Buoyancy

A person’s buoyancy index is not proportional to his or her weight, and other additional parameters need to be taken into account.

For simplicity’s sake, we’ll start with a person without a surfboard. A 90 kg person, for example, will sometimes have a much higher buoyancy index than a 50 kg person.

Relaxation, a determining factor

In fact, a decisive factor will come into play: each person’s aquatic experience and their ability to relax on contact with water, to move smoothly without tensing all their muscles. For example, someone who has been used to playing in water and waves since childhood, or who is not apprehensive about contact with water, will be able to stay relaxed, and their body will float better as a result.

On the contrary, a person unaccustomed to the aquatic environment will sometimes tend to stiffen rather than let go, and will therefore expend much more energy to stabilize himself on the water’s surface. Balance is a sensory rather than an analytical process, and you have to let it happen. Hence the value of taking surfing lessons to improve your aquatic ease, provided you’re willing to surf with a stable board that will help you relax. The surf instructor doesn’t give his pupil a bulky board to punish him, but rather to help him learn.

In short, some people “float” better than others. Of course, this is just an image, as the wetsuit and surfboard keep the rider at the water’s surface. What’s more, when learning to surf, beginners tend to stay close to the edge, where they have a foothold, in complete safety.

Nevertheless, each student’s ability to move in balance on his surfboard will be conditioned by this “buoyancy index”. The speed with which he learns to surf will therefore depend less on impressive muscularity than on flexibility and muscular relaxation.

Translation of a quote by the legendary Duke Kahanamoku :

” Where the weightlifter sinks like a stone, the delicate frangipani flower floats along “.