How To Surf From Beginner To Intermediate In 20 Minutes | Step by Step Tutorial

surfing is one of the most alluring sports in the world you get to immerse yourself in the most beautiful environment possible the ocean [Music] [Laughter] you get to temporarily harness energetic lines of swell as you ride them to the beach in a mesmerizing and addictive flow experience and eventually you can feel the thrill of performing all the tricks and turns that you really want to on a wave those moments when turning getting tubed or even doing airs feels effortless [Music] there is no better feeling [Music] these are some of the reasons why I've been surfing for 18 years I started at the age of 10 as a beginner and have progressed all the way up to an advanced surfer and since becoming a coach in the last three years I've worked out the common steps and the hurdles and most importantly the practice techniques which can help people transition from that beginner stage to intermediate and all the way through to advanced full honesty it's not always quick it's not always easy and although the best way to improve is to spend as much time in the water as possible understanding the principles of surfing the biomechanics of it and the hacks to fast-track your success are incredibly beneficial to your overall journey [Music] my name is Kayla brach and if you're new here make sure you subscribe to the channel and join me on Instagram and Hales broccoli because today we're gonna take you all the way from beginner surfer up to intermediate now in saying that this video isn't just for beginners or intermediate it's also for advanced surface as well because there are some morphine gems to take away boards boards boards it seems like new shapes are popping up everywhere and you'd be forgiven for thinking that you're falling behind if you don't buy the next best thing as soon as it hits the shelves well it's not the case but board requirements do change the more you advance with your surfing and depending on the conditions it is really important to have the right board it is going to result in I guess developing into a better surfer faster well a lot of people find hard when they're beginning to surf is catching waves so either you don't have the ocean knowledge yet or you don't have the paddle Fitness yet so it can be a combination of both and having the longer board and the added thickness in addition to a little bit more width helps novice surfer or a surfer wanting to improve their skills paddle easier because the board sits a little bit further out of the water so there's a little bit less drag and be more more flotation by catching more waves you have more exposure to riding waves and hence you can kind of grow and develop your skills faster you're looking for like a wide board wider nose wider tail looking more like like a bubble like bulbous and round as opposed to pointy in the nose and really narrow in the tail look if you're catching pretty much I'd say 80% of the waves that you're paddling for and from there once you're up you're trimming along the wave and finding it easy to get to the unbroken part of the way that's probably when you're wanting to expand your skill set and pick a ball that has a larger performance envelope that board will be a little bit shorter and a little bit narrower and just overall the shape you're starting to reduce that kind of width in the nose and the tail and increasing also now the rocker in the board as well so you're looking for a board that effectively has more curve in the outline and in the rocket that will allow bit more maneuverable [Music] so we've found an appropriate board well done this is one of the most important steps that unfortunately a lot of surfers just blindly take on their surfing journey having the right board allows you to paddle effectively it allows you to catch lots of ways and it allows you to perform how you want to on those waves so now let's go surfing most beginner surfers will naturally start off in smaller whitewater waves and surf straight in toward the beach once they've successfully paddled and caught a wave the surfer needs to pop up and that's where things can sometimes get difficult in fact this can be tricky even for intermediate servers to [Music] the big dichotomy here is that taking off on whitewater waves is actually harder than taking off on an unbroken face but catching an unbroken wave is a skill in itself and it's not something that's easily taught so for now let's stick to the whitewater one of the most important things to remember when popping up is to stay centered over your board many people struggle to transition from low to high without losing their centered position and simply topple over to one side of significance is the stance you're popping up into contrary to the conventional view of surfing we don't actually need to pop up straight into a high starts with straight legs in fact this is actually not recommended by popping up into a lower surf stance with arms semi relaxed and out to the side we can create a much more stable pop up process this upward motion during the transition from low to high is actually something we can train on land as it does require a certain degree of core strength in coordination it's often a sticking point for many beginner and intermediate surfers [Music] when it comes to popping up one big thing I say with beginners is that they get really flustered and try and do everything very very quickly so there you're going to disorientate themselves and upset the equilibrium this surfboard and when you're paddling like a maniac and not actually paddling efficiently that can really upset your equilibrium on the surfboard so for one you're starting on the back foot and then I see people getting up getting up and standing up really trying to be quickly ending up being heavy footed and being too too tall too high I think you want to be getting up slower and lower instead of like a pop up or a jump up I think of like how can you slide up to your feet [Music] for starters I would really focus on getting the heaps open especially if you're observing and a beginner intermediate level as an adult there's a lot of tension to undo before we have that efficiency and that fluidity so I'd really spend some time opening the hips so one nice hip stretch would be just the normal lunge and I'd also exercise out of perfect range of motion so I'd be allowing myself to extend the knees beyond the toes the front leg whilst you're opening up the opposite hip I'd also be playing around with some circular motions then you can transition that from a downward dog to stepping one foot forward to the outside of your hand at a time you can do that variable tempo and intensity as well it can be fast it can be slow you can add a little bit of a push up with that which I'll demonstrate so I definitely be concentrating on opening the hips I'd definitely be concentrating on getting a nice open and extension in the spine particularly the upper back open up a back strong lower back strong steady glutes open hips the reality is that pop-up training on land is quite different to in the water where we are moving on an unbalanced dynamic surface but the strength and coordination which comes from those on land exercises is super helpful in perfecting our pop-up technique once you've got your pop up to a point where you're feeling pretty confident let's say you're taking off on waves with at least an 85 percent success rate then it's time to start catching unbroken waves and for this so we need to talk about an entirely new skill set we need to talk about positioning and paddling learning how to read waves is like learning