Surfing is a lifestyle, not a hobby. Surfing is one the most difficult sports I’ve ever learned, it took me approximately 3 years of surfing every single day, to get to the point I start to feel comfortable with my ability.
At the late age of 13 yrs old, I started teaching myself how to surf, because some of my friends were surfers and most of the cool kids were all surfers too.
By 13 yrs, many of the kids in my school were already surfing without parent supervision, which meant that I had some catching up to do.
Before having the ability to surf without parent supervision, I needed to prove to my mother that I could swim approximately 500 meters continuously, then tread water for 25 mins.
Having trouble learning to surf? Here are some high-quality surfing tips from a real surfer.
Swimming and Treading Water
Surfing is dangerous for many reasons, the least of all skills needed, is the skill of swimming and treading water.
In case you don’t know, treading water is the ability to stay afloat in one spot, without touching the ground, for a prolonged period of time.
Having the ability to tread water will save your life if your leg rope breaks, and you don’t have your surfboard anymore.
Surfing on a shortboard is the most advanced, here is how you can learn to ride a shortboard in a short period of time.
Holding Your Breath
The next step was building up my ability to hold my breath. I used to hold my breath in the bath at home every night and try to beat the night before’s record.
When I was in the car, I’d try to hold my breath when we drove under a bridge or tunnel.
The goal was to increase the length of time I could hold my breath, which would help me to feel more secure taking risks in the surf.
There’s a huge difference between a grommet who wants to learn how to surf and a proper surfer.
I think most people know this, though it’s quite often that I will hear someone say that they are a surfer, when in fact they only did a few lessons. Or they are the type of surfer who only surfs during the summer.
Pick a Surfing Style
- Malibu: Mal riders ride on the biggest board out there, and it’s usually over 8 feet tall and very thick. A malibu board is heavy, long, and thick. It’s mostly an older man board to ride because they don’t have to be very flexible, it’s easier to stand upon, and the most important reason, in my opinion.
- Malibu riders can sit further out in the sea, which means that they can paddle onto the wave first, which gives them priority, and priority is everything on a crowded beach break.
- Short board: Shortboard riders are by far the coolest. Their boards have a pointy nose, are usually under 7 feet long, thin, light, and easy to carry. The world surfing champions all ride shortboards in competitions because they have the ability to make cool maneuvers, like cutbacks, carve the waves face, and even get air. This was what I chose to ride.
- Body board: Bodyboarders have a small, spongy square-shaped board that sits deeper in the water than other boards. You will need to have specially designed flippers that help you to get enough speed on the wave. Bodyboarders can be quite cool too, so you don’t have to worry too much about reputation when deciding that bodyboarding is your thing. Bodyboarders have the ability to surf extremely shallow water, even reef breaks, that surfboards cannot go. They give you the ability to get barrelled more often, with smaller surf too, which is a huge advantage, not to mention, it’s the easiest to learn.
This is an important step, where this decision is something that you may have to live with for a very long time and it will be difficult to change.
Live Near The Beach
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a beginner, please don’t get me wrong.
What I’m trying to say is, to get to the point where you can surf at an intermediate level, could take you a few years of intense dedication.
Living close to the beach, so that you have the ability to check the surf before work and sneak in a quick wave or two before leaving for work too.
The convenience of living close to the beach will increase the amount of surfing you can do, on a daily basis, which I promise you will definitely need if you want to become proficient at surfing.
Surfing Lessons
Should you do some surfing lessons? Sure, why not, it’s a good way to get you into the swing of paddling and standing up, but there are a few things that you need to be aware of.
Surfing lessons are not designed to turn you into a proper surfer, they are more for someone who wants to tell their friends that they ”learned to surf”, took a few cool photos, and will never go surfing again in their lives.
- Surfing lessons are almost entirely about keeping people safe, which is totally understandable, considering how dangerous surfing can be.
- Surfing lessons are usually done in summer, which is cool.
- The surfing teacher will get you to hire out a malibu surf board that is usually covered in some weird sponge. This is so that you don’t hurt yourself.
- Then you will be taken out surfing at low tide, so that you can stand up at all times, this is also for your safety.
- The surfing teacher will get you to paddle onto already broken waves. Broken waves are all white wash, they have already crashed, which is not surfing, but I guess it’s okay for a beginner. Sometimes the surfing teacher will push you onto the wave by pushing your big spongy board from behind.
- Because the massive spongy malibu surf board is so stable, most people will be able to stand up by the end of the day. This is all fun and I guess it’s a great way to start your journey, learning to surf.
Surfing is one of the most difficult sports to learn. Here’s a full list why surfing is so tough.
Crew Of Surfers
Having a few guys who are dedicated to surfing every free moment they get, is a must if you want to become good at surfing.
When I was a teenager, my parents were quite abusive, so I wanted to get out of the my parent’s house and stay out, as long as possible, to avoid seeing them at all.
I’d wake up super early, way before the sun would come up, then ride my bike to check the surf, and if the surf was good, I’d go straight home to grab my surfboard.
I had four friends who all lived along the street in between my place and the beach. If the surf was good, I’d go knock on one at a time’s windows, wake them up, one at a time.
Gathering one surfer at a time, until I had a crew of five surfers to hit the waves with.
Having four friends who all surfed, really did help my skills, we would all compete against each other out there, which pushed us all to become better over time.
Trying to steal each other’s waves, yelling at each other when someone caught a good wave.
We’d try doing what we called party waves sometimes too, that’s when many surfers ride the same wave at the same time.
This is only possible when all the surfers are intermediate to advanced, or it could be dangerous.
Hopefully, this has been a helpful article on learning to surf, for you. Please stick around, I’ve got many more articles coming soon.
Here are my best surfing blog posts
- Beginner to Intermediate Surfer Advice (Best one)