Beginner's Guide to Surfing

Practicing on land first

One of the first things that will help you get ready for the water is to practice out of the water. (These photos show a trainer surfboard on cement, but for your board, it's better to either do this on grass or, if your fins are already attached, at the beach. Dig a slot for the fins. Or place it across your bed.) You'll want to practice key movements like popping up and foot placement. The most difficult aspects of learning to surf are; a nice smooth motion in popping up, keeping one's center of gravity low, and a good flexed balance at the halfway point of the board.

Practicing a Pop-up – or how to stand up

1. A pop-up takes you from a lying prone position on your surfboard to a standing position. To practice a pop-up, first you have to figure out if you're goofy or regular foot. You may already know which foot you favor if you skateboard or water ski or snowboard. If you don't, stand with both feet together at attention and without thinking about it, pretend to jump into a surfer's stance. Which foot goes forward? That forward foot is the same foot you will have as your lead foot on a surfboard. Left foot front is regular, and Right foot forward is called "goofy foot." Either way is fine, it's like being born right or left-handed.

2. You need to find your stance. A good stance is spreading your feet as wide as is comfortable. Both feet are centered on the stringer (the line down the middle of the board) for the best balance, and your feet should point out toward the sides.

3. Do not stand straight up on your surfboard. It will put your center of gravity so high you are sure to fall over fast. Create the lowest center of gravity possible by bending your knees.

4. Your hands should stretch forward and backward along the line of the stringer to help stabilize you further. In order to stay centered on the board, your feet and shoulders should stay centered over the surfboard's stringer.

5. Now lay flat on your surfboard with your hands beside your waist like you are going to do a pushup. The next few steps happen quickly…

6. Take your back foot and roll it sideways with your inside ankle up.

7. Push your chest off the board and start sliding both feet under your hip beneath you so that both feet end up along the midline of the board into the stance.  

8. Stay low on the board with knees flexed and feet flat on the board.

9. In one continuous motion, this should take you from a flat position up to both feet on the board. Try not to go on your knees in the middle of the pop-up, but instead to move onto your feet in one continuous movement.  (Some beginner's like to go to knees but then it's really a hard habit to break and your knees will be a wreck.)

10. Keep practicing, your motion will become faster and more fluent. Make sure you feel stable and are standing in a crouched position with your feet over the center of the board (on the "stringer" or the center seam) and your arms out stretched for balance.

6 Steps to Surfing A Wave…

1) Paddle out until you are outside (slightly beyond where the waves break) and position yourself so you are looking out into the ocean watching approaching swells and just beyond where the wave will first break or just to the side of it.

2) You see a swell approaching that you think will form a wave that will break just past you, you want to turn the board toward shore and lie down in the middle of the board, putting your chin on the mark that tells you you’re in the middle (more on this mark later, in the details.)

4) Stroke hard four or five times to get the board moving.

5) When you feel the board start to move on its own power, pop up and stand in your surfer sideways crouch. Make sure you are relaxed with ankles and knees flexed and arms out for balance.  Most important is that you and your feet are at the half-way point of the board.

6) Stay upright and ride the wave in toward shore!

The Details

Paddling Out

Positioning yourself on the surf board for paddling efficiently:

1. Lay flat on the surfboard in the water to find the position of balance on your board where the it floats level…

2. If you are too far back, the submerged tail of your board creates drag and you lose efficiency. If you are too far forward your board will have water flowing over the top and you dig the front tip into the water. Extend your arms out to either side, or just don't be holding on. Then adjust your body forward or back to make the board float as close to level as you can. Locate the spot on the board where your chin hits, this will be your mark! When your chin is over that mark when you're on the board you know your board is level. At first, make a tiny mark. Later, after some practice, you can put a sticker there to help you easily find the spot each time.

3. Keep your feet together and begin an overhand crawl. Establish a slow deliberate rhythm and work your breathing pattern into the paddling rhythm. Make your fingers into a cup.

4. Fully extend your arms down and dig deep.

5. The smoother your paddling technique is the less energy you will expend. For beginners try paddling two strokes and then glide a bit then two strokes again and then glide.

6. Go for nice, even, alternating strokes. When you have to get through the whitewater, get up some speed and if it is small plow right through it, and if it is a little bigger, then raise your chest up with your arms so that the water passes between you and the board.

Here are others ways to go through white water or bigger surf…

7. If it is fairly big you can do a “turtle” which is: just as the wave is about to hit you, roll over on your back (roll the board too), and pull the nose of the board down. Then roll back up.

8. Or if it is bigger still, then you can do a “duck-dive” by raising up on toes, push the nose of the board under the wave and follow with your body. (This takes lots of practice, and don't get on your knees if you want to keep your skin on).

9. Or you can “bail” but make sure no one is within 20 feet of you, roll off your board, and dive for the bottom. Reserve this for emergencies only. You lose a great deal of distance this way, and you endanger people around you by letting your board fly free.

Observe the surf from the beach to time and plan your entry into the water:

1. Watch the waves from the beach before you go out. Watch for where the waves are breaking.

2. Also, watch for sets (the patterns of a big waves and smaller waves).

3. Observe when any lulls are going to happen and count how long they might last so you can sneak out during them instead of fighting your way out through the white waves. Paddle out past the break and where the surfers are coming in on the waves. Watch other surfers at the spot where you will surf, where they paddle out and how they time their go out in between sets. Watch them paddle, they will paddle around the incoming waves where surfers are riding.

4. Watch the foam on the surface and look where the foam moves out to sea. These are channels where the incoming waves are smaller because the outflow water is neutralizing them.  These are usually good places to paddle out.

5. Once you're out far enough, then cut across to where the waves are breaking.

Sitting on the board

1. Once you are out beyond where the waves break. You want to get some height so you can see the swells beginning to build up to become waves. 

2. Facing out toward the ocean you sit up, assisted by the push of your arms as your hands hold the sides of your board. 

3. Your legs squeeze slightly the side of the boards letting your legs dangle and act like loose paddles in the water. 

4. You may fall over on your first time, you're not being used to being on a chair that bobs and floats on water!  If you do tip over into the water just remain calm and you will soon realize that you float very well in salt water.  Having one hand gently on the board as you float will keep the board next to you. 

5. Your board will most likely have flipped over so the first thing is to flip the board back on its proper bottom side and then crawl back onto the board in a prone position.  

6. Then try to sit up on it again. You will find the second time to be so much easier to keep your balance…and you're having fun, so who cares, right?

How the wave is able to catch you

1. When you lie on your board, you want to be in the center of the board. As you paddle, the nose should be about an inch or two above the water surface. Being in the middle of your board is critical to catching waves.

2. You must be in the middle of your board, so that when a wave comes up from behind, the tip doesn't go underwater. The tip will want to start to nose down under the water but, at that point that's when you paddle hard, hitting with both arms, pushing the nose ahead of the wave and keeping the nose out of the water. If you keep the nose out, the board will be caught by the wave and your board will slide forward, and you’re taken for a ride!

3. Have fun and be safe! Read up on rip currents and surfer's etiquette. (The do's and don’t's.)