Landlocked training: Backfoot positioning/pressure and turni

[HerrN]

Hey guys,

I recently "picked up surfing" again while I was in OZ for a year. When I was 12-14 I went on 2-3 surfing trips to Spain. But i always had the feeling that I wasnt really progressing when I was younger.

In OZ however I surfed for two months pretty much every day. I started out on a 7' foamie in whitewash again but i mustve learned at least something when I was younger since I transitioned to green waves pretty quickly and started making my first turns again. How ever I really don't enjoy the stepping back part in order to turn it's not and the foamie felt like being "on the water " a bit too much than being in the water.
I switched to a 7' 4" hybrid and I was still catching waves however trimming and turning got better but I was bogging the rail sometimes probably because I wasn't on the back of the board enough.

When the surf picked up a little for once (which meant about 4-5 feet in the area I was in) I tried out a 6' twin fin performance fish of a friend. Now i know that this is certainly not a board for learners but because of the bigger swell my wave count didn't shrink down too much. I really liked the board and for the first time I had the feeling that I did a couple of nicer bottom turns even to the point of sliding out once or twice (which in my opinion is a good thing in terms of learning to put pressure on the back foot and turning) . However the twin fin brought up a couple of new problems: Quite often I started overshooting the pocket racing to the shoulder of the wave and loosing all my speed creating the need to cut back into the wave - trying to perform a backside turn or a cutback I started bogging the rails again which leads me to believe that I was trying to turn too much over my front foot/upper body.

I then bought my first own board a couple of weeks later - a 5' 8" EcoBean (5'8"x22 1/4x2 3/4). I know that it's not the ideal board for a beginner but i needed something that I could travel with and that I could take back home. I had the same problems: not being able to stay in the pocket and bogging the rails when trying to do bottom turns and cutting back.

I also had a problem with pearling some times but I think that was down to me not being used to the low rocker and the short length of the board. I couldn't try the board very often though since I caught a nasty swimmers ear and couldn't go in the water for the last few weeks.

I am now back in Germany which means I am back to being landlocked for most of the year but I still want to train my surfing skills. My main focus is on learning to do consistent bottom turns and cutbacks with everything that goes with it (head movement - arm movement (+ leading with the arm), upper body movement, putting pressure on the back foot.

Could training on a Skatey/Surfskate help with that ?
I thought that learning to skate bowls and banks might help but we dont have an awful lot of banks and basically no bowls in my area.

Are there other excersises or training methods that might help to improve turning?

Cheers in advance for your replies guys

[dtc]

Bogging the rails is merely turning too hard (or ‘tilting’ the board too much) for the speed you are going. That might be just the speed you are doing or that the way you are turning is losing you speed. It’s not related to the board itself. Hence why it was easier in bigger waves

As to what to do - really, other than surfing your best bets are just

- watching videos etc to make sure you understand what you are meant to do and then just dry land practicing

- perhaps skateboarding. You don’t need a bowl, you can practice down a small hill or anywhere (there aren’t cars)

And just stay ‘surf fit’, swimming and mobility etc, to maximise your water time when you get back

[oldmansurfer]

To add pressure to the board when I go into turns on slow waves I suddenly crouch down right as I start to turn. This adds the inertia from my body dropping down into the turn and then I extend my legs through the turn which adds more force to the turn. The real solution to your problem bogging the rails is likely to turn sooner so you haven't lost speed yet and the wave has some power to assist you in turning. The shorter board fixes or simplifies the problem of foot placement because it needs to be more precise and you basically don't have as much choice as to where you place your feet. What to do out of the water for extended periods of time? I don't know. Definitely swimming and I hear skateboarding helps however what I would do is to look at videos of what you want to learn and try to imagine you are surfing and doing the same maneuvers and go through the motions as much as possible (mind surfing). Plan on spending a little time learning all over again when you start back at it. For me if I don't surf for 2 weeks I lose skill and have to surf for a while to regain it. But everything you describe is what beginners go through so don't be discouraged it takes time.

[Big H]

I will bet you big your rails becoz you are too far forward on your board.....saying you don’t like stepping back is like an Eskimo saying they don’t like the cold; you need to learn how to do this and get on the tail.....do it and a 10’ board will turn into a 6’ becoz the rest is out of the water.

[HerrN]

First of all thanks for your replies guys.
I've been watching loads of videos already but I want to learn "what it feels like" to engage the back foot in bottom turns and cutbacks. So far when I actually did a nice bottom turn I was asking myself what I did right that time and what I did wrong the other time and I couldn't really tell the difference.

