Lately, I have been faced with The Problems Intermediate Surfers Have. It must be the time of year when people surfing for a while and having problems decide they should get them fixed before the summer season.
Ninety five percent of the time, they suffer the same problems. Whether or not they ever learned how to pop up and get a good stance on the board, they have lapsed into some faulty practices and don’t land on the board correctly. The problem they suffer in common is they fall off the surfboard. Many are trying to catch real waves so the problems of a bad pop up and poor stance become amplified.
Pop Ups Are the Problem
The problem with the pop ups is usually the same. Surfers pop up into a stance where their butt is over one rail and a hand is probably trailing like a skateboarder or snowboarder. I describe this problem as “snowboarding”. This stance puts their weight on one rail. Their butt over one rail puts the weight on their heels and then forces the board to turn over.
Their pop up is usually not a standard pop up. Most have morphed to some kind of shuffle where they perhaps throw their front foot on the board first and drag the back foot. So the second problem they suffer is being on the back of the board which causes the nose to rise and the board loses the wave.
Paddling is frequently a problem as well. Paddles have to be strong and the strokes short to keep the board going straight and accelerate on the wave. Long swim paddles are too slow and probably turn the board in one direction. Inadequate paddling can also cause the board to pearl as the wave overwhelms the board because it is going too slow. Sometimes they pearl because they don’t put their feet at the back of the board. This places too much weight on the nose and the wave drives the nose under water.
The main objective of the pop up is to get the front foot to the middle of the board near the nose so the board stays in the wave. The beginner and advanced pop up will serve this purpose. The beginner pop up and advanced pop up start the same. The surfer paddles hard to catch the wave. Then he puts his hands in a man’s pushup position next to his rib cage. Then he pushes up. The beginner puts a back foot on the board flat and under his butt. He stands on the back foot as he raises his hands and moves the front foot to the front of the board.
The Advanced Pop Up
In the advanced pop up, the surfer pushes up and snaps both feet onto the board at the same time. In both popups the surfer is standing when the front foot hits the board. His hips and shoulders are square to the front so that his weight is equal on both sides of the middle stringer. This is where intermediates fail. The right stance is body upright and facing the beach with hips and shoulders square and hands in front. If the board goes straight and the surfer does not have to work to stay on the board, the stance is correct.
So the surfer must be on the board with his feet at the tail of the board. He must paddle fast to accelerate and get in front of the wave. He puts his hands in a man’s pushup position after catching the wave. He can stop here for a few seconds to gather his poise for the pop up. The surfer then executes the beginner or advanced pop up and winds up in the proper stance.
When I get the intermediated corrected to follow these steps, they surf much better. Because of the amount of time they have been building bad muscle memory into their routine, they usually need time to get their process corrected. Doing the correct popup in the living room is a good practice.
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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