6 things to improve your surfing 🏄♂️ 🤙
Hi, here I am after 2.5 years of surfing almost every day sharing some of the things that helped me progress in this sport.
Right now I consider myself an intermediate trying to be more advanced. 😬
I have centred my life around surfing, so I hope you find these 6 tips useful. 🏄♂️
Again this is my opinion and what helped me personally. If you have other tips or things you don't agree please let me know as I am always eager to learn more about surfing from other people 🤙
1) Understanding that surf progression is slow 🐢
Let's say you want to train for Tennis. The environment is pretty much the same, you want to improve your smash, you go to the Tennis court with 15 balls and you train the movement 10000x times. Eventually, you will get better.
In surfing, we cannot do that... I wish! At least for the majority of the movements. You could simulate the pop-up.
But even the pop-up it is not a perfect simulation. I can do 100 good pop-ups on land and in the water, my feet are all over the place 🙃
Our environment in surfing constantly changes like every hour:
- Surf conditions: Waves, wind, tides and in beach breaks even the bottom of the ocean (the sand moves)
- Crowds
In a good session, you might have a chance to practice a manoeuvre 2/3 times. 😬
That's it and then if you are lucky see you tomorrow or maybe in weeks if you don't live next to a spot with great surf conditions every time.
So I had to accept that it takes a long time to improve at this sport and embrace the suck.🐢
It made me feel better and much less frustrated with myself on those days when I could not see much improvement.
2) Learn to read waves 🌊
Is it a fast wave? A barreling one? A slow-open one? Is it a close-out?
I cannot tell you how many times I surfed in the wrong spot, in terrible conditions for my level because I could not understand and read the waves.
I remember in Sri Lanka I was watching youtube videos about "how to generate speed" but every day I was surfing fast/close-out waves.
For a beginner/intermediate I was set for failure: to surf those fast waves I had to first choose the open ones, be in the right spot, angle my pop-up, draw a high line and compress and extend like an advanced surfer.
In the 20 times, I went there it might have happened once 😅
The youtube videos did not mention anything about what kind of waves I should be surfing depending on my level. 🙃
At the time it would have been better to surf long soft peeling waves, with more time to pop up, no requirement of generating speed and just enjoying a long ride.
So please just try to spend some time out of the sea, googling about different waves, soft, fast, barreling. Because every wave is different and some might not be suited for the things you are trying to do. 🌊
3) Get yourself filmed & ask for Feedback 🎥
It destroys your EGO but you can learn so much from it.
You think that you did an amazing turn on a gigantic wave, well you look at the videos and one arm goes one way and the wave is the size and of a folded chair. 😅
Or simply your pop-up is all messy and you look like a frog 🐸
If you have a friend, a videographer or anyone that can film asks them.
Later ask a surfing friend, or a surf coach to analyse the videos and they would be able to guide you on fixing the mistakes you make. 🤙
It is also great as a memory to see your progression over the years. 📓
4) Don't give up - Surf progression is not linear 📈
There will be days or even weeks when you feel like:
- You went backwards instead of forwarding
- You cannot paddle as fast anymore
- I did not catch a single wave today
Trust me, I have been there, we all have been there. You are not alone 💙
Surf progression is not a linear line when every day you get better.
It is still an upward trend but it goes in waves, it has lots of ups and downs.
Especially when you feel like you are at one of those downs moments believe me you will eventually bounce back up, better than before -> Don't give up! 🤙
5) Surf Skate can be helpful 🛹
If used in the right way...
Surf Skates have been incredibly popular as when there are no waves there is no better place to train.
I would say they helped me a lot with the followings:
- Have a better surf stance
- My Balance
- Basics of bottom turn, top turns and cutbacks thanks to amazing Carlo Surf Coach - When to compress, where to look, how to move my body at each time
- In the bowl timing compression and decompressions -> Generating speed
But if not guided by a surf coach or with surf in mind it won't bring much to your surf.
It helps but it does not replace your time in the water.
Also, it might create some bad habits like the wiggle to get speed on a surf skate which does not work in surfing. You cannot go left and right on a wave face to generate speed, you can only go up and down.
6) Have fun - Progression is not all that matter 🤙
Did I always have fun surfing?
No, there have been times that I was just feeling like crap.
I could not see much progression, I was getting more and more frustrated than enjoying it.
My mood was entirely linked to progression and that is a terrible place to be.
I would set goals for every session and if I could not achieve any I would just feel terrible. 😞
It was especially true when I was getting coached because I was paying for someone to help me and I felt such pressure to perform better than ever.
But how did I get out of this situation?
I focused on having sessions with the only goal being to have the most fun.
Party waves, use a foam board, wipe out, and just feel the water pushing you, there are so many beautiful things that this discipline can give you.
So if you are as competitive with yourself as me, sometimes try to take a step back, go out surfing and just simply enjoy.
Without expectations of yourself, relax and go with whatever the waves would bring you. 🌊