Learning Surfing my Story and the Journey

So learning Surfing is hard, right? Maybe some of you have done beginners courses and found that it's even hard just to sit on the board.

It is especially hard to get up, you're probably ending up on your knees to start with.

So there are a lot of trials and tribulations when you are learning to surf, especially when you're at that beginner stage, where you're trying to get from absolute beginner to intermediate, which takes a lot of time, it is probably the longest part of your journey. As soon as you're up riding waves, and you're reading waves, correctly, you're going to catch more. And then you've got more what I like to call "foot time" where you're actually standing up and able to explore the waves and move around on the wave face.

This is something I'm working on daily. I would say I'm intermediate level, but I can sort of occasionally do the odd trick or two more by accident than on purpose, to be honest.

So this article here is just all about my journey in learning surfing.

In the beginning, I took up surfing when I was 45. I've been surfing now for six years, we moved to Cornwall, and to a place called St Ives, we've got a local beach that we can surf there's a couple actually. Cornwall itself is actually littered with surfing beaches, so it's perfect.

I knew when I moved down here that I wanted to do some kind of watersports. And whether it be scuba diving or wild swimming or any of these, but then I loved surfing literally straightaway. And it becomes a passion not just because of the surfing, but also because of the mental side of it as well, as physically keeping you fit. And using muscles that you've never used before (I never knew toes could ache!).

Surfing also gives you a chance to meditate as well. Being in those elements takes you away from everything and is a Zen-like meditation for me.

So my journey, as I said, started six years ago, when I did a beginners course with the St Ives surf school and loved it.

I jump in the deep end, and went out past the white water when I couldn't even get up on the board had lots of dumps, falling off the board as couldn't stay on it and trying to kneel up.
But it was really, really good. And I decided to continue and persevere with it. I have run into lots and lots of hurdles along the way, which I'm going to talk about now.
So the first one that is important was the fact that you just need to get that fitness level up, as there is a ton of paddling when it comes to surfing. So I paddle even on nice flat days, when I can't surf, I just grab my board and I paddle around the bay, just to get those muscles moving and your core engaged so that you can actually paddle more and further, remember you're spending about 95% of your time, if not more paddling around between catching waves. So you're paddling all the time. So you need to get good strength in the core and in the shoulders to be able to paddle for long periods of time. Of course, you sit on the board as well, that in itself, when you're a beginner is hard to do, you kind of roll around fall off the board a lot, especially when you're trying to maneuver the board.
And this, I found was something that you cannot teach really, it's a case of spending some time and letting your body's natural balance motors engage. And the more you do it, the better they get at engaging in keeping yourself upright, this especially comes into effect when you're standing because there are movements of the board so you fall off, but after a while, you adjust yourself automatically because those balance motors are kicking in. So a lot of people get frustrated that they fall off all the time and sometimes it's just the case that their balanced motors haven't actually engaged properly, all you need is more time in the sea to get that to work. We need to do balance exercises at home to engage them which you can do, and which we teach on Surf-Dudes.

Paddling is Key
Okay, so one thing paddling you need to paddle that's why they tell you at any lesson that you take as a beginner to paddle for the whitewater, you know even though whitewater is coming along, and the force of whitewater will mean that it will push you even if you do not paddle but surf coaches insist that you paddle. And this is purely for when you get past the whitewater. You're be paddling you use the paddle, you don't use the force of the whitewater you use the paddling and gravity itself to actually get you on to the wave, and then get up. So once you've got past that, and you've managed to get to your feet, using the basic pop-up methods, you can start working your way out the back. Now, you need to also at the same time, not take on waves that are too big for you to remember, you're a beginner, so you need to have small waves, very manageable for your experience level. So don't go out in massive great waves choose like little sort of three to four-foot waves maximum to start with, start heading out the back and paddling to catch those waves.

Wave Craft
And this brings on the second point here, which is catching a wave at the right time. Now, this is wave craft.
So it's looking at the wave seeing where the waves are breaking most often. And then making sure you're back from the wave. So you're catching them before they break. A good idea is to look at the other surface and stay where they are in the line up. There's a lot of people I see that stay on the inside, where the waves break, and they get hammered by the waves, this makes it very hard for them, they've got to get back up on the board, and then they get hammered again by another wave. So if you're just past that, what's called impact zone, you're going to save a lot of energy and make it easier for you to catch that wave.

So once you've got used to where it's breaking, and you're back far enough, then you're going to paddle for those waves, take those strong paddle strokes, get the speed up as quick as you can on the board. And definitely look over your shoulder or look at where that wave is. So you can adjust your paddle speed. If you're going too fast, it's going to break because you've gone too far ahead, slow yourself down by not paddling, the wave will pick you up and then you can then get to your feet. And this is another thing even when you're on the board, you're going to make sure you're balanced in the middle of the board and you're balanced horizontally on the board as well. That nose should be about three centimeters out of the water if your too far forwards what will happen when you catch that wave you will nosedive but you've got to be careful that you don't move too far back. Otherwise, you'll be too slow, the nose will lift in the air and you're drop off the back of the wave.

The fear factor
Okay, lots of people are terrified about going too far forward because they think they're going to nosedive. But having weight on the front of the board will be better for catching the wave (not too far forwards though) when the board picks up on the wave, it will go faster, which means that the nose will lift you can put more weight on nose at that point. So what you'll see is people lift their chest up. And then as the wave comes and picks them up, they'll get their head right down because the board is travelling faster nose is going to lift, they want to keep that nose on that wave so that they can drift down it and pop up to their feet.

