Which one is right for you? In this video I go over the main differences. The bottom line: surf schools are great if you want to save some money and tick surfing off of your bucket list. If you really want to improve and make surfing into a lifelong practice, you’re better off going with a coach as early in your practice as you can afford. You’ll save money over time since you won’t have bad habits to unlearn.
Sun Salutations for Stiff Surfers A
So many yoga vids online have super stretchy yogis doing perfect folds. If you have been surfing your whole life that ain't you and it's impossible to follow those vids! In this video I go over:
1. How to breathe for yoga (ujayi breath)
2. The basic Sun Salutation A in the Astanga practice.
Surf Specific Exercise: Make the Space
This is one in a series of videos to help you improve your pop up technique in and out of the water. It works as a companion video to “Millisecond Push Up,” and is designed to help with the “milliscecond push up” before you stand that I advocate for. If you have any issues with your pop up you need this exercise in your routine!
The whole point of this at-home surf-specific exercise is to train your body to “make the space” for your legs to come under you in one fluid motion. Here’s the basic breakdown with time stamps:
00:47 Always start in your surf stance and lower down leading with your butt — this trains you to crouch properly and is added bonus of the exercise
00:54 Put your hands flat on the floor on either side of your front foot and walk back
1:14 Walk back and DON’T LET THE HIPS DROP!
1:25 Keeping your head and chest up, perform a pop up.
1:30 Side view
1:48 Further example of the space you need to create
2:00 This is a prequel and foundation for the Surf Mountain Climbers Exercise
2:10 Example of how to do them in a more rapid motion
2:36 Arms at your sides! This is important. Don’t come down with arms in front — it’s not a burpee!
2:58 Neck mobility and vision are important
Surf Specific Exercise: Surf Burpees to High Stance
A surf burpee is, yes, just basically a pop up, but their meant to be done in quick succession just like a burpee is. Many big differences between the surf burpee and a regular burpee:
1. Stand in surf stance -- asymmetrical unlike the burpee
2. Lower down with your butt, put hands on floor, and jump back
3. Controlled lower down
4. First one to the left, look left, push chest up high, bring feet forward, stand stall
5. Repeat looking to the right
Do as many as your coach programs you to do -- I recommend 8-10 to left and 8-10 to right in quick succession for 3-4 reps with a 60 second rest between reps. Check out my 90 Day Surf Shreds for Beginners and Intermediates and you’ll be sure to have these in your program!
Tip Video: Millisecond Push Up
Here’s one tip that everyone below advanced intermediate level needs in their surfing! Get that chest up high, eyes down the line, and make sure you have enough space for an elegant, one stage pop up!
How To Wax Your Board Tropical Edition
As with the How to De-Wax Your Board video, this may seem obvious for the experienced surfer. My dad taught me how to do it, so if you don’t have dad or a mentor who has been surfing their whole life, you might find yourself surfing the web for answers. Believe it or not, wax and how to wax your board can be a polarizing issue in surfing. When I was taught to do it my dad used paraffin or candle wax to make the base coat “beads.” He swore by this method. As I grew older the wax companies got better and better at making different consistencies of wax (higher and lower melting temps) for different water temps. This made the paraffin unnecessary. Following the theory of the paraffin, however, the idea is that you want to use a very hard coat of wax as the bottom layer. This is regardless of water temp. We call this first layer the “base coat.” You can use a wax specifically named “base coat” (made by most brands) or you can use tropical wax, which is the hardest kind of wax after base coat. In this vid I use tropical wax for the base and the top layer. It’s hard enough to serve as both. It wouldn’t be a terrible idea to use base then tropical, but that’s not what I did here, and it served me just fine for a month in warm water. The main keys to a tropical wax job/first coat of wax: 00:26 make sure the board is laying on something soft so you don’t scratch the bottom (or rest it on your thighs in a standing position) 1:19 just get wax on there — you need a film to form — use the edge of the bar and press hard enough so the film forms but not too hard, which makes it difficult to do the movements 1:29 “cross hatching” that you see in other YT vids is not a “thing” for long time surfers — almost none of us do it that way 2:05 after the film has formed it’s all about BIG CIRCLES to make the bead 2:17 speed and appropriate pressure are the key (pay attention to the sound as you watch this part — that’s how it ought to sound every time you wax your board) 2:37 I describe why the circular motion is important to form “the bead” 2:56 how much of the board you ought to wax 3:13 make sure you get the rails 3:37 wax it again before every surf in the tropics (yes even if you surf multiple times in one day) Thanks for watching! Stay tuned for my wax preferences and how to wax for cold water videos in the future.