A Newbies Guide for Newbies

[surferdude_scarborough]

the best thing to do if you are going to wipe out is to get a long way from your board. this will make it much less likely to hit you. diving back into0 the wave can sometimes get you through but wont work in big surf. if you have no control you have to consider where your board will be in relation to you and the wave. if you fall in front of the board its time to get your hands over your head in case it comes round and hits you.

as for closeouts, just get ouy however you can. if you spot that its going to close out early you can kick out over the back or smack your board into the closeout and jump (trusting your leash). you can even punt through the back of the wave. the last one takes some time to get right.

[ElKapitanek]

Hi guys, just wanted to say how useful this thread has been as learner!! Very good advice all round and good to hear other people have the same problems! So yeh cheers fellas!

I'd say I'm probably around the stage of Mr PhilWilson just a shame I never found this thread when I first started! How good is it to be out back getting good rides on the green faces after all those times getting munched?!

Cheers

[hadou-kurt]

i got a 6'3 seagraves, and im barely starting out,

am i an idiot or what?

i bought the bored for 60 smacks,

but i think im way in over my head starting off with a short board.


any thoughts?

[phillwilson]

I think you may have answered your own question.
the good news at that price is, you have just added your "next" board to your quiver....now you just need to find one you can learn on.

[hadou-kurt]

well my a couple of my friends say i'll do just fine, but something tells me they're just in it for a few good laughs

haha

how big a board should i get if im 5'11"?

[phillwilson]

i think the relationship between size and board size is over told...

i see the error similar to the analogy
if a normal sized person plays with a football
should a tall large person play with a beachball and a small person play with a tennis ball...

at the end of the day you choose the ball that relates to the WAY you want to play

sure there are limitations such as i you can lift it or if it will fit under your arm, but even these arent insummountable.

at the small end of boards there may be a limit where your physical fram can no longer be supported,

but for learning i would say as long as you can lit it in some way (whatever way) then its not TOO big.

i started on an 8ft but have progressed so much more on my 9'2 i cant imagine that it would be any differant if i was 3" shorter.

just my thoughts.

[tree4]

Thing is Phil, a 9'2" long board with all its float will be very forgiving and stable no matter how tall/small fat/thin kook/pro a person is riding it. A small thin board will expect you to do all the hard work, be in exactly the right place for pop up, and react to the feet being 1 or 2 inches out of place. A bit like some of those cars you get where the clutch is more like an on/off switch than something that gradually feeds in the power.
IMO.

[drowningbitbybit]

sure there are limitations

Tell you what Phil, find a 6'1 and go for a paddle and then see what your opinion is

The size thing isnt over-sold, but it might be a little over-simplified.

A skinny kid will find it reasonably simple to get going on a small board, but as height and weight increase, the length of board required increases exponentially.
Okay, not actually exponentially, that would lead to 50ft boards... but what I mean is, a 5'6 skinny kid can get away with starting on a board 6" taller than him, but a 6' adult newbie will need a board far bigger than 6" taller than him.

And there does come a point where a fully grown heavy adult will pretty much not be able to start on anything but a long(ish) board.

Another factor to consider is where the newbie is.
On a crumbly UK wave, for instance, it would be pointless recommending a shortboard.

Somewhere far more powerful, however, could actually be easier to learn on a shortboard. I cant think of many waves near me that I'd be happy to take a mini-mal out in.

All in all though, for someones very first go, or for the first few months, they'll make more progress on a board with a bit of volume that rides pretty slowly.

And as it happens, unless the newbie wants to be a longboarder, I dont particularly agree with the wisdom of sending them out on a 9' barge of a board.
Anyone can surf a 7'6 and then move shorter or longer.

[RJD]

I was stunned by the difference between a 9 and an 8 foot board!

[phillwilson]

Hello all,

Its been a while, how are we all doing ???

Im finally back in the water and finding wave time after a bout of general malaise followed by a dodgy knee and capped off by some really poor swell!!!!

the weirdest thing has happened though....

Ive become almost...dare I say it... confident !!!

maybe when things in the rest my life where making me a bit pi**ed off it gave me the guts to say to hell with the consequences and push on further out and in bigger conditions...

and now that things in my non surfing life have stabilisedh and improved, I have found myself a very lucky, happy surfer, sat finally on the outside, no longer worrying about if I can get back in to shore. and finally scoring some good green (well brown, its still Scarbs)

I went out last night and had alovely if a lil messy south bay sesh, got a lovely right hander and really felt I had the board under control, its amazing to me how little steepness of wave you need to glide as long as you have some speed going before the wave catches you, i just wish i had more consistence in this department, like how far away should the wave be when i decide if im going to go for it??
hmm...as for the guide... what can I say??

