4 – The Surfing Popup
Practicing the surfing popup on land
The surfing popup is essentially an explosive pushup. This is how you get to your feet on a surfboard! To make the popup easier, practice several popups on dry land every day. This will build up your arm strength and give you some muscle memory. When it comes time to do it on a surfboard you’ll have a much easier time.
Everyone’s surfing popup is slightly different, but for all intents and purposes the popup technique is basically the same for everyone.
At the beach, you can lay your surfboard down on the sand (dig the fins into the sand to avoid breaking them) and practice your popup before you go surfing. It’s helpful to avoid getting sand in your wax =)
Easy steps to a popup:
- Place your hands flat on the board at the bottom of your ribcage.
- Push your chest off the board with your pelvis and upper thighs still in contact with the board. (Don’t do a full body pushup with your weight on your hands and toes)
- Without relying on your knees, bring your front foot forward under your body to approximately where your hands are. This step is hard to explain, but your lower torso will twist a little to the right if you’re regular or to the left if you’re goofy.
- Your back foot will naturally follow—just check to make sure that your feet are parallel to your board’s stringer.
More Tips on the surfing popup
- Some people like to plant their back foot first and use that as leverage to slide their front foot up to the front. This is an acceptable method—just make sure you can do it with balance.
- Some people grab the rails of their surfboard, claiming it gives them more control. Grabbing the rails makes it easier to slip off and give yourself a fat lip or botch a takeoff, but give it a try and see what works best for you. When surfing a shortboard it can help to grab the rails and pull the board under you in a steep takeoff.
- The popup should be a single fluid motion. Don’t worry if you don’t get it exactly right the first few times. It will come with practice. You’ll also need to build up some muscles.
- Try not to end up on your knees. This is a tough habit to break for some people. It happens sometimes, though, so don’t worry too much.
- It’s easier to do a popup while you’re surfing a real wave. When you catch an unbroken wave, the action of the popup pushes the wave down the face a bit. Plus, the excitement of catching a wave makes the popup even easier.
- When you’re just starting to learn to surf, practice popups on the floor anywhere you can when you’re not surfing. Do 20 or so a day until you can do it without thinking. It’s also great exercise and will build your surfing and popup muscles.
I agree with avoiding to pop on your knees as an in-between step.
I’ve started surfing last weekend and I was glad my instructor taught us to pop straight onto our feet.
Other beginners who leant to be in their knees were reluctant to leave a comfy and forward-facing stance to be fully erected and sideway.
Try to pop straight to your feet, get it wrong many times, body board when you can’t make it and eventually it will come.
I have heard that you’re not supposed to use your toes. I’ve been practicing on carpet and use my toes. I do fine. I tried keeping my toes raised in the air and it was SUPER HARD. Really hard!
Because if you’re in the water, your toes are dangling in the water so where do you push off of? Seems like I am over analyzing but just want to get it right.
Someone said you’re toes are not supposed to have any contact with the ground. If you’re practicing on carpet.
Aaaargh, I went to one surfing lesson and they specifically taught me to get onto my knees first. Alright for catching foamies but useless in the long run. Now everytime I am catching a wave I am thinking “don’t use your knees, don’t use your knees!” Nevertheless, I land up on my stupid knees. Is the hardest habit to break ever. Stupid surf instructors wanting nothing but a reputation for getting people to their feet on the first day. Feel like I am never going to get this right!
Ya, don’t use your toes. When I was learning I used my toes…without knowing better. Eventually I could pop up fine. As I got better my pop ups were really fluid and I was riding shorter and shorter boards. But now with my newest board my feet don’t touch the end and I can’t use my toes to pop up and now I feel like I am learning all over again…very frustrating. Best to start off right from the beginning.
this helped me understand the motion. kneel on carpet and jump to your feet w/out using your hands, thats the most important part of the pop up, instead of trying to push yourself to your feet, try to make space between your chest and the board and bring your feet into the open space