How to become a really good surfer
To become a great surfer, you need to put some time and effort into not only improving your balance, but also your overall awareness of weather conditions, safety and what it means to spend more of your life in the ocean.
Here are some suggestions to get ripping on your surfboard.
Understand the conditions better
To become a better surfer, you need to become more familiar with your local weather conditions and how they affect ocean swell. Local knowledge is also key to becoming a better surfer, as even the most sophisticated weather apps aren’t 100% right all the time. However, if you’re in the know, and make an effort to become part of a surfing community, you’ll always be able to find a decent wave to ride (wherever you are in the world).
Find the right board
There are so many different surfboards to choose from, so it can be difficult to know where to start, or what board to get after you’ve been surfing for a while. A foam surfboard is a good option for beginners as it is a lot more buoyant than a harder surfboard, so it’s a lot easier to stand on in the water. As the top is made of foam, these surfboards are also less likely to injure you if they land on your head in the water, and are more durable when it comes to transporting them around. It can be helpful to try out a variety of boards to see what suits you best based the size and shape of the waves you’ll be riding.
Try some other outdoor activities
While going out and riding waves on your board as much as possible is definitely key to improving your surfing, getting out and doing other outdoor water-based activities will also improve your physical fitness (and could even provide the opportunity to add more people to your surfing crew). Stand up paddle boarding and other water sports like wakeboarding are a great way to complement your surfing, build core strength and improve your confidence in the water. All of these will also go a long way to getting you up on that board much more quickly after paddling to catch that wave.
Do a surfing trip
Incorporating surfing into your daily life is definitely an important part of becoming a great surfer, but sometimes it can be difficult to fit it into a busy lifestyle, no matter how much you wish you could fit in a surf session every day. One way to improve your surfing is to take time out to surf. If you dedicate time to learning and practicing, you’ll start to see results, which will improve your confidence and also give you the opportunity to learn to surf in different kinds of conditions.
Apart from just improving your surfing, going on a surf trip can also expose you to the life-changing benefits of being out in the ocean, which include stress relief and finding peace in yourself. This can be seen in the way surfing and tourism have coalesced all over the world to provide an optimal travel and work experience.
Change your mindset
To become a better surfer, you’ll need to change your lifestyle, and often, your way of thinking. As a surfer, you’ll get in touch with a lot of beautiful and harsh realities, like pollution and understanding underwater predator behaviour, which might cause you to question the way you think about the world and your role within it. If you’re up for it though, investing the time and effort into improving your wave riding ability might just change your life. With so much information available, and such a wide array of gear available, there’s nothing holding you back from getting out there and gaining more confidence in a very short amount of time, especially if you’re willing to just keep paddling back out there!
