nose-diving...

[surf patrol]

Hi,

I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong. When I catch a good but slightly steep unbroken wave, I can feel my board going forward and downwards fast, too fast for me to be able to stand up. The board is simply sliding down the wave face and eventually the board simply goes into the water.

I've seen this video below:

which describes the theory well - so it seems the board should be sliding down like it is in my case, no worries, but then I should be able to stand up if I place my hands correctly. The problem is, the sliding is happening too fast. I don't have enough time to do anything. So I tried to "prepare" for this and sort of try and pop up a bit earlier. It did not work - the board is too unstable - I haven't really caught the wave.

I also watched some good surfers, and what seems to be happening for them is that they are not going fast when they pop up. Somehow they pop up right when the board is at the top of the wave and starts to look down but is not sliding yet. Would that be a fair assessment? I can't seem to catch that moment though - as the wave hits me from behind, next thing I know I'm sliding down.

I also tried taking off at an angle, but mostly to no avail. Usually the wave just goes past me.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

[jasedrummer]

Sounds like you need to paddle for the wave earlier before it gets too critical.....and you probably need to paddle faster. As soon as you feel the bord catch get a couple more paddles in and get those hands back to your ribs quick to shift your weight back as you pop up.

[one more dude]

Thanks.

[jasedrummer]

After reading my reply I thought of a few other things...
When I said paddle faster I actually meant paddle harder to get the board moving faster to match the speed of the wave. Really give it everything and fully commit.....
To catch the wave earlier you need to paddle out further than you would normally sit waiting so that when you turn around earlier and start your hard paddling you catch the wave in the right position and dont end up too near the beach.
When I first paddle out if there are other surfers there I try and line myself up with ones who have a similar size board to me...if you are on a minmal or longboard you need to sit further out than the guys on short boards.
If you catch the wave earlier and get your hand back to your bottom rib, with your chest raised up, you will find you can actually hold this position for a while before popping up, giving you loads more time.....
All this theory is fine but to be honest it's hard to apply it until you have spent more time in the water making mistakes and then correcting them. Even though I know what I should be doing making myself do it still does not yet come automatically to me after 2 years of surfing......!

[one more dude]

Thanks again.

As for the general advice to paddle faster/harder, well, I'm familiar with this but there've been a few times that I was able to catch a wave with just 2-3 strokes. I think the advice "paddle harder" is flawed - you need to paddle harder when appropriate and paddle less hard when appropriate.

But in the cases I mentioned in my initial post, it's possible that a bit extra paddling would have helped. Maybe I'll be able to pop up sooner. I'll remember it next time.

[RonG]

As for the general advice to paddle faster/harder, well, I'm familiar with this but there've been a few times that I was able to catch a wave with just 2-3 strokes. I think the advice "paddle harder" is flawed - you need to paddle harder when appropriate and paddle less hard when appropriate.

That has been my experience. I am still very much a beginner, but what I have found as I have learned to read waves better is that fewer overall strokes are needed the more "in tune" with the waves you get. Now instead of just starting a mad dash for the beach as soon as a wave gets close, most of the time I can just throw a few leisurely strokes to get the board moving and then really hit the gas when I feel the wave hit the tail. It seems the more accurate the timing, the less overall work is required to catch waves.

[jasedrummer]

It's not just timing....it's also how close to the Peak you were too probably

[Lachlandudley33]

Man I am having the exact same problem as you and I was just recommended to a website called surf simply and it has a video under the podcasts tab that tells you eactly what to do. I just realised that this post is three years old so I imagine you have got the hang of this by now lol

[jaffa1949]

I'd thought I'd add to this with a little self review and photos and I know my own surfing and I'm just an average surfer

