Progress from Soft Tops to Surfing Short Boards
Progress from Soft Tops to Surfing Short Boards in easy steps. Surfers get better with practice, improving physical capabilities, and learning more techniques. The short board is a tool for performing maneuvers that would be too difficult for soft tops or longer boards. The main advantage is the carving.
It takes a while for a surfer to go from beginner to advanced in which he can execute the maneuvers best served by a short board. The first thing surfers like is the ability of the short board to duck dive waves. This is an advantage on sand bar beaches but not much on reefs where surfers paddle around waves.
Moving from Soft Top to Short Board Surfing
Surfers learn the fundamentals on soft tops. They learn to catch a foam wave, do a precise pop up and ride to the beach. Then they can paddle out for bigger foam waves and starting with smaller real waves. No need for a short board for any of these exercises. The surfer progresses to bigger real waves on the soft top. The 8′ soft top can ride a 7′ real wave and do lots of maneuvers including bottom turns, accelerating, and cut backs. Some can do 360’s and aerials.
The soft top can catch real waves do a bottom turn into the pocket, accelerate for speed, and do maneuvers like riding up the face or doing cut backs. It gets more difficult when the surfer wants to rip the lip and make sharper turns up and down the face. The soft top has wide rails which makes deep carves difficult without catching an edge. The short board has narrow rails made for deep carves.
Until the surfer wants to work on deep carves, he doesn’t need a short board. Many surfer like the lazier maneuvers of higher volume or longer boards. There is a good reason. Higher volume boards are easy to paddle, catch waves early, and ride easy if you are mainly driving the pocket. That is a lot to give up, especially if you are a week end warrior.
The short board sinks in the water making it harder to paddle. It needs a steep wave to give it power which means the surfer must allow the wave to come under the board and paddle at the last moment. The short board is less stable to ride. Therefore a slow progression from soft top to short board allows the surfer to adapt to paddling, wave catching and maneuvering.
The best process is to move shorter 6 inches at a time maintaining the width of 21+” and 2 3/4″ thickness. This allows more maneuverability while maintaining easier paddling and wave catching. Short boards start at 6′ 10″, so there is time when moving from an 8′ soft top. Learning to paddle smaller boards and catch waves with smaller boards are major steps toward mastery.
In the process, one should consider their weight and physical conditioning. Short boards like lean because then they don’t sink as much. There is a power to weight ratio that says one must be able to push their weight off the surfboard into a stance. One must have strength to carve.
Learning to catch real waves is a life long practice. It is the essence of surfing. Some want to ride bigger waves. Some have a favorite size wave and conditions in which they can excel. The short board is good for steep waves, but that often means there are only a few snaps possible before the wave closes out. Long boarders like slower forming waves and often longer waves so they can drive and perform their maneuvers more causally.
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