lorcar wrote:Caveman wrote:I do notice some getting used to needed, mainly because the smallest bit of back foot pressure starts you off on a turn. Compared to quads which need to be tipped over just slightly until they respond (a fraction of a second). I found myself doing turns and cutbacks before even thinking about it..haha
could you plz elaborate a bit more? I had previously read about "fish poison" because while riding a fish you dont push your turn as hard, and when you get back on a thruster you waste it.
thanks
A lot of people are critical about surfing fish because they do a lot of the work for you. They help you build speed, maintain speed through turns, and the rails are usually quite soft and forgiving so that you can push them quite a bit before bogging. If this is what you're used to surfing all the time, then switching to a lower volume and thinner foiled high-performance shortboard can take a lot of getting used to. You need to work a lot harder to generate speed, be sensitive through turns to maintain that speed, and the sensitive rails can be easier to bog through turns. The argument is, that you're better off surfing a high performance shortboard because you learn more about technique and can achieve all of this over time.
The other argument being that when you go back to a fish after surfing a high performance board, its easy to get into bad habits because the fish starts doing a lot of the work for you again and you don't need to be as active or sensitive to the board anymore.
In my opinion, high performance surfing and having a bias towards low volume and thinly foiled boards is just one type of surfing that is not for everyone. If you really want to put the water time in to get really good at it then why not, its a lot of fun. Its still only one realm of surfing though. You can still pick a board for its speed and user friendliness, and go out surfing just to catch as many waves as you can, enjoy the speed, and have stacks of fun. It depends what you want out of your surfing.
I personally pick my every-day boards for whether they can combine that fish speed and glide, with similar responsiveness to a high performance board. Trying to get the best out of both worlds (if possible). I used to surf low volume high performance thrusters all the time, and found it made surfing stale after a while and I needed variety in my boards to enjoy surfing again. Now I prefer the low volume and thinly foiled boards when the waves have some juice and you need to have control.
What I meant in my post above, was that in a thruster surfboard the pivot or anchor point when you are turning off the tail near the middle fin and doesn't take much pressure at all on the rail to start a turn. This is compared to a quad which needs to be tipped over on a rail every so slightly before it starts to turn. I have adjusted my surfing to suit this with quads and it doesn't bother me at all.