Next Steps/Advice: Video Footage

[Jripper53]

Hello SW forum, it's been a while. After breaking my foot 3 months ago (surfing of course), I finally got back in the water this last week for a few solid sessions. I managed to take my GoPro out with me yesterday and used the mouth mount to record a few waves. I know it's probably very hard to critique someone from POV footage, but like most people I don't have anyone to record me from shore. In the future I will hopefully be able to find someone to help me with that. So I was hoping to get some tips/advice on how to make more of the waves, make cleaner exits, anything really. It was a small but fun day. All these waves are backside (I'm a goofy-footer). I'm more active on the wave going frontside. Here's the video:

Wave 1 - I got out clean. Everything felt smooth, floaty and fluid.
Wave 2 - Is there anything I could've done to avoid that crash (it was no big deal, just not very stylish)? Turn straight towards shore? Turn out to sea and over back of wave? Floater?
Wave 3 - Maybe I could have made it out to the shoulder on this wave if I had stepped forward more on the board, to gain speed?

I'd really appreciate any and all tips/advice. Don't hold back. Thanks in advance!

[oldmansurfer]

Is it fun? That's the main thing. I would probably do a floater on wave 2 but also likely I would be doing top to bottom turns or cutbacks or something although it's difficult to tell what the wave is doing with that POV . When the waves are small enough I just ride along

[jaffa1949]

Great you are surfing again . I have a couple of thoughts for you.
First one is about safety with your GoPro how are you wearing or carrying it to do your videoing.
On a helmet, I hope! On a forehead strap or baseball cap set up? I hope not!

Imappreciate you shooting yourself, but if watch you see it shows nothing of what you are actually doing! Gopro on nose does slightly more but the wave is flattened out by the optics and the surfer looks like they are having epileptic spasms in the shower!

To really review your progress I recommend having a surfing friend video you with a good camera from shore, that will show your skills!
you can perhaps return the video favour!

Now the safety bit, if you are wearing the Gopro on your head with a soft strap or baseball cap, if your board impacts on the camera on your head you risk joining guys that sustained serious brain injury!.
Proper helmet fitted camera is quite safe!

Now for advice on your surfing, difficult to tell, seems all right

[Naeco78]

Glad to hear you're surfing again.
Yeah for wave #2, I would've probably done a floater.. when the wave walled up at the end like that. If you're not going for a floater, you would probably need to straighten out towards shore because you're sitting right in the critical spot of the wave when the lip comes down.. not a good place to be. It's not as big of a deal in smaller waves but you wouldnt wanna be in the impact zone like that when the waves get bigger... you would basically need to surf vertically or just straighten out, when the wave closes out like that.

For Wave #3 its hard to tell from POV but it looked like you may have caught a rail or just stayed on your inside rail for too long and then dug in, right as the wave was starting to stand up. It looked like the wave was gonna all break at once/closeout when it ended. Probably another good time for a floater right before the wave hits that same sandbar on the inside.

[ConcreteVitamin]

Adding to others: practice keeping your eyes down the line when paddling. I'm still constantly reminding myself of this to form a habit.

[oldmansurfer]

Wave, surfer, board, are the main variables of surfing. What to do depends on those variables. For most surfers enjoying the endeavor is necessary for a continued effort to surf. So it’s difficult for us to say what you should do on a wave but if you’re having problems trying to do something we might have more to say

[IB_Surfer]

Hi, don't think we can be much help in small waves, but here are my 2 cents.

End or ride: for most rides, try to get used to landing on your board or sitting on it at the end. It takes more energy to fall off, pick up your board, turn it around... than to just slip out of the wave and start paddling. Even on wave #2, if it's already broken turn toward the beach, sit down on the board and pull up on nose to stop it, then start paddling back.

Catching: Are you centered or slightly towards the rear? Seemed you were a tad back with the nose up in the air, that makes it harder to catch waves. It's a balance thing, if you get too far forward you will pearl, but try moving up just a bit.

[Jripper53]

Thanks for all the input guys. I was definitely having fun. That's what it's all about.

The waves were probably a little too small to try top to bottom turns. One the first wave I was weaving the front end around a bit but the power zone of the wave was so small you couldn't deviate from it too much at all. OMS and Naeco78, any tips on initiating a floater for wave #2? I've never done one before but it seems kind of like hopping up over the top of the broken wave in an "ollie" motion. Like a skateboard, but harder when the board is 8'6.

Jaffa, I was actually using a mouth mount for the GoPro. They're pretty common for POV surfing footage. It's a soft mouth-guard type bracket that connects to the camera, and you hold it in your mouth. Sounds a lot harder than it actually is. That's what it is designed for and it works pretty well honestly. I think in the near future I will try to use a nose mount pointed backwards. At least until I can get someone to film me.