a new language ocular and motherhood it's difficult and there's lots of things to think about but there are some key cues to look out for to help you be in the right spot for the right wave finding the right conditions for you to transition to out the back surfing is gonna be critical there's no point doing it in four to six foot thumping where is what we're looking for is this stuff right here it's small and it's perfectly peeling and it's inconsequential so if you do fall off nothing bad is gonna happen if you look at the surf from above we see that swell and sand contours are not uniform this non uniformity creates areas in which the swell dissipates differently which essentially gives us the space to ride them before they crash altogether when looking at waves from high level what we're looking for is non uniform shapes across the swell line when an area of the swell is bigger than the rest of it then we'll often see a peak established and a shoulder the difference in time from when these to break into whitewater is where we find faces to surf on [Music] see how many sections you can find in this shot here [Music] it's getting used to this kind of analysis that really adds such a huge element to your overall surfing I mean without the ability to predict what a wave is going to do we're essentially going to be lost in the lineup as opposed to being in control start positioning yourself just to the most open side of the peak this way you can get enough speed to get into the wave nice and easily and also make it out onto the face by angling your board slightly in the direction you want to go you'll give yourself a bit of a head start when it comes to turning your board but make sure you still remain centered over the board as you pop up you can turn the board with the oscillation of your heels and toes want to turn more to the front side put more weight in the toes turn more to the back side put your weight in your heels but most often it doesn't need to be that technical so turning in surfing relies on one main factor where you look is where you go I constantly have to remind intermediate surfers to look to the part of the wave that they want to be on in order to get there this first initial identification puts a kinetic chain of events into progress where we turn the board eventually you won't even think about what your feet are doing as you stand up because your eyeballs will do all the work and your body just follows along a great transition tip actually look down the line at your wave as you paddle in rather than looking only once you've caught it and have stood up this puts you two steps ahead of the wave and more in control of where you end up [Applause] [Applause] but of course none of this happens without the ability to paddle I often say that you can only progress in surfing to the degree that you can paddle now I've done plenty of videos on paddling technique on the channel so make sure you check them out but here are the basics paddling is a full-body exercise with the main control center being the middle back muscles from these muscles we are able to arch our spine safely and sustainably without creating shearing tension on our upper thoracic it also creates a nice lever from which we can pull ourselves through the water with loosely cupped hands moving in a slight S motion as they go through each stroke the arm should enter the water to about tricep depth and stay close to the board not too far away you muscle will be saw when you first start this is normal but with practice and on land exercises like with the Swiss ball here you can progress fast in this area [Music] are you ready for another transition exercise great what we're going to do is make your first movement on the wave one way you can get to the top of the wave now as soon as your feet hit the deck what I want you to do is look up to the lip and get that first transition turn that first bottom turn happening so you can get up there that's where the most power is going to be now you can come back to this exercise if you're finding yourself having a lack of speed on a wave because it means you're probably not utilizing the entire wave as you should come back to it and watch yourself fly down the line on the forehand this first turn will be toda mannan on the back end it'll be heel dominant our main goal being though to put ourselves into the power zone on the way the top half of the wave is where we will be able to get our speed from this speed can be harnessed with something called speed pumping which is essentially moving in and out of the power zone to build up speed to use in a turn or to make it past a fast section it's our final intermediate stepping point because essentially all maneuvers in surfing are a variation of this ability to speed pump [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you can practice speed generation technique on land just with a skateboard I started off with a regular skateboard but you can also use a surf trainer like the one you've seen in these clips here the key though is to mimic the surfing movements as closely as possible so that it crosses over into your surfing note the arm and hip movements here this is crucial for good carry over into our surfing the leading arm always faces forward and almost points in the direction we want to go the trailing arm is bent with the forearm facing forward and acts as a pumping point for the shoulders almost like you're dancing let's analyze both positions in a freeze-frame notice at the bottom of my concrete wave Here I am nice and low my back is low as well but arched and active my leading hand and my eyes are pointing toward the section I want to be at and my hips and knees are loaded with power now let's transition and watch the transition a couple of times to note the strong hip thrust and change of body position at the top here we can see that I've shifted my center point to the other side of the board in order to turn in the other direction my eyes and leading arm are pointing forward down the line and I am essentially gathering up speed potential at the top of the wave in preparation for a compression to go back down common mistakes during this process are people not moving their arms in a coordinated fashion leaning too much on the back foot which prevents driving forward and looking down toward the beach too much as opposed to directing their movements with their eyes let's see how this translates over to generating speed in the surf [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] from these point B possibilities become endless what are we going to do with all this speed and momentum this is where we begin our transition from intermediate to advanced the surfers roadmap continues next week showing how we can transition from intermediate all the way up to advanced it's the most exciting time in your surfing career because there is an endless road of improvement waiting if you've enjoyed this video be sure to subscribe to the channel join me on instagram at kales broccoli and let me know in the comments section what else you want to see I'll see you in the next video you you

Channel: Kale Brock

Views: 1,376,556

Keywords: how to surf, learn to surf, surfing lessons, how to pop up, how to catch more waves, how to duck dive, surfing tutorial, Kale Brock, kalesbroccoli, how to rip

Id: OHpG_rNj8eQ

Length: 19min 52sec (1192 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Kooksrus11]

Instructions unclear, still a kook.

[u/jsemhloupahonza]

This is the best tutorial I have seen so far. Kale breaks everything down step by step in simple terms.

[u/notaclevermanboy]

TIL I'm an intermediate kook