How to Stand Up Paddle Surf

The Best of the Best How-to-SUP Stuff from Around the Globe — Just Add Water & Go!

How to Deal with the Foamball …

Let’s say you’re SUP surfing shorebreak and, while paddling out, you’ve got a giant foam ball headed your way.  What do you do?  At the Seabreeze forum, here’s what Gorgo had to say:

- Look for somewhere to launch where you don’t need to bash through the shore break. A long paddle for a shortboard is a cruise on a SUP so you can launch up to a km away and cruise into the lineup.
- Wait for a lull in the surf and paddle out. Again, SUP paddling is fast so it’s quite easy to get out in breaks in the action.image
- On smaller waves you can stand well back on your board and raise the nose and it will ride up over the broken wave. It’s surprising how big a wave you can do this on. If you’re just starting then kneeling is easier but it doesn’t take too long to be able to do it standing up. Just before the wave hits I like to do a sprint paddle and hit it as fast as possible so the momentum helps carry me over.
- If you are about to be taken out by the white water make sure there’s nobody behind you then dive your body over the wave and hope the dragging from the board is not too extreme. When you’re in the water don’t spread your arms and fight the pull, you’ll only make it worse. Just stay slim and go with it and ride it out. If you’re under water being dragged you can use the paddle to steer your body to the surface. It’s kind of fun in a masochistic sort of way.
- If you’re on the inside and about to be hit by a wave the easiest thing is to point the board towards the beach and lie on the tail with your paddle on the board. The wave will pick you up and take you in. You can leap to your feet and surf the wave in, and angle the board away from the impact zone. You can use the flat of the paddle as a planing surface to lean on and help keep you balance in the white water. Once inside out of danger you can wait for a lull and paddle out in one hit.
- If the waves are not too big you can hug your board with one arm and sink the nose and let the wave wash over you. Some guys hang onto the tail, some use the leash rail saver as a handle and some people are adding handles to the tail. Every time I’ve tried the leash thing it hurts my hand (a lot) so I’m reserving judgement on that.
- You want to avoid getting hit by your board. SUPs are so heavy that having one washed into you (or vice versa) is pretty painful.

Seabreeze Forums! - Stand Up Paddle Beating the shorebreak

Tom’s SUP Wave-Catching Technique!!!!

A really great guy named Tom emailed me this instructional article about how to paddle so that when a wave arrives you’re lined up properly for the take off.  Simply put, it’s terrific.  If you’re a beginner and you take Tom’s advice, you will up your wave count by a lot.  A LOT!  This is a classic post.  I love it.  Thanks, Tom!

Tom’s wave catching technique.

This is how I do it, it’s not the only way, but it works for me. This technique is designed to get you in the right position to catch your wave while paddling hard and fast down the wave face.p6250079

Most SUP’ers have a preferred side to paddle on and it doesn’t always correlate to whether they are a regular or goofie foot surfer. My preferred paddle side is my left side and I am a regular foot surfer. In other words, when I take off on a wave, whether I plan to go right or left on the wave, I want to continuously be paddling on my left side. This is an important point, if you need to switch paddle sides while catching a wave; you lose a stroke, and may miss the wave.

To help explain my technique, I will use points on a clock, with 12:00 pointing out to the horizon where the waves come from, and 6:00 pointing to the beach and down the face of the wave. Since I want to take the wave while paddling on my left, and because paddling on my left will cause me to turn right, I will set up with my board pointing at 12:00 and looking for the waves that will be peaking on my right and in front of me. If they peak on my left, I let them go because I’m in the wrong position.

As a set approaches, I determine which wave I want and estimate where it will peak. I will then paddle towards that spot so that I will be in front of that spot before it breaks and heading between 2:00 to 4:00. As the wave peaks, I can decide to not take the wave, switch paddle sides and paddling hard on my right, go over the back of the wave. If I plan on taking the wave, I will keep paddling on my left and turn my board towards the direction I want to take the wave with either sweeping paddles to turn the board more or straight paddles to turn the board less. The paddling stroke and speed is determined by how the wave develops and whether I want to drop in on the wave heading either at 5, 6 or 7 o’clock.

Every wave breaks differently and hopefully this will set you up to be able to adapt to the differences. This is where wave judgment and paddle skills come into play. If the wave jumps up quick, I make a tight quick turn. If the wave is slow and the wave will break farther inside, I paddle heading at 4 or 5 o’clock to get to where it will break, and then take the wave at 6 o’clock. Also, how fast the wave breaks will determine my stance as I take off on the wave. With a slow wave, I stay in a parallel stance while catching the wave; with a steep wave, I go into an early surf stance while it’s jumping up. If I’m late on a slow wave, I may run to the nose while paddling frantically. With practice and paying attention to where and how the waves break, you should be able to catch all the waves you want. Just be courteous and give more than you take.

Note. This description is for those who would prefer to take a wave while paddling on their left. If you would prefer to paddle on your right, reverse left with right and 3:00 with 9:00.  

Tom on Tom: I live in San Diego, have spent a lot of year windsurfing Baja and surfing in my home town, Ocean Beach. I’ve been SUPing for a bit over a year and current ride a 10′ C4 in the surf and race and tour on a 12′ Stamps custom.

Improve Your Breath-holding Capacity!

 Getting held down after a wipe out can be a nasty thing, especially if you run out of breath halfway through.  Here’s a tip from Bill, via the Zone, on how to increase your breath-holding time.  I’m gonna do it!