Once you are at the green wave stage the game is essentially different.
White water you let the wave catch you you basically paddle to match the white water speed so you don't get an uncontrollable jolt from behind and you have a little stability from speed. In white water the water is moving towards the beach,
The faster a board is moving the more stable a platform it becomes!
Green waves move faster but the water is moving upwards the energy is moving both towards the beach and lifting the water upwards, only when the wave breaks does water begin moving shorewards.
Big difference.
So lying on your sweet spot, which for green is a little further forward than white. You paddle hard straight or at a slight angle to the beach ( depending on the steepness of the wave), You have to match and exceed the speed (say it one hundred times exceed the speed) this should put you in a position where your nose is point downhill ( down the wave) two more powerful strokes should get it if you keep your nose low and pointing downhill, ( gravity is your friend here).
You should really be able to feel the draw of the board drive downwards.
NOW IS THE TIME TO POP UP push down with your hands Gains extra downward momentum as you have traded paddle speed for gravitational suck arch you back and pull yourself into your pop up stance, into a crouch maybe, and lean towards the direction you wish to go along the wave, stay standing in a forward position not stepping back and run with the wave.
Now the pictures saves me writing a thousand words.

I'm just about to pop up you'll notice the nose is a little higher than I've suggested but the wave is quite powerful, if I was further back I would lifted up and probably lip launched onto the coral reef below so exceed the speed is needed.
If I was riding a shorter board the nose rocker would allow me to take a steeper and a more powerful route to my first turn but this is a long board line I'm taking.
Notice I've pushed downwards on my hands for my pop up, in reality my hands are a little too far forward for a beginners pop up but I've used that to gain a little more downwards momentum.

In the next picture the wave is still growing upwards and I am still quite high in the wave and being lifted but my pop up is complete and I have my eyes on where I want to be in the wave progression I'm also ready to utilise the downslope to pick up any extra speed I need.

The slowest spot on any wave is the spot at the bottom of the peak, if you linger there you will be slow and the roof will always be about to fall on your head.

There are about 6 shots in this sequence but these two give you the beginnings.

The difference between a pro / really good surfer and the average joe is that they have the fitness and ability to exceed the speed in paddling and positioning and can go from one manoeuvre to another in high speed transition.

[Lachlandudley33]

@ Jaffa,

Great post. really informative. Where the hell are you surfing? that looks amazingly beautiful. Nice wave by the way! should post a video of you carving it up

[jaffa1949]

Glad it helps, the wave is called Beng Bengs after an Indonesian Chocolate bar,it is in the playgrounds area of the Mentawais off the coast of Sumatra. No video just a lot stills, Kandui Resort and most of the boats and resorts have a set of resident photographers who (for a fee shoot) you as often as they can. I post the photos if they make a point and just to stoke my ego a little bit.
Given time in a good surf area your performance gets tuned and you improve greatly.
Often is the key word to surfing improvement. Pro have surfing for their job so what do they do they surf and rehearse and practice their moves and specifics for a contest, for ordinary mortals just get in as often as you can and as often as you can enjoy it.
I don't advocate this "much" but a stolen surf day is wonderful, when you pull a day off work or school or whatever and score a great surf. PRICELESS.

[dtc]

Although I'm no expert surfer, I have done a lot of bodyboarding and body surfing, and one thing I notice all the time is that people catch waves far too late (which is annoying when body surfing because they all stand around 5m too far into the beach just in the right place for you to crash into them).

The tendency is to think you need to catch a wave after it has started to curl, but if you do this then it doesnt work - you are either 'sucked over the falls' if you are too deep and the wave is powerful enough (check out youtube) or you nose dive - your board is angled too steeply and basically your tail is pushed upwards (its actually not 'nose diving', its tail lifted - which of course results in nose diving)

You should be catching your wave so that you have just popped up as it starts to curl (or, for fatter waves, way before it starts to curl, but rarely will you nose dive on these). This means starting even further back and starting for waves while they are still unformed, paddling so that you build up speed and then popping up as they start to curl (give or take) but well before they are breaking (with a short board the timing is a bit different). You then are standing and are more or less at the top of the wave - jaffa's great photo above shows this perfectly.

So assuming your weight is properly distributed and you aren't just pushing the board's nose into the wave, move a bit further out and give it a go. Of course, if you are in a line up, start where the successful guys are starting.

It takes a while to feel what the waves are doing - even give bodyboarding a go, because it does teach you this skill (and is much much easier); athough with bodyboarding you usually catch the wave a bit later than you do with a surfboard

[one more dude]

Hi Jaffa,

Thanks for the detailed answer. I only read it now - somehow I don't receive notifications when someone posts in my thread, will have to review my settings.

