Some help with Cutbacks

[IanCaio]

Hey guys,

I've been trying to improve my cutbacks specially because the waves on nearby breaks can get mushy and staying closer to the pocket until a hollower section comes seems like a wise idea!

So, I've some issues that shows up sometimes when cutbacking:

-With some frequency, I tend to cutback when I'm already too far out the shoulder. Cutback has been kind of a "do when things are going wrong" maneuver!
I think maybe I've to teach myself not to do it when things are going wrong, but before they do. Hopefully water time will make me learn that. But if you have some tips about that I'm all ears!

-I feel like I lose lots of speed on my cutbacks, rarely I feel like my cutback is smooth and has speed from the beginning until the end. The other times it's like I'm trading whatever speed I've left to get back to the pocket, but if the pocket doesn't push me fast enough I end up falling because I'm too slow. I don't know, but watching surfing videos it doesn't seem like I'm supposed to lose speed (or at least not that much) during the cutback. Is it related to the compression/extension of legs during the trick? Have to admit I don't know if I'm compressing and extending, or maybe not hard enough.. (Wish I had some footage to check it). Usually I bend my knees while doing some sharp turn to face the pocket and make some tension on it, but I'm not sure if I'm extending it or just keeping my knees bent. Also, I don't think I'm going all the way up the face on the way back, like about to do a snap, but maybe just about midface.
The only other thing I could think of was tail pressure, but I don't feel like I'm stalling

So, any ideas of what I could do to work it?
Thank you guys!

[oldmansurfer]

yeah the cutback when you are already too far onto the shoulder is difficult to complete. Try to do them before you need to. My current board seems to complete those a bit better if I already have some speed however I pretty much try to do them before I need to. It's much more exciting to do one on a steeper wall than a flat shoulder. When I cutback to get back to the power I keep my knees flexed but when I am jamming a power cutback I extend my legs coming out of the turn. So I try to look a little further down the line to be able to react to that rather than the situation where you are like OMG where did the wave go?

[oldmansurfer]

For some reason some of the instructions online say to do them from a midface turn but most often I do them from a bottom turn and they are a transition directly from the bottom turn so no in between stuff. As I was relearning to surf I ran into the same situation and what I did was to try to do them before I get to the flat part of the wave so I do them on the part of the wave that is still steep right before it gets flat then I hold a lot of speed through the turn. But my 7'6" funboard seems to keep better speed through low power cutbacks than my 8' funboard maybe because the 7'6" board has very little rocker

[waikikikichan]

If after your cutback on the shoulder and making it all the way back to the pocket THEN falling/slowing/ catching a rail, it's more a timing thing. When to roll from inside rail to outside rail ... then back to inside rail again.
I would recommend to cutback one way and Cutback the other way one after the other immediately. Don't wait for the visual cue from the wave, just roll the rail and roll back instinctively.

[waikikikichan]

If you're having trouble on the initial turn and burning too much speed, it may because your turning (cutting) too hard. Just imagine dropping in backside and do a smooth flowing Backside Bottom Turn. A backside bottom turn almost has the same mechanics of a frontside cutback. It will draw out your turn better.

[oldmansurfer]

There is a basic difference between a bottom turn and a cutback and that is gravity. Doing a bottom turn you are generating speed by taking the force from falling down the face of the wave (gravity) and altering it to speed in a lateral direction. In a cutback you are going against gravity initially then have some help with gravity during the cutback due to steepness in the wave so if the wave isn't steep you have not much help. It is the speed at your initial turn that helps to keep you going so if you don't have much speed because you ran out onto the flat part of the wave then it's too late but both speed into the cutback and a steeper drop .....that is beyond functional and becomes thrilling (to me). However maybe all of this is beyond what you are doing? If I run out onto the shoulder of a wave then I kind of ankle turn cutback and my 7'6" no rocker quad funboard does pretty good at maintaining speed that is there going into the turn but my highly rockered 8 foot board not as well. I imagine a longboard would be even better for those situations but you have to learn to ride the board you are on.

[BoMan]

It's much more exciting to do one on a steeper wall than a flat shoulder.

On small waves (which I ride most of the time ) I simply turn toward shore rather than cutting back. As soon as the pocket catches up, I turn back into the wall. I agree with OMS about cutbacks on larger waves.

[IanCaio]

Thank you guys for your tips!

OMS,
My board doesn't have much volume and size, so I probably need to focus on starting the cutback even earlier. I usually start it midface, like I'm carving but with a bigger radius and going all the way back. When I see the pocket again I do another carve. Can it also be I'm doing this second turn too low on the face?

Waikikikichan,
Yeah! It's usually once I'm already in the pocket again that I lose speed, I recall yesterday that's exactly what happened: I did the carve, faced back, when I was in the pocket doing the second carve to face the line again I was slow and digged a rail.
I'll try to do as you say, turning towards the line again right after cutbacking, see if it helps me mantaining speed.

Hopefully there will be some nice waves tomorrow for trying to put it into practice!

[IanCaio]

BoMan,

Small waves are tricky (except for some spots that have stronger waves, even when smaller) in the sense you need to react quickly to it and not make any mistake or you can lose all your speed. I often get a little frustrated on smaller days
Maybe one day I'll be able to use all the energy smaller waves have to offer.