I guess its more of a point of view then a tip, but I think using the bad days to drum up the guts to push out of a comfort zone seems to yeild benifits I had yet to discover as an non-sports man.


Oh and going to the size vs board size thing, my head was a shed and I knew what I was getting at, but it came out sounding wrong...

the guys bellow me did a better job of putting things back on track, think all i was wanting to mean was that there I dont think theres a formula that goes you are X = board Y , sorry for going off on a tangent.

as for the idea of me on a 6.1 , I would give it a try one day...but a 7.3 was bad enough...I will stick to my happy log!!!

Phill

[Katsura]

Glad to hear about your progress.

I found that the easiness to access a decent shaped wave have a lot to do with speed of learning. I was blessed with living in the SD county where there are a good handful of decent beginner's break to choose from.

I started learning last July, I didn't know what I was doing - just fumbling in water and try to get out of people's way. Any lucky ones I caught gets me stoked for ages. Later in the year an operation put me out of the water for much of the winter.

I didn't really pick it up again in March this year and hit the water like 6 times a week (my shoulder probably needs a cortisol injection soon), frustrated with the lack of progress but then one day everything just came together.

I've learned to shuffle my position on the board when paddeling for it, and is able to catch some steep ones very late or shuffle forward on shallow ones without pearling (too much). And can do bottom turns and pick my line fairly confidently, I've even tried cross stepping to the front 1/4 of the board on a couple of waves and the stoke is unbelivable.

I can catch a good number of waves if the shape of the set is good - but I also still miss quite a few, so still a lot to learn and practice. But this new found confidence really helped.

best of lucj to your progress too.

best of luck to your progress to

[phillwilson]

Hi all,

well another really good weekend has just come and gone.

finally managed to begin exploring a little of my north-east coast.

I went up to Whitby for a weekend break, finally some swell was coming in, managed to get in at Saltburn on Saturday and then at Whitby and finally at Bridlington on the way home on Sunday.

my arms feel like someone has been punching me in them all weekend , but I am so stoked.

Has anyone else just suddenly found that then have improved, seemeingly without doing anything??

I have been trundling along at what seemed like the same level for quite a while when all of a sudden after that "proper face" i sopke of in my last post, I have found I can make the board do what I want, also it seems to be very much linked with me finally letting go of my need to look at my board ...im watching all around me trying to see what going to happen next.

The waves have been pretty crumbly and I never even made it to an "outside" to speak of in Saltburn, but the wave I did get had me up and moving along them and feeling pretty good, even managed to steer around some spongers which was a relief for all concerned!!

ok question time... I now need to learn what to do on days where there is a wall of white water between me and the outside... from watching others many people seem to just stick to reforms and get as far out as they can to still bag a decent ride, is this realistically what i am up against on these north east coast waves or is it worth persevering to battle out? also once there , is there an increased risk of getting stuck out there? do i need to keep more of a track of the energy i have left to get back in? are there any other new dangers i have not come across before?

also do you tend to end your rides early so its not so hard to battle back out again?

i know these may sound like obvious questions but there are a few things i would like ot arm my self with so i know what ot expect on those types of days... i have been fine getting ot the outside on days where there are breaks between swells but this weekends was relentless with whitewash every few seconds and streching back far deeper then i would usually place myself.

ta


phill

[garbarrage]

usually getting out back is the hard part... getting in is normally relatively easy by comparison, unless it is really strong off-shore (in which case i usually don't bother as i hate taking off with a firehose in the face). the only other thing i can think of that will make it hard to get back in are rips, but these are usually easy enough to deal with except in pretty rare circumstances where a long paddle might be your only option. got pushed into a rip by a cliff one day by a current running along the beach was quite strong and the only thing i could do was let it take me out back, paddle away from the cliff then back in again. didn't help that i was trying out a mate's 6'2, and had never been on a board with so little float before.

personally i never finish a ride early unless the wave fattens out too much and i can't be bothered waiting for it to steepen up again. you work hard enough to catch one, can't see why you'd let it go once you've done the hard work.

as for where to sit, this varies depending on the break. my local beach on a bigger swell tends to break way out, then there is a fat section where the wave sort of bubbles into swell again before breaking again inside. most people surf this inside break probably because its easier to get to, but sometimes if it gets too crowded a few people will often paddle out to the outside break. depends how fit you are feeling.

