Had a surf lesson this summer and instantly addicted? I know the feeling, and you want to progress as fast as possible because if the feeling of going straight on a small wave is so amazing, imagine what a smooth top turn on a 4ft wave must feel like. But it takes years to learn the skill of surfing, longer than any other sport. Most other individual sports you get to practice outside of play/game time, i.e. working with a golf coach at the driving range or practicing a new line or trick at the skate park. A 3hr surf may lend you 90 seconds (15, 10sec waves) of actual surfing. Imagine if you had an hour with a surf coach in a private wave pool and got 15mins of standing surfing practice. Most of us cant afford this luxury.
We can practice surf specific movements, working on all aspects of surf athleticism. Strength, mobility, flow, speed, body awareness can all be improved. We see a lot of beginners lack basic strength and mobility fundamental to learning the skill of surfing, part of the reason surfers learn so slowly is the lack of practice of surf specific movement. For example, lets say you caught 15 waves, thats 15 pop-ups, and 90secs of surf stance practice. So you can see how little time is spent challanging our bodies popping up and surfing the wave.
I have good news. Even if you did 15 surf pushups, and 90sec worth of surf style squats, thats the same as a 3 hr surf in less than 5 mins. 10mins every day, thats all you need to do to drastically improve the learning curve of the new skill. Develop endurance and balance in a low surf stance, to be able to move your own bodyweight from a paddling postition to a low and balanced stance with speed and grace. If you can’t do these things on dry land, good luck trying on a surfboard. There are plenty of videos and articles on this website for free advice. Start here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsMgTppaDec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CXkq9XE6sI
If you live in NYC:
Learn exactly what to do by attending a “Surf Health & Fitness Workshop – Beginner/intermediate” On the 9th September.
Details here :
Surf Health and Fitness 