Surfing Tips for Beginners: The #1 Technique to Catch More Waves Instantly
Join the Wave Catching Academy: https://learn.surfmastery.com/wave-catching-academy-1
Jason struggled to catch waves despite three months of experience.
Most surf schools overcomplicate the learning process.
The key to catching waves is matching their speed, not paddling harder.
Three beginner tips:
Change perspective: Think of surfing as dancing with the ocean, not fighting it.
Wave selection: Choose strong, smooth white water waves with clean water in front.
Stop paddling: Let the wave push the board—jump forward instead of paddling.
Focus on these fundamentals before worrying about standing up.
You Tube Vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpEKf1cbT4Q
This episode breaks down how beginner surfers can catch more waves with less effort. The story follows Jason, a struggling surfer who had been taught the wrong way. By focusing on timing and simplifying his approach, he caught more waves in one session than ever before. The key takeaways: shift your mindset to see waves as dance partners, learn proper wave selection, and stop unnecessary paddling. These three simple changes can drastically improve a beginner's ability to surf successfully.
Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast.
Welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, the podcast that helps passionate lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, and grace, and to gain wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton,
and today's episode is for the beginner surfer who is struggling to catch waves. And for the long time listener who's tuning in again, we've got a long form interview coming up with Professor of Philosophy Aaron James, all about surfing philosophy later this week. So make sure you're subscribed and keep an eye out for that one.
But let's get into today's episode.
Let me tell you a quick story about Jason and then I'll go into three actionable tips. So just before COVID hit, I was doing a lot of surf lessons and surf guiding in Southern California and I got a call from Jason who'd just discovered the show and he'd heard an episode where I had said that after four weeks of surfing as a new surfer, you should be catching unbroken waves out the back.
And he realized. Just how far behind the curve he was. So he gave me a call, he was 42, and he had been surfing almost daily for 3 months, after having a few group lessons at his local surf school. And uh, he basically felt like giving up a lot of the time, And he said some days he just felt like giving up and that surfing just maybe wasn't something that he was physically capable of.
But at the same time he was hooked on surfing and felt extremely drawn to surfing and the ocean. So we booked a session.
So I met Jason at a local beginner friendly surf spot. And the first thing I do with a new client is just observe. So I watched Jason flail around for about five minutes on his Seven foot soft top and I knew what was going on So I waved him in.
He basically had the complete wrong approach and uh, it's a pretty typical story actually Especially for those who have started later in life, a few lessons at a local surf school that specializes in the tourist experience or teaching school kids