Transitioning from a foamboard to a funboard

[camcc88]

I took surfing lessons a couple of times and was progessing well. I decided to buy a funboard right out of lessons and I am having lots of trouble. I can't stand up on my funboard. I don't know whether it's my positioning on the board of just because I'm new to it. I had no problem on the foam board, but now it's like I forgot how to surf. I was getting up slowly, on to one knee , then my feet, on my foamboard and I tried the same thing on my funboard, and I have only gotten up once on my funboard in like 3 hours of surfing. I also noticed that it was a lot harder to catch the wave. If anyone can shed some light on my situation, I would be much obliged. Thanks

[oldmansurfer]

It would help us if you tell us the dimensions of the boards and your height and weight. It sounds typical of many frist time posters here on this forum. Don't worry it is a common problem but it is way easier to ride bigger boards. So you can make lots of mistakes riding bigger boards and they are forgiving. You can pop up slowly and not in the right place and it will be stable enough to support you. However the smaller you go the less forgiving it all is. You have to popup faster and you have to paddle better and you have to lineup better and you have to popup in the right place or you won't be riding any waves. Things you can do is to go back to the foam board for a while and work at popping up faster and paddling and lining up the break, or you can get a bigger board or you can stick with the funboard. If you stick with the funboard it may take you a while but you should be able to get it down. You can practice popping up at home. I used to make a cardboard cutout of my board to practice popping up or you can just lay the board next to you and lay down on the floor with the board to your side and practice popping up then looking to see if your feet go in about the right position on the board (back foot over or close to the fins). You shoud be able to popup in about a second. At the top of this page there is a learn to surf button that has lots of info for a beginner and if you search the forum for popup threads there are a bunch. Basically it's more difficult to surf a smaller board and it will take time to get used to it. It may even be more difficult to just sit on it or to paddle it but that will come easier with practice.

[camcc88]

Thank you. My height is 5'8 and I weigh about 135. The length of my funboard is 7'6 x 21 1/6 x 16 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 2 2/4. The long board is about 10 long but I don't know the other dimensions

[dtc]

You need to fix your pop up is the basic answer. The funboard is probably just that little bit faster and little bit less stable than the foamboard, and the getting to one knee method is just a little bit too slow. If you aren't up by the time the board is heading down the face, you will fall off because your base is just not stable enough. You need to be standing.

Popping up and getting it right is a hard thing to learn - its a very unnatural movement, and then you are doing it at funny angles and waves breaking and thing whizzing around in your head and you want to slow down to figure it all out but things are going too fast (and slowing down makes things worse...).

But once you have it nailed, then it becomes second nature and you can do it without even thinking (at times I find myself standing and don't even remember popping up). You need to pop up in one motion and quickly - practice on land, then practice on land some more. Also, practice in the white water. Rather than trying to catch waves, get in the white water and practice popping up 30 times. Then do that the next session as well. And keep doing it until you have the muscle memory down pat. Then go out and look for an unbroken wave.

There are some videos around pop ups but they tend not to be too useful... I remember watching a bunch of them and still not being able to figure out how to actually do it. But have a look at 4 or 5. Search on this forum re 'pop up' and there are a few pretty good discussions and people have their own tips.

It comes down to (a) getting the actions correct and (b) making the correct actions your muscle memory.

Your funboard should be fine - as oldman says, its a harder board to surf than the longboard but you should be able to do it.

After that its simple...

[camcc88]

Thanks man I appreciate it.