How To Paddle Board For Beginners

Welcome everyone. We are here today to learn about paddleboarding, the basics of paddleboarding, and the equipment. Today we're going to start off with the board. At the front of the board is the nose, along the side of the board is the rail, and at the rear is the tail. At the top we have the deck of the board, and right in the middle we have the carrying handle. Carrying handle is where we're going to focus to put our feet when we get to standing up on the board when we're on the water. Before we get on the water we need to set ourselves up for success, and part of that is adjusting our paddle to the correct height. What I'm going to do is I'm going to have my hand in the air with a slight curve down, bring the paddle all the way up to it, and then lock it into place just like that. And then before we get in the water we also need to make sure that we are attached to our board with our leash. Now that we've got our leash on we're ready to get out into the water. When we launch and we land we always start off on our knees for safety purposes. From here I don't have to have my hand all the way on the grip up here. Bring it down halfway, bring my other hand all the way down close to the blade, and now I'm going to go and paddle to a safe spot out in the water. When we get out in the water and we're ready to stand there's a correct way to do it. Take our paddle, dig our knuckles into the board, bring one foot up, second foot up, keep eyes forward, keep your blade down in the water, slight bend in your knees, we're ready to go. Now that we're on the water it's time to get going forward, and that's where the forward stroke comes into play. What we're looking for, elbows locked out, want to get the blade at the nose of the board, we're going to follow along the rail of the board, and we're going to release right around our feet. Coming right back up to the nose of the board, I'm going to do this process about three or four times, and then we have to switch sides. To switch over I'm going to leave one hand on the shaft, slide your other hand up down, and the other one back up to the handle, back into our forward stroke. Now we've got to come back over to the other side, same process, slide your hand down the shaft, other hand up at the handle, back into our forward stroke. You also notice that my knees stay slightly bent the entire time. So as we're going forward, we're going to notice that we're drifting to one direction or the other, depending on what side the blade is going in the water. To counteract this, we have to naturally put the blade on the other side of the board, and this is a continual process. We'll do three to four strokes on one side, we'll drift, and then we'll do three to four strokes on the other side, and we'll drift. That's part of paddleboarding. Wind is one of the major weather elements that affect how we paddle. Strong enough wind is always going to blow your board in one direction. So if I have a wind blowing me from this side, I'm going to have to paddle on this side of my board the majority of the time. The reason being is the wind's already pushing my board to this side, so I have to counteract that with my own body movement. If the wind is affecting us too much, and we're no longer going forward, being pushed backwards, or it's just becoming too tough, it's time to get back down onto our knees. The reason we come down to our knees is because when we're standing, we act like a sail. When we're down here, we have a lot less wind resistance pushing us backwards. Now we need to turn on the water. So we have a deep knee bend, put the blade in the water, we do a big arcing C. So while we're doing this, our fins are still trying to keep the board going straight, so you'll notice that you're doing a big arcing C out in the water yourself. For a quicker turn, we do what we call as a reverse sweep. Get a nice deep knee bend, horizontal shaft, blade all the way at the tail of the board, we make a big C out in the water. Now you notice you did about a 360 turn when you did that. That's because now you are pivoting on the fins of the board. Your board's not going to do a big arcing C this time. For the neutral stance, feet on either side of the carrying handle, and we're able to control the roll of the board here. And this is where we keep most of our balance. Anytime that you feel unbalanced in this position, you could always take a little bit deeper knee bend and get your blade in the water, and that'll help correct you back to where you need to be. Now that we're comfortable on our board, it's time to start playing around a little bit. Start playing around with our stances. So the first stance we're going to go over after the neutral stance is our modified surfer stance. With this, we're just going to bring one foot slightly back. Now our feet are staggered a little bit more in the center of the board. And from this position, not only are we controlling the roll of the board, we're also able to start controlling the pitch of the board. This helps us in different scenarios where we have wind or waves and wake coming right at us. We're able to control the pitch to go right up and over those waves. The other thing it gives us is a little bit more control on the fins, putting more pressure to make our turns a little bit tighter. From my modified surfer stance, now I could go into the full surfer stance. In this position, our feet are going to be on the center of the board, facing one direction. And from here, we're controlling nothing but the pitch of the board. We could also get into what we call pivot turns from these positions. I'll have my foot at the as rear as I can get on the board. I'm going to put a pressure on it, and I'm going to go do my forward or my reverse sweep. The nose of the board will come slightly out of the water, and I'm going to do a 360 right where I'm at. When we're out on the water, technique is very important. It could help us be a much more proficient and better paddler. It could keep us away from unnecessary injuries. But remember, the ultimate goal is to have fun while we're out there. And the more you do it, the better you're going to get.