Learning to longboard
Eric, I want to learn to longboard.
Okay, but…
This “but” is important to ensure that both the student and the coach don’t waste their time.
First of all, I think it’s important to ask the student about his or her reasons for taking up longboarding.
Catch more waves
It’s not wrong to assume that a longboarder will catch more waves than a surfer on a small board. Nevertheless, a smaller board will have the same buoyancy as a longboard because it will be wide and thick.
Longboarding waves without varying your trajectory one iota, without moving your board, without changing rails… that’s not really longboarding.
What’s more, longboarding a take-off in hollow waves, without planting the nose of the board or trepanning the surfers who will inevitably be further down the trajectory, is not for everyone.
Which brings us to the second point.
Fluid surfing and walking your board
Longboarding without certain basic skills is not possible.
Surfing a longboard, even in small waves, is not easy for a novice surfer. The very best longboarders generally started out with shorter boards.
The prerequisite for learning to longboard is to be able to follow the wave’s treamline, and to be able to vary your trajectories to produce an alternation of upstrokes and downstrokes at the bottom of the wave. The longboarder moves on his board in the upward phase – carrying the weight to the front of the board – and must return to the standard position before the board dips.
However, beginners have a hard time moving their feet when they’re badly positioned on the board. This requires a minimum of confidence, balance and muscle relaxation.
Similarly, a take-off that isn’t fast and dynamic enough will cause the novice to stand up at the bottom of the wave, making it impossible to find the treamline or move to the front of the board without sinking it.
A longboard has a very long rail, which makes it difficult to vary trajectory if you haven’t mastered the transfer of support. These are more pronounced but extremely fine and progressive, otherwise the board won’t follow. The longboarder who goes straight isn’t really longboarding, he’s just surfing a big board.
Which brings us to the last point.
Safe surfing
If, with a standard board, you don’t respect priorities, can’t surf looking far ahead, can’t change your trajectories and avoid obstacles, it’s probably best, for the survival of the human species, to wait a while before taking up longboarding.
Master the basics of surfing
To sum up, I’d say that you have to learn to walk before you can run, and that longboarding, which is certainly less radical than small-board surfing, requires a great deal of finesse and seamanship. Without a minimum of technical baggage, a surf coach will be powerless, unless the pupil accepts the stages of learning as they present themselves to him or her, i.e. “step by step”. At that point, with patience, the student will be able to go from his 8′ to the classic longboard, with the ease of the legendary “Da Cat”.
