Catch a Wave on a Surfboard

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Mike Sanders and I'm going to tell you a little bit about how to catch a wave. So once you get out in to the position that you want to be in, you gotta keep in mind that the waves usually break in one place, repetitively. And they're going to move in parallel more or less. Well, their motion is perpendicular to the beach, but the waves themselves come in, and here's the beach, the waves are coming in like this and they're breaking each way. So what you really want to do is position yourself where the waves are about to break and you want to be there. You don't want to be around too many people. That's hard to do in places like California. But if you can, you want to stay away from too many people. Fortunately, usually there's more people surfing at the better spots. So once you're out there in your position, you're right where the waves are almost breaking but not really, just kind of lifting you up and down, and you see white water on the other side of them; you gotta be patient, you gotta wait for a wave that's coming. You don't want to take off on somebody, which means, you know, the person who's on the wave or the person who's paddling for the wave and they're closest to the peak. If the wave's crumbling like this you know, breaking, breaking to the right and somebody's riding the peak and you're over here and you just shouldn't go for it. It's not your wave. It's like cutting in line. You really shouldn't do it. But if you know the wave is there, it's standing up for you, it's behind you, you see it, turn and you want to paddle perpendicular. If the wave's moving in like this, you want to paddle perpendicular with the wave. That'll give you a steepest face and that'll give you the most speed to take off on. Another thing to keep in mind is position of your body on the board. You want to be far enough back so that the nose stays out of the water. You also don't, you don't want to be too far back, because you're pushing a lot of water, if your nose is you know, if here's the water and your nose is here, you're like a barge pushing a whole bunch of water in the front, slowing you down. It's a lot harder to paddle. Paddle like you've never paddled before. I can't stress this enough. So many people will just go out there, start paddling, start paddling and then they'll jump up on the board when the wave's ten feet behind them and they wonder why they aren't catching it. You really have to wait to feel the wave pick you up. You'll feel the board get turned down the wave and as it gets turned down, it'll drop down the wave, just like a skate board goes down a hill. And as you go down you get more speed. Once you feel the board moving faster than you're paddling it, that's when you know you've caught the wave."