So the pop up itself once you popped up, then you've got a whole new balance thing going on. So first, you should just be trying to get up on the board and just go straight. Okay, don't try any tricks and keep your knees bent, just get used to catching that wave going straight at the beach.
Make sure if you are a beginner, you've got a nice big board, preferably a foam board is because it's quicker to paddle and more stable. And if you hit someone else with foam board, it's not going to do as much damage as a hardboard!.

Down the Line
So once you can actually get up every time, then you're going to then start to try to go down the line or long the wave, when you catch a wave next time, as you go to get up look down the wave in the direction you want to go!. So if you get a nice wave and you think is gonna break left or right, you need to look down that way. When you get and because you're looking, your board will more often than not follow you. You can angle it slightly as well not too much just slightly, and then it will take you off down that wave.

Front and Backfoot Pressure
From that point on, you can then practice putting more pressure on the front foot which will accelerate you too much pressure in your nose dive, and use the back foot pressure, give you more control on turning but will slow the board.
Don't stay on the backfoot for too long. Just do that turn, get it back on the front foot and then carry on. And that's how its done. Now, as you go through this. You're going to have mental blocks. Some days you're going to surf really well. Other times you're going to surf really bad and at some points, It's going to seem like you are not getting any better.

Progression can stop
Now, this is really weird. In my particular case, I had these big stops for probably about a 3 months at a time you just have long periods of not progressing anymore. And suddenly you just jump up a level it is really weird, I cannot explain it. But there are things that you can do, you can keep practicing the things that you do well, keep at it, don't jump in and buy a shorter board straight away, the shorter the board that harder it is for beginners, its better to stick with a longer board and polish your surfing.

Jumping Down too Quick!
But what you can do is maybe buy a hardboard now. make sure it is a long board as these have lots of column meaning you can paddle faster and its more stable in the water.
When you buy your first hard board there will be certain things that are harder its a little bit more unstable. So sitting on it, you might find you're a little bit off-balance, even getting up you might find you've gone back a few stages, but persevere with it and you'll move forwards, you do not want to go too a shorter board too quickly if your aim is to get down into shorter boards, do it very incrementally, and as you do move down through shorter boards there will be additional challenges you face, once you get to a performance board your be able to turn the board and it will be much more responsive to you, however, it's going to be more unpredictable, it's going to be more twitchy, your balance motors will have to go up another level. But once you're at that stage, it's just a matter of getting in the water as much as possible. Now I've had some injuries along the way, I tore my inner muscle quite badly, why? Due to not stretching for long enough!

Avoiding Injuries
injuries are going to come along. So the key to avoiding injuries is stretching, stretch before you surf, stretch after you surf to stretch out. This is Really, really, really important that you do those sets of stretching exercises, I stretch for 5 to 10 minutes before each surf session. And I also walk for eight minutes to the beach. So up a big hill. So I'm doing these things every time even on small wave days.

But if you don't, you can get some really serious injuries, make sure that you stretch. So at surf dudes, that's exactly what we've done. We are actually catering the site for an older generation of surfers. We are going to be having exercise routines or stretches that you should be doing. If you can't surf that often, we'll be showing you sets of exercises you can use that will actually improve your surfing when you manage to get back in the water. We're going to be showing pop up techniques, there's going to be lots of things going on, we want to offer holidays down here to Cornwall. And we also want to give discounts on some of the surf shops as well. And freebies.

What is Surf Dudes?
It's a free site. So the whole idea is to build up a community of people possibly from around the world, lots in the UK, or people that want to come to Cornwall, because it's a beautiful place, not just for surfing. So you might want to come down here, do some walking, do some surfing the site is absolutely free. There is a donation button here if you want to donate to help us maintain the site and do more videos. And that's what we are trying to do. We're trying to build a community of older generation of surfers that are learning because Surfing is so popular now. It's the first year they included surfing in the Olympics, you know, so the popularity of the sport has gone up I've seen over the last six years our local beaches all around Cornwall gone mad with surfers trying to surf, there are so many people doing it now.

Luckily, it's hard, and is something you need to persevere with. So a lot of people are doing it and then just giving up I remember the first time I did a surf lesson for two hours, and literally couldn't walk the next day and I was physically fit. And for the first year or two years, like every time I went out it was killer because I was always pushing it. Now I'm at a stage where I can sort of do four, five days in a row or do two-three sessions a day. And you know it's a bit achy, but it's absolutely fine. And like I said I'm 51 now.

There is the other thing about age as well as as you get older, you're more you're more kind of scared in a way to take on these things. You see these little kids doing things and they are fearless. Because they think they're immortal. You know, when you're to the age of 25, or 30, you think you're in immortal. And then as soon as you get over that age, you kind of realize that actually, you know what this is a seriously dangerous sport specially in bigger waves. So this site is aimed towards all of that stuff.

We want to get lots of people, lots of good surfers coming along, and also talking and chatting we want to do lives to meet and discuss problems and how to overcome them.

And it's also going to be dictated by you guys. What do you want to see? Do you want to see an interview with pro surfer? We've got a few pro surfers down here in Cornwall, and I want to do that. But, you know, you might say, oh, what about can you get a discount at this shop? Because if I've got a lot of members in the site, then we have the power. I can approach them as the spokesperson and say, Look, I got 500 members, they will buy things off you how much discount can you give us so together we can become very, very powerful.

And that is what we're trying to do at surf dudes. And also make friends your all welcome down here, it would be great to meet and go out for a drink, go for a surf.

Alright, guys, so hopefully I'll see you on the site is www.surf-dudes.com

All the Best
David (Surf-Dude)

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