How do I Paddle Out, and In?
Paddling is actually one of the most important skills for you in surfing. Obviously, you need to get out to where the waves are, then once you are there you have to paddle to catch the waves.
Most importantly, your legs should be together on the back of the board and make sure that your body is perfectly centered both forward/back and left/right. For now, do not try to bend your knees up like experts are doing. Your head should be up and back arched up. This is a counter-intuitive pose. You would think that if you go completely flat on the board with your chin resting on the board, you can get much better stability, but that is not the case when you are navigating over moving waves. By raising your back up, you are focusing the center of weight near the belly button, and also the upper body allows you to quickly compensate for any rocking of the board. In addition, this posture will allow you to use larger number of muscled on your body into paddling power. This is even more important with shorter boards where your body should contact a minimum amount of water. Lying on the center is a bit tricky. Even on a board that is taller than you, just a half inch of sliding up or down will cause a great difference in the board balance. The best way to find out if you are perfectly centered on the board is to paddle a few strokes on a calm water and then stop, let the board carry you. If your board keeps moving forward then you are perfectly centered with a minimum resistance. It stops right away, then you are laying off-center. If your front (the nose) of the board is sinking, just slide back an inch. If the front of the board is over 2 inches above water then you are too far back, move your body a bit forward. Also check if you are moving towards left or right. That means you are off balance laterally (left and right). You can quickly adjust the position by grabbing the front rails of the board, stretch you body fully straight, then use you hands to let you body slide up and down. Making your body straight is important because your hip may get off center without you realizing it. Most people do not have a perfect straight posture (and surfing will straighten that out for you.) Once you find your center, then find a marker on your board. On my 8'6, my eyes are looking 45 degrees down just where it says "Arrow Surfboards" right under the Arrow logo.
Paddling motion is a bit difficult for me to explain but again, make sure that your back is arched up. Do not stroke too much or fast especially upon starting up, instead, go slowly at first. The board will catch the speed then gradually increase the paddling power to match the speed of the board. You can bend your elbows, especially when your hands are right next your shoulders. This allows you to exert more power. Your fingers should loosely cup but not too tightly. It is now a well known fluid dynamics fact from Olympics athletes and expert surfers that if you open the space between you fingers slightly you have a more effective paddling surface (surface area) than they are completely closed and cupped. Once a hand is in the water, push the water all the way to the back at a consistent power (resistance). Note that entire arm is used for paddling not just the fingers. Once your hand is all the way in the back, raise the arm just above the water. Raising the hand much above the water would waste your energy. The key here is that while the paddling arm is in the water, you push the water with a consistent speed (and it feels more applying a constant force through the stroke.) If the arm speed is uneven with respect to the movement of the board, you may actually be "breaking" the speed further wasting the energy. If the water is making some noise while paddling, you might be over-powering the stroke, meaning that you are paddling faster than your current speed. This is also a waste of energy. I suggest that a completely calm days are good day for you to go out and paddle the entire length of a beach in a relaxed pace.
When you are ready to go to the "outside", you will find that many people are lined up (or waiting) in the area where the waves peak out. As a starter, you would not want to be in there to mess them up, try a bit far away from the peak called the shoulder area. Also take a note of which direction the waves are breaking (like a curtain going down but usually from left to right, or right to left). You want to ride so that the closing curtain is going down behind, almost chasing you. The picture below is called a "left-right" break because a surfer taking off right at the peak can either steer to the left or right to continue riding as the crashing curtain of waves will go left and right from the peak that has just formed. More often waves will peak only at one spot then break only in one direction. Left and rights are relative to you facing the beach, so looking from the beach, left and rights are flipped. If you have problem with this orientation, I suggest that you do not become a radiologist reading X-ray films. If you are a radiologist already and have this problem, please see me in my office right away when you get in.
To go over the waves as you paddle out, find the center point (front to back) and hold the rails at that position (that is the key) then raise your head and arch back up from the board until your arms are straight. Shift your weight more towards the front as you go over. Good people know how to kick the board forward at that point. Do not hold the front of the board unless you are duck diving (which is an advanced maneuver).
Once you master the paddling it is also important to quickly turn around your board 180 degrees. Try this while your eyes are always looking at the incoming wave. It is important and not easy, especially while maintaining a perfect paddling position and paddling like crazy to catch the wave.
Back to paddling, remember the same paddling posture to catch the waves. Often you see a perfect padding out but completely broken paddling style with your legs wide open and your body off-centered. Watch out! A male seal will mount on you if you are paddling like that (I did not come up with this but one of my surf instructors did.) But now that I said it, you remember next time you go out, right?
Turtling
Since you are practicing on a long board, there is one challenge you will need to accept. That is going under a big break. The most essential skill you need to master getting through a big wave breaking in front of you is to "turtle" the board. Some people call this the "Eskimo Roll." This is going to be a bit difficult to explain, but essentially do this.
When a big wave is about to crash right in front of you, paddle towards the wave and almost right at the moment when the wave is breaking and spewing white splashes, turn the board upside down and stick the front of the board through the face pulling the front of the board down or level if you can. You are hanging on the bit front part of the rails of the board's rails with your death grip and your body is totally under water underneath the turned board. Hang on to the edges (rails) of the board very tight as you will experience a strong force. There is some chance that the board will catch the wave and you will be tumbling forward. Don't let the board go if there are people around you. The timing is very important and I cannot exactly explain it, so try to practice this movement under relatively small sets. If you can stand on the bottom with the water at shoulder high, and a chest to shoulder high waves are breaking that will be a good spot to practice this move. Be careful of people around you, other oncoming surfers (they will be turning into your path further right or left of you so look further) as you may get deflected off, tumble and washed back out towards the beach. It is best to practice when nobody is close to you so that just in case, you can release the board (this is called Bailing out and it is an emergency only step. Around here, learn always hang on to your board.)
