How to regress in surfing

But with perseverance in error, it’s also very easy, instead of learning, to block progress, or even regress. Especially when surfing is only an occasional activity, a few days/months or weeks/year.

Here’s a quick overview of the classic mistakes to avoid at all costs, and which often stem from a single error:

1. Skipping the learning curve

Imagine a guitar novice tackling Django Reinhardt straight away. He doesn’t know how to hold the neck or pluck the strings, and only divine intervention will enable him to achieve this goal. He may be able to convince himself that he’s playing Django Reinhardt, but the people around him are likely to think otherwise.
The surfer who can’t position himself lying down on his board won’t be able to place his feet far enough out on the board either, and will sink before he can start sliding.

2. Follow your surfing buddies

Surfing buddies, because they’re impatient to get out there and have fun, often give laconic advice: “Here’s your board, see you at the bottom”. Obviously, the beginner leaves the water frustrated, exhausted, even terrified: he’s spent an hour being tossed around without managing to pass the bar, disgusted, there’s a 50/50 chance he’ll never surf again in his life.

3. Believe that without experience and knowledge of the ocean, you can do without advice.

Each surf spot has its own specificities and dangers, each time of day its own tide, each day its own meteorological hazards. Taking a surf lesson or finding out more about surfing is not only a guarantee of safety, but also a time-saver. Especially if you’re new to the ocean.

4. Think of surfing as standing up

Surfing means catching a wave. The proof is in the pudding: we surf with all kinds of equipment, but also simply with our bodies, lying on the water. A novice who doesn’t know how to catch a foam or a wave will sink at every attempt to get up. In fact, it’s the energy of the wave that keeps the board afloat, provided you know how to catch a wave (it’s not enough to lie on the board and wait).
Of course , baby carriage teaching will give the illusion of knowing how to surf for a while, but it won’t teach you the basics of surfing, since you won’t be able to catch a wave on your own.

4. Believing that you can stand up in the waves

Indeed, waves quickly become too big for beginners, especially if they haven’t mastered the basics: correct lying position, efficient paddling, quick righting with good foot position.

In addition to the technical difficulty, you have to catch the wave at the right place and at the right time, so that it’s neither too hollow (board burying) nor too flat. The bigger the waves, the wider the zone where they are likely to break, and the more difficult it is to position yourself to catch them. The greater the distance you have to cover, the greater the physical effort required, and hollow waves don’t forgive errors in wave reading (estimating where they’re going to offer the right slope).

On the other hand, a novice may manage to catch a wave, but if he doesn’t master his righting, his feet will generally land too far back on the board, and it will only slide a few meters before sinking.

5. Wanting to pass the bar at all costs

Passing the helm is a difficult and exhausting exercise. Whereas the foam and small waves of the shoreline offer the beginner a playground in which to learn. And yet, the moss that pushes him towards the shore sometimes feels like an obstacle to be overcome. Instead of practicing by catching the foam, he’ll bang against the waves until he’s exhausted.

6. Mistaking the ocean for a tennis court

A calm sea offers perfect conditions for learning. But every day, and even every hour, the ocean changes shape, the waves and currents become more ferocious, the wind in turn shapes or deforms them, the tide softens them or makes them aggressive.
The difficulty of surfing obviously lies in this need to adapt to an extremely changeable natural environment.

7. Go surfing regardless of the tide and weather.

On the Landes coast, sandbanks at high tide are almost always unsuitable for learning to surf. In calm weather, the waves disappear; and when the sea gets rougher, the waves break on shore, which becomes dangerous, at least for beginners.

It’s a natural sport, and people have to adapt their schedules to the tide, wind and swell.

8. Think that the less the board floats, the easier it is.

This theory defies the laws of physics. A beginner who can’t stand up on a large, extremely stable board will find it even more difficult to stand up on a board twice as short.

9. Go to the surf school that does slaughtering

There are diplomas of varying quality that allow you to teach surfing for a fee, but there are also a whole range of surf schools. Between the factory school that slaughters its students like poultry (see video below) and the human-scale school that takes the time to really teach, there’s sometimes a gulf.

Finding a cheap surf instructor with little or no qualifications is a good way to stay in the dumps for a long time. Youtube tutorials seem to be conspiring to widen the gap between the beginner and the autonomous surfer.

Beginners are not always receptive to the well-meaning advice of their surfing friends or instructors, who can be excellent guides on the road to learning. They may be in too much of a hurry or excitement, and go too fast. That’s why it was necessary to explain, in depth, the little secrets that prevent you from learning to surf. In order to learn to surf.