Sitting On Your Board
If you have seen surfers when they are beyond the breaking
waves, waiting for their next wave, you may have noticed that
they are no longer lying prone on their surfboards but are
sitting up on them. This is to enable a surfer to get a better
look at the oncoming waves. The next thing to learn is how
to sit up on your board, and get ready to paddle for a wave
from this sitting up position.
Lie on your surfboard in the paddling position as though
you have just paddled to the line-up. When you are comfortably
balanced. Take hold of your board with both hands, one on each rail,
as if you were getting ready to do a push up. Draw the board
from underneath you, pulling it forward through your legs.
As the board is sliding underneath you (making sure that you
do not let go - your surfboard will ping out in front of you
as if it had a mind of it's own) bring your knees up and arch
your back into a sitting position. Here, as with everything
else in surfing, it is a question of practising balance. To
smoothly sit up on your surfboard as the waves are rolling
past you takes practice.
Don't be put off
by how easy some
surfers make it look!
Use your legs out on either side
of the surfboard to aid your balance and hold yourself upright.
Lean too far to the left or right and you will fall off your
board. Lean too far forward and the surfboard will disappear
out behind your - make sure you have got your mouth closed
for this one!. Lean too far back and we encounter that torpedo
effect again. After a little practice you will soon become competent
at getting into the sitting position.
Once you get the hang of this you will be zipping up and down the beach wowing everyone watching from the shore. You are now ready for the next step which is how to go from Sitting to Paddling Your Surfboard.
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