Anyway, re this:

The slowest spot on any wave is the spot at the bottom of the peak, if you linger there you will be slow

That's absolutely right. I am now coming back from a 2 week long surfing trip, and I've now figured why I'm going too fast - that's because I'm popping up too late. During the trip I popped up earlier a few times, and it worked beautifully. A few times the wave went past under me, but I already knew it would do that - you feel when you aren't getting the wave. So you really need to pop up fast and at the top of the wave.

I still have to work on my popup, particularly on getting quicker to my feet. At the moment I have a tendency to put my back foot first and then my front foot, which is slower than jumping with 2 feet at the same time.

The trip also uncovered some other problems I had, e.g. I'm often losing speed after the bottom turn, which I think is mainly due to my slow take-off (as a result I don't ride the whole face, so I have less speed at the end of the bottom turn) and sometimes failing to turn the board back down the face, instead just staying there with my rail in the water. Something like this. Anyway, I'll be working on it when I'm back.

Thanks for your tips.

[jaffa1949]

The slowest spot on any wave is the spot at the bottom of the peak, if you linger there you will be slow

I still have to work on my popup, particularly on getting quicker to my feet. At the moment I have a tendency to put my back foot first and then my front foot, which is slower than jumping with 2 feet at the same time.

The trip also uncovered some other problems I had, e.g. I'm often losing speed after the bottom turn, which I think is mainly due to my slow take-off

Thanks for your tips.

.

Another thought for you One more, get that pop up working see if you can plant your front foot first or at least at the same time , and then put forward pressure on the front foot, (any time you are putting pressure on the back foot you are technically stalling the board slowing it down) .
Pressure on the back foot immediately in the bottom turn will slow you down remarkably.
you can even take a step forward when you are moving and get more drive, longboard are made to use this forward drive and the sweet spot is probably a step forward from where you stood when you popped up!
Shortboards are designed for the sweet spot and the turning spot to be almost combined and weighting and unweighting between front and back foot can slow or speed the board up. Often for the pros the boards take into consideration whether the pro surfs off front or back foot.
A beginner is easy to spot because they are always slower than the wave is offering and not making sections because they cannot get speed from the board...... master the weight shifts and a lot more controllable speed will be yours
Getting speed from your board is the key to every thing you do on any board.

[one more dude]

Hi Jaffa,

Thanks for that - yes, I figured that speed is paramount. I actually don't have the problem of putting too much weight on the back foot. Or at least I don't think I do. When I'm up, I think I can put pressure on the front foot at first and then at the end of the bottom turn on the back foot (for a sharper turn to go back down the wave face again). Well, at least that's what I think I'm doing. Not sure how it looks from the outside. With a bit more practice I'll hopefully get there.

[pmcaero]

I just started with trying to catch the greens further out. I saw on a training video that you need to position yourself more forward than when you are attempting to catch a breaking wave.
Problem is, I always nosedive, as described by the OP.
Whenever I catch a wave and pop up and the wave breaks behind me, the nose slams down. So obviously I am positioned too far back in my usual routine and catching the wave too late.
But how can I make the board slide on the unbroken face of the wave without nosediving? I tried the extra paddle as well. Granted, it's been only one session since I started focusing on this and it was a really crappy day...maybe next time. Any advice welcome.

[surf patrol]

pmcaero, watch this video

basically its paddling speed; although sometimes the wave is just the wrong wave.

[pmcaero]

hi dtc, that is exactly the instructional video i have been following. but the day was really choppy with some mad rip currents. will try again tomorrow.

[jaffa1949]

Pmcaero, have a read of my first post in this thread, it will probably explain a little more detail what I am saying here, you need to catch the wave not let it catch you.

We have a guy at our local break who finds this difficult, and he is in a constant state of wipeout!

Paddle fast and hard ( not furiously) so you catch the wave most beginners paddle the same as for a white water catch where you match the white water speed for stability and let the wave catch you.

To catch a green wave you need to exceed the speed!
See my first post and watch those videos again and again and surf again and again!

[pmcaero]

thanks Jaffa, I am watching it now. I've had a much better day today, though the waves were quite inconsistent. but I did feel I caught unbroken waves a couple of times.