RealSurf Surfers' Forum

...

Where I used to frequent was very sufable in a sea breeze up to 15 knots, it blew along the face so whilst it was a lumpy ish messy takeoff the wave itself was clean.The crowd, apart from a few locals generally stayed away. Something to bear in mind on those on shore swell days.

Legion, you've almost word for word quoted an article in one of the current surf mags (Tracks? SL? who knows).
Maybe you should hit Nick up for a job?

...

There is a semi-secret bank on a semi-secret beach in the eastern suburbs of Sydney (central Maroubra) that I think works best with onshores and an ebb tide.

alakaboo wrote:There is a semi-secret bank on a semi-secret beach in the eastern suburbs of Sydney (central Maroubra) that I think works best with onshores and an ebb tide.

You're just lucky that Maroubra isn't in SEQ Boo or Don would be all feck feck feckity feck..

But yeah that bank does like an onshore. I personally reckon that surfing onshore conditions is really good for your surfing. It can improve your reaction time due to the more unpredictable nature of the waves.

Legion wrote:Heh. Given I haven't read a surf mag in years,But good to know I think like the Shearers, Braithies and Carrolls of the world.

Wow I'm definitely out of the demographic, I know and subscribe to Shearer, i served Nick fish and chips when he was a grub in Newport, but Braithy , I thought that he was a journalist for Armageddon Near You Weekly, The TEOTWAWKI Times and The Wombat Intimacy Journal, never even tweaked a thought on surf mags >><<

Nearly bought Nick's book about Bondi Rescue this arvo in Vinnies for $4. Actually picked it up but then thought nahh, see enough of them at the beach. What did I miss out on

You missed out on the story about Spot Anderson punching out the kite surfer.

Also on what I feel was a rather affecting profile of Harries and a short yet informative history of lifeguarding at Bondi.

If you send me $4 I'll send you a copy.

That sounds much better than the one at Vinnies. It had all the photos falling out.
If you sign it I can put it next to my autographed copy of MP.

Anyway thanks for the offer Nick. Kind of know enough back story to the lifeguards really.
It has quite a few similarities to trying to get a job as a garbo with the local council as far as
being a local goes.

Legion wrote:I've come to the realisation in the last few years that while I love glassy or offshore conditions, I get secretly stoked at onshores at certain waves, as long as there's some underlying shape. Sometimes the former two have me punching too far out of the back of the lip but the latter often provides me with a reinforcing little push back down the wave. Yesterday sucked on paper, but I had a few turns that were amazing. Anyone else (not just a question for Mr Carroll) succumb to the guilty pleasure of onshores, whether the gentle punt wind or full blown gale?

I lot of my surfing as a teenager was done in the strong souwester and the waves that would blow up. A few months back there was some 30 knot+ onshores and it whipped up some overhead waves. I felt really comfortable, it took me back to the arvo sessions as a grom at Huzzas or Smiths when the wind was cranking in from the SW.

Nick, you've been surfing a long time.
So have I, and can count all my shark encounters on one hand.
To a lot of weekend warriors and people that don't surf, Sharks are a big (but irrational) fear.

Having said that, you must've had an encounter/spook or two, please tell us about some of them

Hi Nick,
was reading through your book again and have an additional question about cutbacks.

I always heard that when your at the top of the wave initiating the cutback, your weight should be completly on the backfoot.
In your book you talk about the weight shift, when is the moment to shift the weight or better the hips forward? Do you still keep pressure on the backfoot?

Hi 138cfh

I sorta find it limiting to think of surfing as a question of back foot or front foot. It's a lot more useful to think of it in terms of weighting. Surfing's all about weight shifts across and along the board, often quite subtly managed through hip, knees and ankles, with the upper body being the counterweight.

Rather than try to break down one or other specific kind of cutback, I'd encourage you to think of something simpler: Where's your weight placed in relation to the board's curves? That's what dictates the turn. Put your weight on a curve in the outline and the board will turn. Take the weight off that curve and shift it somewhere else, and the board may straighten up.

Most modern surfboards have the outline curve concentrated in the last two feet of board, around the fins. I think that's why people tend to think Back Foot. But anyone who's been watching the webcast of that Keramas event will have clear memories of numerous pro surfers shifting their weight forward during turns. Parko, the king of cutbacks -- go back and have a look at him on the replay system for many examples.

What's happening here? The surfer is initiating the turn by shifting some weight on to the outline curve. All well and good as described above.

But -- the outline curve can only carry a turn through a few degrees and a couple of metres. As the board rolls up on to the rail, the surfer needs to engage the board's rocker curve to draw and drive the turn through.

To fully engage the rocker curve, you've gotta shift your weight up toward the centre of the rail. The weight shift has to be smooth and timed to match the natural movement of board against wave face.

As the turn comes toward its natural end, the surfer needs to shift weight back out of the rocker curve and into the outline curve again, just to re-set for the next move. (You'll see this happen quite graphically in Parko's cutties as he sets himself for the rebound in the pocket).

I reckon just from observation that this shift in turns -- from outline curve weighting to rocker curve weighting and back again -- is one of the simple yet subtle skills that evades many surfers for perhaps their entire surfing lives. Numerous surfers never make it past the outline curve turn, preferring to stay with the "snap" effect and its 45-to-90-degree turn opportunities. (It's easy, after all -- that tail area with its fins and curve is the easiest part of a board for you to feel.) Others get from outline to rocker without ever quite realising what they're doing, and thus never (or rarely) manage to recover the turn back to the outline again -- they get locked in the rocker curve and can't get back out. Still others figure out one type of turn quite nicely but never quite manage to transfer their grasp of that turn to other turns; they'll do a nice fading frontside cuttie but when it comes to backside top turns, they're locked in Snap World.

What I suggest is, just try to take these thoughts out with you and see if you can feel some of this in practice. Feel your way into cutbacks. Shift your weight forward and back through the hips rather than through your feet. Make it conscious for a while until you find areas of the turn that begin to click for you. A slowish point type wave is the ideal practice zone if you can find that nearby, since you can repeat the turn several times on the same wave without too much consequence.

The movement is complex but the thought behind it is simple! K.I.S.S. in all things.

"don't think" - brad gerlach

Feldenkrais

hey nc
who have you looked to as your iinfluencers
over all years