front foot / back foot surfing

[dUg]

I've been labled a "front foot" surfer, but to be in the company of blokes like Mick Fanning in this regard, I'm not too cut about it.

I tend to notice heavier guys get their drive off the tail, whereas lighter guys like me get it from the planing area. There are inexplicable exceptions to this rule. I also can't draw any conclusions as to whether goofies or naturals are more likely to be back or front foot surfers.

Have a look at videos featuring the top 25 pros in a variety of surf conditions and you'll get the picture. Look where their feet are placed and where their weight is most of the time... they're not all the same!

So I got to thinking...

Can "front footers" cross over or vice versa?
Are bigger guys more likely to surf off the tail?
Are front footers better in smaller surf / worse in bigger surf?
Do front footers get more speed?
Are all front footers crap on longboards ( like me )?
Do back footers get more vertical?
Are back foot surfers better?

Wonder what everyone's thoughts are on this?

[buzzy]

I've never been able to work out whether I'm a back or front foot surfer. I asked decades ago and my mates said back foot but I don't think they really cared. And that was at a time when Nick Carroll was undertaking a campaing for single fin power surfing implying anyone who rode a twinny was MR or a girl. So who'd admit to being a front foot surfer then?

Anyways, my weighting varies between turns and different parts of a turn. A frontside bottom turn is full rail with a fair bit of front foot, whereas most other turns are off the back foot. If pumping for speed it's more even weighted full rail turns. What's all that mean then?

[streetdaddy]

I'd have to say I'm a front-foot in small waves e.g. the mid, coz you don't really get the chance to surf top-to-bottom very much, it's more about racing and speed-carving with all your pressure on the front foot as you're weaving.

Then in bigger bowly waves, like 3-4'+, I try to force myself put my back-foot further back to avoid boggin a rail on top-turns and get more pivot. Problem is that I do seem to favour the front-foot and find I really have to concentrate on getting over the back of the board. Nothing sucks more than after a late drop and bottom turn I go to do a reo and the board refuses to pivot more than 90 degrees coz my back foot isn't even on the tailpad... gawd I'm a kook

[buzzy]

Nah mate, it's not obvious to me at all. I really have no idea what I do when I'm surfing to turn the board. I mean, I know when I do a pivotty off the top that I have my back foot over the back fins, possibly the trailing fin. I know when I milk for speed I have more weight on the front foot. But I have never really thought about my surfing until recently. So, I'm interested to read people's comments here. I can say I have an MR back leg which I sort of rationalise as being caused by a need to shirft weight fore and aft, with weight in the aft right at the tail of the board. Dunno though.

[_cant_touch_this]

the thought of being either a back-foot or front-foot surfer has never reall occured to me...i guess you would be different depending on the conditions, position on the wave etc...front foot for racing the wave definately but id say for turns you would b on your backfoot.

[buzzy]

When I was a kid I got paid out a bit as having an ugly style. I always assumed I had an ugly style. I'd seen some photos of me surfing and while most were ok a few looked kind of weird. Anyways, cut forward 20 years and I surf Bells after a fair break off the boards (like 12 months with maybe 5 or 6 surfs in that period- medical reasons). My gf took some video. I wasn't ripping, but I actually looked pretty good in terms of stance etc. Given it was my first surf in a fair while I realised aesthetically I don't look that bad. So, it kind of encouraged me to push to get a bit better again. So I bought a book on how to surf better and just began to understand the physics of turing slightly better, which I hope to apply to my surfing.

[joeblow]

Well thanks to a surf on sunday I think my surfing is about to go to the next level. Having just got a new board with plenty of width & volume in the (square) tail I found that my back foot all of a sudden migrated further to the back of the board. I have no idea why & why this never really happened on my previous board but the the difference is night and day. Turns were all of a sudden effortless and my surfing style is shifting rapidly from rail turns to back foot turns. Where as before I was leaning a fair bit to make a turn now it happens much faster with a quick kick from my back foot. Less time spent leaning back into the turn also means less speed loss (I think). In fact I feel my turns are generating speed now where as before I think I may have been loosing speed on the turns.

Anyway, probably old news to most on the forum, but for any that its not, the moral of the story (for me at least) was
- get a good board with plenty of surface area and volume in the tail (thanks for others that suggested this to me before)
- make surf your tail pad is in the right position. Ask the your shaper / retailer. For me this was as far back as possible so that the hole in the pad was lined up with the plug.
- move the back foot back. Make sure it is on the tail pad.
- I am keeping the front foot where it was which is widening my stance. But I don't want to start having the nose rise up and stall the board

[nubby]

i posted this on the thread on style, but it is really more relavent on this thread, so im gonn rip myself off and re-post it here. its just a few insights of mine into the whole front foot/ bent back leg style of stance.......... ive always surfed with me back leg all spaz and most of my weight on my front foot like you were sayin...and i find it helps heaps with new skool moves cause you can shift your body weight forwards or backward alot quiker than with a squarer stance but at the same time it keeps your upper body relatively still and centred, like instead of having to lean onto your front foot by leaning your body and head forward and thus gettin a little off balance, you just straighten out that back leg a bit and your whole body has shifted forward slightly without actualy moving(if that makes sense!). this achieves the same thing without any loss of balance. and two other small things about the whole MR back leg thing is that you can use it like a spring in bottom turns or airs for a bit of extra pep and it twists your upper body a bit so you face alot more forward instead of sideways, which makes things like backhand tuberiding a zillion times easier......hope this helps.....

[joeblow]

yair it took me ages to cotton on to that. when i did it was like DUH!! but since i'm usually surfin alone nobody said anything to me about it.

My problem too.

I noticed someone (sorry too lazy to look who) on another thread mentioning that the back foot should be in the middle of the fin cluster. Looking at my tailpad I can see that that is exactly where the arch in the tail pad now is. This makes it easy to check when you put your back foot in place - i.e. can I feel the arch?

[joeblow]

Having just got a new board with plenty of width & volume in the (square) tail I found that my back foot all of a sudden migrated further to the back of the board.

I don't know a lot about board design joeblow but wouldn't the wider tail make for a looser board? that would be why your foot moved back, because you couldn't control it otherwise. is yer new board a fishy type? you might find it hard to readjust to a conventional narrow tail if you go back. tho if yer happy on the wider tail why change, eh.

I'm no expert either (in fact I'm a complete idiot) but it just seems alot more stable back there than my old board. But my theory (probably totally wrong) is that the extra surface area & volume in the tail, in addition to making it feel more stable, makes it likely to sink less when you press on the tail. i.e. the wave pushes back more effectively (I assume this relates to the pushing on the pressure plane thing that NC talks about in his book)

And no my board is not a fish. It is a 6'2" channel islands M-BM (http://www.cisurfboards.com/boards.asp)