I want to create kind of a muscle memory so I don't have the "actively" think that I have to engage my back foot. I've been snowboarding for ~16 years (slopes but in recent years mostly backcountry) now which helps me quite a bit balance wise but it's not doing me a favor with turning. I think quite a few times I've been so caught up in following the wave and trying to anticipate how the wave is delevoping that when I tried to turn I just tried it "the snowboarding way" so I put quite equal pressure on both feet naturally and just tried tilting the board. Whenever I'm too busy trying to watch all the other important things while on a wave I think I'm trying to turn snowboarding style.

I wanna get back to my question about skateboarding since you said it might help. Could a skateboard help me to get the feeling for turns and create said muscle memory? Would I need a surfskate for that or would a normal skateboard/cruiser be fine aswell?

[dtc]

I feel you are expecting too much from dry land exercises. All you can really do is practice putting your feet and arms into the right position - muscle memory of sorts

this is a reasonable thing to practice

https://boostyoursurf.com/blog/2017/03/ ... ttom-turn/

The best practice, if possible, is to spend sessions surfing and just doing sharp bottom turns. As in, go down the face and try to do the sharpest bottom turn back up the face. Even if you go over the back of the wave at the end of it, that is fine. You arent trying for the longest ride, you are trying to cement a particular skill.

Its very hard to surf waves like this, there is always the incentive to surf for as long as possible. So you dont necessarily have to do it for the whole session - maybe do it for the first 5 waves only

[waikikikichan]

Don't be so focused on one aspect, like just the the back foot. It's the whole body working in unison. Watch the rider's front hand open the door and then slam the door shut ( 0:50 and 1:09 ). Yes he is putting back foot pressure, but it's the weighting and un-weighting that allows the transfer from inside rail to outside rail ( and back ).

[pmcaero]

if you buy a Carver skateboard all your problems will be solved.

[RinkyDink]

If you're watching videos of good surfing and you're trying to get help turning, then I recommend that you focus not on the turns of the surfer you're watching, but on the times when that surfer is stalling out and losing momentum. Approach the videos you watch with this focus: Where does the surfer start to lose momentum? How does the surfer deal with the loss of momentum? If you want to understand turning, then you need to understand how to generate the power required for a specific turn. That knowledge comes with understanding how you start stalling on a surfboard. The flip side of turning is stalling. You can't really turn when you're stalling. You'll also need to look at how specific turns (carving turns, trimming turns) relate to the loss of momentum or a lack of an incline on a wave. Watch professional surfers when they end up riding in white water. Do they do anything different than the rest of us? Good luck.

[oldmansurfer]

The skills for dealing with loss of momentum are perhaps a little difficult to understand. It involves weighting and unweighting but often called pumping which people think it is similar to pumping a skateboard for speed and in function it is similar but in the physical act it isn't. It is weight transfer in an up and down manner as opposed to a side to side manner with skateboarding although the surfboard may also go side to side it is the up and down part of the motion that generates speed. Most good surfers try to keep their board speed up so any loss of forward motion usually is a failure on the part of the surfer except when they are intentionally stalling. Knowing where to be in the wave is very important and something you should visualize too. Where they are making the turns is where you want to also or at least gradually work your way closer to that point.

[GlassyLinesMP]

A cruiser is fine. Put back foot on or just in front of rear trucks so you can put full weight on back foot without lifting the nose of the board, then try sitting your butt down over your back foot to get full back foot pressure turns.

Use small slight gradient hills to practice cutbacks and bottom turns aiming to turn yourself uphill as far as you can: the further uphill you can end your turn the better the power of your turn!

Use the "T" position and "Reaching" positions for starting your manoeuvre as taught by Martin Dunn for both bottom turns and cutbacks and you will be there in no time.

[oldmansurfer]

I am not saying you should try to imitate this style of skateboarding but I bet if you could do this it would help your surfing.

https://youtu.be/usGzmhiyG4w

[oldmansurfer]

you may think surfing is about riding a board and it is but it is really about moving your body through a three dimensional space along with your board. to do it well takes whole body coordination so you need the skills to take your body from one point to another on the wave. This guy has some amazing whole body coordination and if you could do what he can on land then some unreal stuff will get done on the water as well.

https://youtu.be/Cj6ho1-G6tw

[oldmansurfer]

one more sport requiring whole body coordination

[oldmansurfer]

This is similar to something I used to do but I was a little more extreme about it. It requires whole body coordination.

[oldmansurfer]

This looks fun but not as safe as surfing