when the white water hits you, it will knock you off.

Remember that on the unbroken wave you arent standing up until the board is moving under the power of the wave, so white water is the same thing.

So paddle as the water approaches, let the water catch you then up you go.

[oldmansurfer]

I rarely catch whitewater but more often the wave breaks before I get on to it so I guess I am catching whitewater. In those cases I stand or wait a bit depending on what I think the wave is going to do. If I think I am going to take an impact I may wait for the hit then stand often I will push the nose of my board down while waiting for the hit to get in front of the wave. However I am not the best at judging this and it remains the most common reason I fall on the popup (the wave slaps me in the back as I popup). Sometimes the wave breaks below me and my board seems to do well in those instances so I stand up and ride the whitewater down which gives me enough speed to make a bottom turn and maybe get in front of the whitewater back onto the unbroken wave. Sometimes I am just going in and will wait for the whitewater to catch my board then I stand as soon as the board seems stable enough.

[jaffa1949]

Sadistic if you are feeling in the least masochistic you can stand up before the white wash hits you!
What you do is paddle so your paddle speed matches the speed of the approaching white water ( means less of a hit from behind). when the wave has full caught you and you are stable and being pushed then pop up.
The more the wave has powered you the easier the pop up.
When you want to progress to green wave have good read through the pop up threads.
Full instructions are there!