I’ve just come across a breathing technique that more than doubled my breath-holding in one day. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I’m headed for three minutes after struggling with one just before I found this. I did 2:43 yesterday. image
You fill the bottom of your lungs first, by pressing out forcibly with your stomach as you start to take a breath then expand your lungs. It’s a little hard to describe the full cycle, but you can practice it anywhere and you’ll get the feeling–it’s kind of a rolling breath and you push downwards with your diaphragm.
I’m writing an article on it for Ke Nalu, but the rest is just refinements. If you take four long breaths like that you’re good to go. What it does is use your full lung capacity instead of just the top. Shallow breathing just moves air up and down your trachea, and leaves a lot of stagnant air in your lungs.
How this applies to surfing is that I’m practicing taking these kind of breaths all the time when I surf. And when a big wave is coming that I aim to take, or I’m caught inside, I breathe this way. I can tell you first hand that it works well. the last two days have been rough for hold downs. As I said yesterday, two evenings ago I got caught inside the channel at Kanaha and held down forever. I probably would have made it anyway, but this technique transformed it from a grim battle to an interesting if unpleasant experience.

Best Breathing (or lack thereof) Practice for Hold Downs?

Doin’ It Casual …

I just love this shot, from John Ashley’s blog.  We should all be so casual.  Me, as a cross stepper, I’m more of a lurcher.  Sigh.


Photo: Just out for a little stroll…. Mitchell heading north. Photo: Elva De Jarnett

Stand Up Paddle Surfing

When the Hold Down Comes …

 Here’s a few interesting breath-holding tips from Gorgo over on the Seabreeze forum:

Learn to hold your breath and just chill out underwater.
The feeling that you are going to die if you don’t get a breath is just that, a feeling. It’s a reflex caused by CO2 in your blood. It has nothing to do with the need for air. One thing is almost guaranteed, if you breathe under water you will most likely die.
Once you can control the urge to breathe you can go deep to avoid nasty stuff and survive hold downs and assorted tumblings and come up comfortably when all the action has ended.image
I have always surfaced with one arm over my head and one arm extended upwards. You should be able to do that with a paddle in the extended arm. In normal surfing the danger is that boards get popped upwards then come down on top of you. With SUP you still have that risk plus the mass of this aircraft carrier being washed into you.
I think with a SUP it is a good thing to just go with the waves and run away rather than trying to beat your way through white water. With the faster paddling speed of the SUP you can usually get all the way out in a lull rather than fighting set waves. Or ride reef breaks where you can paddle away from the impact zone.

Seabreeze Forums! - Stand Up Paddle tips for a newbie in the surf

Perfect Trim!

I ran across this shot this morning at isuping.com and simply stared at it for a minute.  What’s how-to about it?  Lots, I think.  Mainly, though, it revolves around the sense of being in perfect trim and balance.  Everything is just so.  It’s just a moment in time, of course, but the rider had to have the talent and know-how to get himself there.  It’s worth pondering.  Take your time.  Now … go give it a try yourself!

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More Ivan, in S.A., on a Starboard Fish

Guess I’m going to have to continue my Ivan Van Vuuren fascination and hero worship by posting this new YouTube video.  This time,  he’s surfing Jeffrey’s Bay, in South Africa, and riding Starboard fishes, either the 9 or the 9.8.  I happen to own a number of Starboards, including a 9.8, so it’s great to see him give these babies a workout and prove to me, once again, it’s the rider that makes the machine and not the other way around.  Also, about halfway through, it’s fun to see Ivan take one on the chin while paddling out.  Hey — it happens to everybody.  Enjoy.

Don’t Ride Your SUP Leashless!

There really shouldn’t be any debate about this.  Wear a leash.  Let me say it again: wear a freaking leash.  Or, if you don’t, then stay away from me.  This is from sup global:

A leash will stop your board running away and hitting someone else when you fall off. Stand up paddle boards are big things and could seriously injure somebody if they hit them. A leash is an essential.image You need to make sure that your leash is about 1ft longer than your board if you are going to do cool stuff like nose riding (otherwise you won’t make it to the end of the board !). If you know you are falling off, or if you bail out intentionally because a big wave is coming that you can’t make it over, try and grab the leash as close to the board as possible, this means that you control, as much as possible, the board in the surf, preventing it from racing off and potentially hitting someone else.  If you are going to surf please avoid the coiled XM leashes.  While they are perfect for distance paddling they are dangerous in the surf as they get tangled up, making the leash shorter and the board more likely to fly back and hit you.

Getting the right Stand Up Paddle Boarding Equipment

Before SUP: Canoe Paddle Surfing!

I came across this the other day, a clipping I took from Swaylocks, the board-building site, in which Blane Chambers, in his early days of stand up, wrote about his canoe-paddle-surfing technique. Actually, if I’m not mistaken, I think at the time Blane *only* did CPS and eschewed SUP entirely. By now, CPS is anachronistic but it does have its uses. Like when? Like when the wind is howling offshore and the second you stand up to paddle you’re blown over the horizon. Solution? Get on your knees, bro, and go low!

Here’s how Blane described it back in 2006:

Get plenty practice before you head out into the waves by sprinting in flat water. Once you get the stroke down you can head out into the surf… Make sure no one is around… Getting into a wave kneeling goes like this…. Most important thing is to be lined up straight and get that momentum up. Stroke hard! Get that baby up to a speedy glide and maybe even an extra couple strokes for good measure…
paddle@20in1

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Ivan Van Vuuren Rocks!

This is one of the first SUP videos that really rocked my socks. Ivan has so much style, it’s unbelievable. Dig the crazy drop-knee stuff. My god, how does he do it? And he makes it look so easy. Study this one long and hard. I still watch it every few weeks or so, and I’m always picking up new things to try out.