[phillwilson]

thanks for the tips...i think very much like my first explorations out back...its just a case of finding out a bit of info from those further up the ladder about what to expect...then sucking up and seeing.

one more thing tho... would I be likely to drift? how do i notice if I am?


when i was in brid I made it outback on a small mushy day i was sat on my board out back waiting for a decent wave for maybe 10 minutes tops...but once i got in I noticed form a pole in the sea that i had drifted about 500m down the beach...made me worry a little that i might go too afar out back an not notic that the coast is dissapearing into the horizon

( im ok with left - right type drift im talking more about drifting further out to sea? does it happen or does the natual flow of the waves to the shore hold you more or less in place along the in/out axis?

if that makes sense?

[garbarrage]

it is probably more likely that you will drift than not, particularly if there is a big range in the tides from low to high and vice versa.
easy way of keeping your position... pick fixed objects on land that are roughly 90 degrees apart. hold one arm directly in front and one directly to the side to check. look along each one every so often to see if you have drifted out of position.

there are rips that bring you out to see but they often dissapate a short way out except in rare circumstances. waves will do nothing to keep you in position. just remember to paddle across rips not against them and you should be fine.

[phillwilson]

cool, thanks garbarrage,

I went out last night and had a fun sesh or some nicely formed but extremely WEAK waves, i was reassured by the fact that most of the other surfers around me where missing take offs and having the waves just wash under them too....but from the beach it looked so promising lol.


the only problem with last night tho was..somehow..I managed to LOOSE MY CAR KEY....AFTER I had unlocked the car door!!!

I have no idea how this hppened, i have pulled the car apart and checked the area around the car but no luck.

in the end my mate bro had to go pick up my spare keys and drive them too me...my sesh ended at 10 pm and i didnt get in till 1:10 am

ouch.

Phill

[voodoocol]

yo phil,

haven't been on this for a while, been buys with bball, but have popped out to cayton a couple of times. just had to comment on the car keys thing.... last sept, down at constantine, I left my main set of car keys in the toilets (yeah getting changed into wettie nowt else ..... so since then I've been really careful with my other set. At Cayton last Sunday when it was decent 6foot offshore, had my key tied round my neck on a long bit of rubber cased steel line, tucked down my chest under my rashie and wettie, proper safe (usually)....I get dumped a few times in the course of my continual learning curve, get up to the carpark, and absolutely SH@T myself when I pull the line out and it's undone (double fricking good knot) and no key! Was contemplating various forms of violent entry into my car, when I felt something hard down near my crotch. lo and behold, the little beauty had come lose, but managed to work it's way down the front of my suit and I still had it.

Now contemplating one of those car wheel - combination lock thingmys....

surf and learn eh?

laters

[phillwilson]

I felt something hard down near my crotch. lo and behold, the little beauty had come lose, learn eh?

laters

snicker snicker...lol... sorry aah, the importance of context!!

sounds like you must have had a bit of a bash in your sesh. its scary times.

thing is luckily we where IN the car...but at the same time...thats even more frustrating cos where the hell could it have gone LOL

Gimme a PM if your down toward cayton anytime

[sinistapenguin]

Hey Phil

The out back/ reform question. I believe it's worth the battle. For me, the worst is the first paddle out. I usually paddle like a nutcase when there is a gap between sets and manage to get squarely in the impact zone for the next set. I then thrash about until the set ends, haul my sorry ass back on to my board and paddle as best I can to get out. I finally reach the lineup and sit up. At precisely this moment, everyone around me will start paddling like crazy for the horizon to make it over the 'clean up set' that is about to break 50 yards further out. I have nothing left to paddle with, so get thoroughly worked by this set.

After this ordeal I usually somehow get out the back. I sit there for about 20 mins while I recover. When I finally get my first wave, I feel I have to milk it for everything it's worth in order to make the paddle out worth it! I'll catch as many reforms as it'll give me and end up in shin deep water.

I'll turn around and look back out thinking 'oh god!', but for some reason the second paddle out is never as bad. From then on I seem to be able to go out and in quite easily. I don't like ending rides early!!

Maybe the ocean deems that I have 'earned' my right to get back out!!

[RJD]

You could be my twin sinista!