[Jripper53]

Hi, don't think we can be much help in small waves, but here are my 2 cents.

Catching: Are you centered or slightly towards the rear? Seemed you were a tad back with the nose up in the air, that makes it harder to catch waves. It's a balance thing, if you get too far forward you will pearl, but try moving up just a bit.

I am mostly centered, but slightly towards the rear. The waves kind of had this sucking thing going on that day so I didn't want to nose dive. But I will skooch back a bit next time and see if I can get in earlier.

[Naeco78]

OMS and Naeco78, any tips on initiating a floater for wave #2? I've never done one before but it seems kind of like hopping up over the top of the broken wave in an "ollie" motion. Like a skateboard, but harder when the board is 8'6.

Yeah its a little trickier on a mid length. I would say its softer than an Ollie.. Floaters are more of a glide over a section of the wave. I usually take a high line (top 1/3 of the wave face) and try to pick a section of the wave ahead, where the lip starting to feather, then you wanna do a short/shallow bottom turn up to the lip.. you wanna try to meet the lip coming down just as you board is getting up to the top of the wave... weight is more on your back foot (usually still from the bottom turn) and let the nose climb up and onto the lip that's coming down towards you. (There's a lot of timing involved at this step but that will come with more experience. Getting more familiar with the sandbars at you local break will help with that too... the waves will usually always break or closeout at certain sports where the water is shallow.. then you can better predict when a wave will break in certain spots before it happens.). You wanna try to be really light on your feet while climbing the lip and gliding or floating over the section. Once on top of the wave, you wanna just glide parallel with the wave (weight centered) and then usually you feel the wave start to collapse under your board and just turn slightly towards shore to drop back down in front of the face again.

A lot of it is feel. You'll learn how to better gauge when to enter and exit the maneuver with more experience. You can also start by just hitting the lip and coming right back down, without the glide over the section. Then progress up to doing floaters over the sections, with more experience.
Hope this helped

[oldmansurfer]

Floaters are going from the face of the wave to the back of the wave then just riding along back down essentially over the falls to the bottom of the wave. It requires good timing and you try to turn right where the lip is pitching over To me it feels like any other turn and initially the very first time I did one it was by accident and at the time I wasn’t aware that you could do that. It seemed crazy. Which is why I enjoy doing them.

[oldmansurfer]

The first time I did a floater I was on a fast wave with about an 8 foot face doing fast top to bottom turns trying to get to the hollow section and get in the tube. I turned at the top and by accident went over the back of the wave on the section that was just breaking in front of me and I had so much speed I just kept going down the line like I was on the face of the wave. I'm not sure if I was trying to cutout or just mistimed the top turn but I started going over the falls and thought I was done for but I kept going and came down right where the lip was coming down. I just rode off the leading edge of the lip back onto the wave face and kept going. It felt so smooth and not much different from riding the face of the wave. I did manage to get a little tube after that and it was so weird. I had never seen a surfer do that but of course there was no internet back then. I'm probably not the best person to tell you how to do it since it seemed easy to me. These days I do them on occasions and find it really seems to be mostly about timing of the turn rather than a jump. Speed helps as well as they seem much easier if I'm going fast.

[Jripper53]

More great input from you guys, thanks. This all gives me the sense that I need to be a bit more "risky" on the wave, caring less about whether I make it out or not and instead trying new things. Probably falling more. I also noticed a comment about having my inside rail dug in too long on the last wave. I re-watched the footage and see this is true. Had I leaned toe-side and gotten farther down the face, I may have gotten more juice from that wave. So for surfing backside I will start focusing more on swinging in to my toe side rail, getting down the face and then turning heel side to get back to the power zone, then repeat. There's a next step on those small days.

For floaters I will start experimenting with getting closer to the lip in general. Like it was said, it will be a timing/feel affair as to when to get up to the lip and ride along it, if possible, before/during the breaking point. Hoping to get some better footage up in a new thread sometime this winter. Precious cold fronts are coming to the Gulf! Thanks again guys. I really appreciate it.

[oldmansurfer]

I am a conservative surfer. I take risks but only risks that I think I have a good chance of not getting hurt. I guess I am pretty good at judging what that is as I rarely get injured and not anything serious. I have been a risk taker since I was a young boy and either I'm incredibly lucky or I have a good sense of what I am likely to survive without serious injury. If you listened to me I said the first time I did it I did it by accident. I recommend you learn to do other turns first. There is so much to learn in surfing.