How to Progress to a Surfing Short Board
Many new surfers want to know How to Progress to a Surfing Short Board. The short board is what they mostly see in the movies and any surfing friends are carrying short boards.
The short board is for advanced surfers. Beginners have to trot through a lot of hoops to get to the advanced stage. It takes skill, technique, conditioning, and courage. These all take time.
Starting the Trip as a Beginner
The beginner surfer starts on an 8′ or 9′ soft top in foam waves. He learns how to catch foam waves, do a pop up, and ride to the beach. Afterward he can paddle out and start catching bigger foam waves and look for smaller real waves in the process.
As the surfer builds skills, conditioning, and courage, he can move out to real waves. The soft tops should serve for catching real waves on most beaches. The surfer learns to go down the face, bottom turn into the pocket, do cut backs, and maybe how to accelerate. At this point he may want to move to hard boards.
He should start with a 7’6′ fun board which is still easy to paddle. The hard board requires more power on real waves than a soft top, so he might have to learn to let the wave arc more before paddling down the face. As he learns all the same maneuvers on the fun board, he might think of shorter boards.
Progressing to Shorter Boards
His progress should be just 6″ shorter at a time maintaining the width and thickness of 22″+ and 2 3/4″ thick. This will keep the paddling from becoming too onerous and keep wave catching and riding easier. This process will require regular trips to the beach for big intervals will cause all the timing, skills, and conditioning to deteriorate.
The technical size of a short board is 6’10”. It takes a while to get there, but the process prepares the surfer for riding a low volume board. The purpose should be to perform maneuvers better because the smaller board will carve sharper. If this is not the surfers intention, he need not go through the progression.
Some surfers who do not visit the water often may decide to get a hard board that is 8′ or 9′ long. The performance is better than soft tops and the ease of surfing is maintained. Surfing is all about the paddling for it dictates how long your sessions last. Keeping the paddling easier means more waves ridden.
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Oceanside Surf Lessons for Beginners
Beginner Surfers Learn the Pop Up
How to Progress to Surfing the Short Board
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