[oldmansurfer]

The trick on smaller waves isn't just using the power of the wave but adding in your own power in the form of turning and weighting and unweighting and yeah you have to keep the board speed up or it all gets more difficult but then faster small waves are easier. Anyway that is why I like bigger waves.

[oldmansurfer]

I think in the mechanics of doing a powerful cutback you weight into the cutback and unweight out of it then weight into the turn to go back down the line. The weight changes on the board set and release the rails and add some speed to the maneuver. Perhaps you aren't setting the rail with enough force in the turn back

[oldmansurfer]

Also while I am thinking of it if you lack speed then you really need to be sure you unweight toward the cutback by crouching down as you begin to turn then when your weight quits going down because you reached the bottom of the crouch, this lowering of your center of gravity adds force to the turn which is the weighting part of the turn. In addition you then start to extend your legs and this adds more force or weight into the board and gets you ready to unweight out of the turn. So as you come out of the turn you should have legs extended and leaning in the direction you want to go. Then you bring the board under you and forward of you and your legs crouch a bit midflight in this maneuver and then extend again as then start to turn and crouch again. It is really like hopping with your board from one place to another. Then crouch into the turn back to go down the line and extend legs coming out of that turn. Each unweighting is followed by weighting which compresses your weight into the board and feels somewhat like a spring. You weight and it stores up energy then as you unweight that energy is released. On small waves or where you ran out into flat water or onto the shoulder then crouching suddenly and turning will help to set the rail and get some additional speed to make it through a turn then unweighting in the direction you want to go hopefully where you will get some help from gravity gets you moving again. On small waves it is a chore, you have to keep it up because once you stop then you won't have speed to do anything unless it is a fast small wave.

[IanCaio]

Since tuesday I didn't surf, sorting some things out, not to say it's been quite cold those days. Not an excuse, so today I went to the hollow spot, water still cold but a little bit of sun was helping.

2ft hawaiian breaking on a shallow sand bank. Hollow and fast waves, so I couldn't really practice cutbacks. I basically made the drop on 4 waves, since the crowd was intense, the series were taking a while and I had to abort some waves (or fail miserably trying to abort ). First wave was a nice right, backside, but I just trimmed it. Could have tried some carving or a snap, but I don't know, I think I made the drop with a wider stance. Felt kinda "stuck". There was a left that I made the drop, but turned to a close out as soon as I was doing the bottom turn. And another right, that I made the drop kinda unbalanced and trimmed a bit before falling backwards (feet still stuck to the board, which probably looked really stupid ).

So I still didn't manage to put the tips you guys gave into practice, but I'll as soon as I hit the break again!

[billie_morini]

cutbacks?
I thought we were talking about hair styles!

[IanCaio]

Billie, for a while I've been following Kelly's hair advice, not having hair (or barely having any!)
For my surprise and disappointment I didn't start making 540s after shaving my head..

[IanCaio]

Recently I surfed on 2ft-3ft hawaiian conditions, not so hollow spot, and managed to nail a backside cutback!
I did have to make that "pushing water back with hands" thing, but I was right back at the pocket and after some effort had some speed to try a little carve top turn on the next section!

Yesterday I went to the hollower spot after doing some functional training on work. It was a bit stormy, no lulls, a bit windy. Maybe 2-3ft hawaiian. I was a little nervous, because I was tiring quite fast. Wearing a long john and surfing not long after doing some training made me get tired halfway across the impact zone. I thought if I got a bomb on my head I would feel the urge to breath faster because of the tireness, so this was getting my mindset a bit unconfident. But I forced myself to get out there. It was mostly a paddling exercise and a psychological training (I don't like stormy conditions, specially when they are closer to the upper edge of my comfort zone). Hard to pick waves, a few close outs. The wave that was the one came: A left that was breaking slow enough for me to make the drop and lock the rails (important to mention I'm still surfing with only one fin ). I poped up and guess my foot position wasn't perfect. So I did a little jump to get it right and just messed the whole thing landing my feet on the rail. Was on the inside again, tired, so I just went out sad that I didn't make that wave. Would've been a nice ride..

Made some functional training again today and plan on doing it everyday until my body get used to it. Guess it will help with my paddle fitness. Plan on making my apnea training more often too, been a while I do it less frequently..

[IB_Surfer]

Want to try an easier solution? Try different fins, you'd be surprised

[IanCaio]

You mean trying some different size fins or set up? Right now I have a thruster set up with some cheap plastic fins, a little larger than usual. I mean, I HAD a thruster set up.. Now I'm surfing it with a single fin, after breaking my side fin and not replacing it (YET! ).

I gotta fix that! It's on my list, along with some small leakages that I'm holding with silver tape.

[IanCaio]

I've got lucky those last couple of days with being photographed surfing, usually the lens really avoid me

Yesterday a guy got a sequence of a backside cutback. I'm getting them down more often than I used to back when I started this topic, still miss a couple but yesterday I could get a lot of them right. Specially frontside cutbacks, I think there was a wave I got like 3 in a row, going all the way back and kind of hitting the foam.

I didn't hit the foam on the one from the picture because I was getting close to the pocket faster. I thought I wouldn't be quick enough to hit the foam before the it got ahead of me, so I just carved midface close to the pocket to get my direction back to the right (that part wasn't caught on camera).

As always, any advice on the technique you can get from the pictures is very welcome!

[Big H]

Water temps low there? In Hawaii right? Just curious....surprised by the wetsuit.