If you are thrown forward, you may be held down for 5-10 or so seconds. Do not panic, just hold the breath, and try to be confident and be calm that it will be over in just a few more seconds. Stay under a bit longer. Look around you, and go for the brighter side. When you come up the surface, look around first, since there may be another set going to crush right on you (unfortunately you may still be right at the break line). If another one is there, take a quick breath and dive under.
Note also that if you are being kept smashed constantly, congratulations, you found a strong break zone this is where you want to be to take-off but not to paddle out. Return to the beach, re-check your entry point, and walk over to where it is breaking less and paddle out.
Still Ready to Duck Dive. Learn How To Push Through First.
Everyone has pretty much seen more advanced surfers diving through under the waves with an ease and getting outside quickly. However, this is a fairly advanced technique, and for most people this is going to start to happen in the second season of surfing. As I learned how to do this, I have found out that there is more important skill that needs to be mastered first, that is the "Push Through" technique. The reason I am suggesting you learn this first are the following;
- There are a lot of similarity in Pushing Through and Duck Diving. In push-through, you do not actually go under the water but above it.
- In Duck Diving, the timing plays a very important key in succeeding or not. Mastering push through will also teach this timing.
- You do need to use both techniques in your surfing career. Duck diving will waste energy so if you would want to use it as the last weapon for getting out.
So how do you do it. Again, it is a bit difficult to explain but do these steps. First in your house, practice these motions, and then on a very flat calm day while you wait for waves.
- Gently push your upper body up in the "Cobra" position, your hand should be grabbing the rails right under your shoulder. Do it gently, otherwise the front of the board will sink.
- First, learn to put your good knee (the one with the leash) in the middle of the board right on top of the stringer. Your toe should be touching as far back of the board as possible. On a shorter board, your toe should be right at the edge of the tail.
- Remember, if the knee and toe is not right on the center, the board will likely to flip over.
- Lift the other leg up high gentry as the white water passes through.
- Now your body should be like a bridge over a water and white water can flow between under your body and the board. Only 3 spots are touching the board.
Now you are ready. Try to do this on about a hip high white water. There will be plenty of those in our area.
- Make sure that there is enough momentum so keep paddling into the white water.
- As the white water approaches, the water should lift up a bit, adjusting to the raise of the water, gradually and gently do the push up as you set up your leg in the back.
- As you go through the top of the wave, lift your other leg. Don't do this too hard otherwise the rear of the board will start to sink.
- When the front of the board sticks to the other side of the wave, start sifting your weight towards the front part of the board so that you are now pushing the board down, feeling like going down to the other side of the wave, as it allow the white water to pass through.
The skill require timing and weight shifting requires lots of practice, so be patient, keep at it.
If you are being deflected, you are not going fast enough. This might take a bit of muscle building to do. In general when you see an oncoming waves, you need to paddle faster and harder so that if you are lucky you can climb it up before it breaks, and if not you have a good momentum to get through using Push Through or Duck Diving.
Ready to Duck Dive? (Intermediate Skills)
First, if you cannot properly Push Through the white water, read the previous section and master that skill first.
You can see how I do it in QuickTime. Not a good example, but you get some idea!
If you are going to surf a lot in North San Mateo beach breaks, then sooner or later you'd want to learn how to "duck dive" under. You cannot do this yet as a beginner because you'd be on a floating long board, but once you can confidently catch lots of waves and also take off on an angle then you might be ready for a shorter board. A tri-fin Hybrid "fun" with a length of 7'5 range with a 19-20 inch width might be a bit too floaty but a good transition board. Styles shorter and narrower than this will make it much easier to duck but make it incredibly difficult to paddle out. If you can borrow a short board from your friend (swap it) for a bit to see if you are ready. If you can confidently paddle on these boards then you have a enough swimming muscles to go on. If not, do not attempt it. Build your muscles and skills for 3-4 more months and try again.
This site is pretty much right-on as for showing you how to duck dive. Please read it before you read my accounts below.
The essence of this technique is that you sink the front and tail of the board. It is not about shooting to the bottom of the ocean. When the wave is going above you the board should be horizontal and ready to shoot upwards.
The key thing to add is that when you are ready to push the tail, you must shift your body weight to the tail of the board. You do this by shifting your butt towards the back of the board at the right timing. That means your knee will bend and the toe will get a lot of your body weight. You ask which timing, right? You have to find this out yourself. Some people say that use the falling water to help you push it down. While it is going to look incredibly dorky, you can try the entire motion on a flat water. If you cannot do it there, forget about doing it live.
If you are being deflected then it is likely that you are not sinking the front of the board early enough. Start sinking the front of the board 3-4 seconds before the wave face arrives at your spot. Raise the front of the body with your arms grabbing a bit further forward positions high, but unlike the Push Through, you quickly raise the body to create a reaction power to get the front of the board sinked. Yes, it will take 3-4 seconds. Pros can do them in shorter times but then they got a lot of muscle and sinker boards. For you and me, we usually got more floaty hybrids, and they take that much more time and work to sink.
If you are constantly "sucked out" from the tail then congratulations you are 50% of the way there, the front sink is working but you are not pushing the tail enough or not at the right time. Work on the timing and speed. Again key here on the tail sink is not how well you force it down, but how well you shift your weight back. It really goes to say that weight shifting and timing is so important in anything to do with surfing. This timing is so difficult to master that I still do mess it up about 20% of the time.