How to Judge the Ocean Waves While Surfing

Video Transcript

"Hi! This is Pat Weber with the San Diego Surfing Academy for expertvillage.com. In this clip we are going to talk about wave judgment as it relates to surfing; probably the most difficult skill in surfing. It takes experience to develop your wave judgment. The way you can jump start wave judgment is to watch videos and to study the ocean and to study more experienced surfers and how they interact with the ocean. A Hawaiian word for surfing is He'enalu, which literally means study of the ocean or study of the winds. Can't emphasize that enough. You have to spend time doing. Now basically you want to catch a wave that hasn't broken. You want to catch a wave when in its early stages of development. You got a lot of sprint speed and a lot of momentum to get into that wave early. It is better than getting into the wave late. Sometimes taking off on the wave late is what the surfers try to do because you got the thrill of a vertical drop and all that momentum. If you make that drop, will help you generate speed through your first turn. Wave judgment knowing how a wave breaks or predicting how it is going to break, will come from time spent studying waves. "