Surf Completely - How to Takeoff at Angle

I'm Brittany. I'm one of the surf instructors at Surf With Amigas, and I'm going to go over today how to go down the line from the take-off. When you first start learning to surf, standing up in the whitewash is the first thing you do. The second thing is taking the drop from the top and going straight. Now, what we're going to be talking about today is taking the drop from the top and riding along the face of that green wave. All right, so if you're trying to take off on an angle, the first thing you want to do when you're paddling for the wave, you want to look in the direction you want to go. So looking is going to send your energy down the way you want to go, so if it's a left-hander, looking left, if it's a right-hander, looking right. The second thing you'd want to do is angle your board slightly in that direction, taking that last stroke and pushing your board slightly to the side, so again, left-hand left, right-hand right. Now, depending on the wave that you're catching, if you paddle too much on an angle, you're actually going to paddle off of the shoulder, so it's a little bit of a fine line that you want to take. So judging the waves, judging the conditions, paddling, and on the last minute paddling on that angle will really help you direct your way down there. The third thing you want to do is tip the rail a little bit if you're wanting to kind of get your board on that angle, and this will also direct your board in that direction. One really, really common mistake that I do see out there when people are starting to go down the line is your feet might be on the opposite rail than the actual direction you want to go, so your feet might be on the right-hand rail, but you're looking and doing everything left, but your board's still going to go that way because your rail is tipped this way, and so that's the direction the board's going to go. Adjusting that, you want to put your feet either directly in the middle or even a little bit to the direction of the rail you want to go, so on the left-hand rail if you're going left, and that way your board's going to tilt in the right direction. So if your pop-up is super clean, super fast, and you can do it like that, popping up at the top of the wave and obviously looking and angling your chest in the direction you want to go is a really good thing to do. On your backside, again, if your pop-up's really good, bending your knees and keeping your center of gravity really low so that you can twist and direct your chest in the way that you want to go is crucial. Now if your pop-up is not so good, you're kind of fumbly, and you're taking a little bit of time, angling your board and even digging that rail in each direction is even more important because as you're getting up and taking time to kind of get to your feet, your board's going to keep going. So if you've already angled it that way, even though you're taking time to get up, you've got to be going in the direction that you want to go. So here are a few examples. In this case, her board is angled, but she's not looking in the direction she wants to go. In this one, she's going down the line, but she's going in the opposite direction she wants to go. You want to go away from the whitewash. Here's an example of the feet being on the opposite rail than what you want them to be. Everything here is looking pretty good, but because her weight's not balanced, she loses speed and falls off the top of the wave. Here, her feet are so close to the rail, she turns off the top of the wave. If the wave is closing out, the angled crowbar will not work. You need to be going straight. In this case, the board starts off angling in the wrong direction. By the time she fixes it, the wave's closed out and it's too late. And that's how you go down the line of a wave. If you want me to help you in person, come on and Retreat the Surf with Amigas.