Practice on the beach - The Key to Fast Learning

Share |
Lessons
01.What You Will Need
02.Practicing on the Beach
03.Waxing Up
04.Paddling
05.Standing Up
06.Duck Diving
07.Riding Clean Waves
08.Bottom Turns
09.Basic Turning

02. Practicing on the Beach

learn to surfSo you have bought all your equipment and your itching to get in the ocean, But before you do that wait a sec and lets take the first step.
In your first few surf sessions you are definitely going to want to be able to stand on a wave, to achieve this glorious feeling. Practicing on the beach is going to speed up the process of learning to stand on your first wave dramatically.
Don’t be intimidated by people on the beach when doing this, if they are surfers they will respect you for it, as it shows you really want to learn how to surf and in the fastest possible way!
1. Place you board on the sand, the softer the better but any kind of sand will work for this. Lay flat on your board in the center about half way up, bring your hands up nearly in line with your shoulders and place your palms on your board just inside the rails. Quickly do a push up or "pop up" as it is commonly known and place your front foot underneath your chest, your front foot is going to take most of your weight as you begin the standing motion. Bring your back foot up and plant it on your board so that you are in a standing position, Make sure when you stand you have a solid stance with your knees bent, imagine if someone was trying to push you over you want to adopt a stance that will make it very hard for someone to do that (remember the closer your feet are together the more unstable you will become and easier it will be for you to fall off).
Both your feet should be directly in the middle of the board with your front arm facing the beach and your back arm facing the wave, this will act as your body’s stabilizer.
 
regular goofy2. Goofy or Regular? When standing up for the first time you need to realise weather you are goofy or regular foot. Goofy footers stand with their right leg forward whilst regulars have their left leg forward. There is no advantage or disadvantage to being goofy or regular so don’t worry about that. If you have skateboarded or snowboarded before you should know what stance you are.
If your not sure, practice your pop up on the beach over and over until you understand what feels more comfortable and natural, left leg forward or right leg forward. Keep repeating this until you are very confortable and dont have to think about the process, you want the "Pop Up" to become an instinctive natural feeling.