Catching Real Waves on the Surfing Short Board is a good advancement after learning on the soft top. Beginners should progress to catching real waves and doing maneuvers before moving to shorter boards.

The surfing short board adds a few difficulties for the progressing surfer. It is lower volume and is more difficult to paddle. The surfer has to let real waves roll under the surfboard to get the power. The surfing short board is more tricky to pop up and ride because of the lower volume.

The beginner learned to let the foam wave roll up to the board and then paddle to catch it. The surfer on the short board has to know where the waves are arcing to break. It is easy on a reef because they break in the same place every time. On a sand bar beach, they can move around.

The line up is usually a good indication of where the waves are breaking. The surfer looks at the waves before entering the water to determine where they are breaking, what they look like, and develop his strategy.

Working the Line Up

In the line up, the other surfers will usually let every one have a turn. It is good to start paddling when you see a wave forming you want to let the other surfers know you are going for it. You better miss it nor muff it or they won’t give you the right of way next time.

The surfer paddles so the wave comes under the surfboard. He may have to determine whether he is in a good spot or has to paddle our or in to get the meet. Smaller real waves take a lot of paddling before it reaches the surfboard because they don’t have much power.

Big waves are moving fast and the surfer has to paddle hard as the wave reaches them to get down the face. If you can catch it at the bottom of the arc, the board will rise up and you are likely to get it in a spot where you can get into the pocket. If you wait too long as it arcs, you may only catch the lip the wave will be folding as you drop.

On huge waves, surfers are catching them at the top of the lip, but they were paddling before the wave reached them. The surfer has to paddle harder the bigger the wave. There is a point where surfers cannot paddle hard enough over 20′ and they get towed into the wave.

3 Styles of Catching Real Waves

The first method is to ride down the face and then bottom turn into the pocket. The second style surfers use on medium sized waves (6′ +) is to push the nose of the surfboard toward the pocket after catching the wave and then popping up. This puts them into the pocket more quickly avoiding the need to bottom turn.

The third method for catching waves which is a good way to get used to waves bigger than you have been riding is to catch them at the corners. The waves are smaller, not as steep and not as fast. The surfer paddles at a 45 degree angle toward the beach and parallel to the breaking wave. When the wave arrives at his board, he keeps his angle and pops up as it rolls under him.

Once leaving the soft tops for hard boards, it is better to go shorter slowly maintaining the width and thickness of the bigger boards. Moving shorter 6″ at a time is recommended because of the difficulties of lower volume boards. The board will feel too squirrely if you move too fast to shorter boards and it will be difficult to ride if you have not been moving gradually.

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