Beginner Surfers | FIX YOUR MISTAKES | How To Surf

Hey guys welcome back to How To Rip. In today's video we're going back to basics to address common beginner mistakes and tell you exactly how to fix them. Okay so first thing we're going to cover is where you need to be positioned on the surfboard. Remember if we're too far forward on the board we're going to nose dive every time we catch waves. If we're too far back on the board the nose will stick up high and it'll make it impossible to catch waves. So we have to find the perfect balance between the two. So that perfect balance it looks something like this. Generally as a rule of thumb your feet should be just off the edge of the board. Notice how my toes are only just hanging off the edge. As a rule of thumb that's a good place to start. Also note that the stringer off the surfboard is in the middle of my chest. This will stop me having any sort of lateral instability. In this position also notice how my legs are together and tight. Now the second thing we're going to address is how to paddle properly. Now we've got a detailed video on this on our channel so check that out if you're interested. But just to touch on it now you need to have cupped hands which will capture more of the water which means you're going to have a more efficient paddle stroke. The other thing is long strokes. So just like freestyle if you were swimming, long hard strokes. The other thing is notice that my arms are close to my body and close to the surfboard. This will give me more control rather than being out here. We want to be in close to the body. Now if you don't paddle hard enough to catch a wave or for long enough the wave simply won't pick you up and you won't be able to get pushed along and even have a chance to take off. Now every time I'm at the beach and I see beginners trying to surf this is a mistake that happens time and time again. It's a simple one and it's easy to fix. All you have to do is paddle harder and paddle for longer than you think you should. Now if you over exaggerate both of those things I promise you that you'll catch more waves. Now our third focus point for the day is going to be the actual pop up onto the wave. This is where people always get it wrong and there's one key trick you need to know to make taking off easier and I'll show you now. So once we've got ourselves into that position on the board we're paddling, paddling. We feel that the wave is pushing us now. We don't have to paddle anymore. I'm going to place my hands onto the deck underneath my chest. Now notice how I lift my chest before I do anything else. Now this is the crucial difference with this chest lift. If you don't and you try and jump up from a flat chest position it's much harder. If I raise my chest this gives my legs room to pop up through the middle of the board. Okay next on the list we're going to focus on our feet position when we actually stand up on the board and we get riding. I recently was teaching one of my friends how to surf and every time their feet were in the wrong position and it was really making a bad difference to their surfing. So I'll show you now where your feet should be and some tricks to get it right every time. So once we're paddling see that wave coming. We're paddling, paddling, paddling. The wave's pushing us. Hands on the board. Chest lift. Jump up. Now from this position my feet should be centered. So if you have a look you'll notice that the stringer is running through the middle of both my feet. My feet are about shoulder width apart and then from here you'll see that my feet are also on a slight angle. So they're not straight and they're not totally on the side. They're sort of halfway in between. This will give you more control. This rolls straight into the next focus point which is how high should I be standing. Commonly we see people stand really straight with their arms by their side. This gives you no control and you've got really bad balance in this position. Where you need to be is in a low position. So get low almost like a quarter squat. From here have your arms out wide. This will give you better balance. Look and point to where you want to go. If you do those things you're going to notice that your strike rate of taking off and getting good waves will go through the roof. Okay so the other thing we're going to mention is how far up should your feet be and how far back should they be. This will make a huge difference. If your feet are too far forward you're going to nose dive every time. If they're too far back the front of the board will pop up in the air and the wave won't actually be able to push you along. So we need to be right smack bang in the middle. It looks something like this. Okay so once I'm like notice that my front foot towards the middle of the board. My back foot too far back. That's too far back. That's too far forward. We want to be somewhere in the middle. Thanks for watching the video today guys. I hope that now you know how to address common mistakes and fix them and I hope that you surf better from having watched this video. Stay tuned, subscribe to our channel, like the video and let us know what else you'd like to see. Cheers!