How To Paddle A Surf Board

First things first, let's get onto our board. Positioning on the board is key to being able to paddle a surf board correctly. You can see where my feet are at the tail of the surf board and they are nicely hooked on the end.

If I'm too far forward, the board isn't going to plane properly and if I'm too far back, also again, it's not going to plane properly. If I'm too far back, the board is just going to wheelie up and will actually push in water instead of gliding over the top of it, likewise if too far forward, you've always got the risk of nose diving, so getting the positioning on your board first off is key. So, hook your feet on the end of the surf board like so.

A lot of people kind of just put their heads down, get their arms and paddle like mad, but there is actually a method in paddling, and for a very good reason. Once you have got your positioning correct on the surfboard, arch your back, always look forward - by looking forward, it helps you balance on the surf board because by the time you get in the water, it really can be hard to balance, so always look forward. Cup your hands, like so, just like when you do a front crawl in a swimming pool, you need to cup your hands, okay, so that when we actually drag the water back, we are pushing as much water as we can so that we are actually going a lot faster.

Once we're on, bend our back, look forward, cup our hands, okay. We don't paddle at the same time, it's one after the other like a front crawl, so one arm, okay. Once it hits the water, push down and drag back as hard as you can.

So you're -always looking forward, one arm in - drag, next arm - drag, next arm – drag, like so, okay, always looking forward, always digging deep, okay. The faster you paddle, it's going to make it easier to catch waves. You get out the back which means getting passed the broken waves and getting out the back to get green waves which is unbroken waves, and also, it's going to help us catch more waves.

So, paddling is really key to becoming a better surfer, so it's something you need to work on. So, that is how to paddle a surfboard.

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