Many beginner surfers wonder How Long Should Beginners Ride the Soft Top. If a surfer is an occasional surfer, they can ride the soft top forever. The soft top is a very capable board.
Soft tops are high volume, so they paddle easy, catch foam waves easy, and are easy to pop up on. The weekend surfer or one who surfs less can have a longer session because it floats on the water and is easy to paddle. Many surfer move to long boards which are high volume and have the same advantages as soft tops.
Moving to a Longer Hard Board
If a surfer wants a hard board, it is easy to move to a long board which is 9′ +. I start beginner surfers on 9′ soft tops. It only requires more discussion when a surfer wants to move to a shorter board. The first step down should be a fun board at 7’6″ with 21″+ wide and 2 3/4″ width. This is after the surfer easily rides an 8′ soft top.
The soft top has capabilities. The surfer rides foam to the beach. Then he paddles through the foam to ride bigger foam waves. He then progresses to small real waves in the order of 2′ to 3′. Given skills, conditioning, and courage, the surfer can move to 4′ and 5′ waves. At this point the surfer is an intermediate. He is accomplished at catching waves and has the conditioning to paddle for an hour session.
The surfer learns to ride down the face of a wave and then how to bottom turn. After bottom turning, the surfer will just drive the wave until it dies or crashes and he heads for the beach in the foam. This can be easily accomplished with soft tops. A soft top will also accelerate for speed, do cut backs, and good surfer can rip the lip or do 360’s with a soft top. This is usually after they have already learned these tricks on a short board.
Soft Tops are Good Performers
A soft top performs easier on a reef break where waves are not so steep and may form slowly. A beach break often has steep close out waves which makes it more difficult for soft tops not to pearl. A hard board that is shorter than a softtop starts sinking in the water which creates more resistance for paddling. Beginner surfers realize the difficulty of paddling when they start paddling out through foam waves to catch bigger waves and would not want the paddling to be more difficult.
One of my adult students has learned to ride real waves. He has a 9′ hard board which has good volume. He is lean and works out with weights and runs. He mentions often how tiring the paddling is as a once a week surfer. Take that as a measure of the fitness needed to move to shorter boards and just to paddle out to catch real waves.
Read Other Posts:
Beginner Surfers Learn on Soft Tops
5 Steps to Improve Surfing Performance
3 Ways to Catch Real Surfing Waves
Training to Ride the Surfing Short Board
Short Board Surfing Techniques
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