How Many Lessons to Be a Good Surfer?

Mark
June 9, 2020
2:06 pm

How many lessons does it take to be a good surfer many students ask. A good follow up question is how good is good? My objective in surf lessons is to make a student independent of the instructor so they can practice on their own.

With regular practice, it would take a student a few years to be an advanced surfer using a short board. Not all students could make this advancement. Sometimes it is better to stick with a high volume board that keeps surfing easier or even go to a longer board. It might depend on age and fitness.

What Are the Steps of Progress?

In the first lesson a student is taught the basic fundamentals to catch waves and ride the surf board to the beach starting in shallow water and riding foam waves. These are the fundamentals that are used by advanced surfers because the basics are the way the surf board is designed to carry a body.

The beginner student learns to roll onto the surf board and paddle to catch a wave. This is not as easy as it seems. The surf board has no inclination to go straight, stay level, or get in front of waves. The student has to control all three.

The beginner student learns to pop up from a lying down position. This requires some upper body strength, flexibility, a little athletic ability, and ability to remember a sequence of small steps.

The student has to land in a perfect posture to ride the board to the beach or they fall off. This is where people learning on their own and beginners have so much difficulty. People learning on their own have no idea of what to do. Students in lessons need to have good communications between their brain and body. Many do not.

Moving On in Progress

Once a student has mastered these fundamentals, they can start paddling out to bigger waves. When they can ride the bigger foam waves, they can start catching real waves. Real waves require better timing because they arc and only stay open for a few seconds.

After catching real waves. the surfer can start learning all the maneuvers of riding real waves. Then he can start moving to a hard board that is just a little shorter than the high volume soft top he learned on. Over months, the student might start moving shorter just 6 inches at a time while keeping the width and thickness of the board.

A student who doesn’t get to practice often should remain with an 8′ soft top board. It is capable of riding real waves and doing most of the maneuvers. It remains easy to paddle and easy to ride. You don’t have to be a short board ripper to thoroughly enjoy surfing the rest of your life.

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