To learn to row, you have to row

It may sound like a truism, but it’s impossible to improve your paddling other than by rowing. Swimming just isn’t enough, because the surfboard position calls on other muscle chains than the crawl.

Stroller pedagogy

Stroller pedagogy produces surfers who don’t know how to paddle. Many of our students took their first surfing lessons in exotic countries such as Bali, Costa Rica or Sri Lanka. There, surf instructors, whether qualified or not, put students with no previous surfing experience in the position of experienced surfers by leading them into deep-water waves. Skipping the basics, their guides push them out onto waves of varying sizes, so that they quickly discover the exhilaration of surfing. This approach treats the customer as a holidaymaker who needs to be satisfied immediately, rather than as an apprentice who has come to learn.

Students who have learned in perfect conditions, with this type of teaching, have the impression that they know how to surf because they have already slid on real waves. The problem is that, by ignoring certain stages in the learning process, such as rowing, wave reading, line-up placement and priority rules, all of which are essential to becoming an autonomous surfer, this “effortless fun” pedagogy gives these students the illusion of knowing how to surf.

When a French state-qualified instructor takes charge of them on the Landes coast, say in Hossegor, he’s often astonished to find that they haven’t mastered rowing or wave catching, and have great difficulty getting out to sea. There’s a big gap between their imagined level and their actual level.

Rowing for independence

Surf spots in the Landes region have specific topographical features that make them demanding. The sandbanks and bays change from hour to hour, day to day, month to month, the current is a parameter to contend with, and the bar is difficult to pass as soon as the swell increases. To sum up, in this context, the surfer needs to have a minimum technical and muscular baggage to be able to get to the line-up and catch hollow waves.

Of course, once again, the instructor can help them pass the bar and push them along; the problem is that they’ll never learn to move, row, choose a wave or sense the right moment for a take-off. I therefore recommend that you let them use their arms and experiment on their own, while accompanying them out to sea to build up their confidence and help them.

To row effectively, you need to relax and amplitude your movements, to be a whale rather than a sardine. A surfeit of short, excited arm movements doesn’t make you go faster – quite the contrary. As in swimming, you don’t clench your fingers, your hand is relaxed and your fingers are in a natural position.

You also need cardio, as surfing requires endurance, as well as explosive efforts when catching the wave. To catch a wave, you need to be able to vary your paddling rhythm, moving from a relaxed, full paddle to faster, more powerful strokes. We then move on to another theme, that of wave reading, timing and body sensations, enabling you to paddle and stand up at the right moment, with the right intensity, to achieve the take-off neither too early nor too late.

In short, learning to row is an essential step. It’s satisfying for an apprentice to be able to evolve unassisted in deep water, while being able to manage his or her effort over time. Otherwise, they’ll need a surfing helper to drag them out to sea and push them through the waves for the rest of their lives.