RealSurf Surfers' Forum

I reckon most young physically able teenagers could learn to surf if they really wanted to and could devote enough time to it. The thing is, the reality of learning to surf and surfing doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. It’s physically exhausting, often cold and lonely and can be scary at times. So they need to be risk takers or just really love it. That cuts out a lot of people.

Also traditionally popular with misfits for the same reason.

Cranked, I was just referring to the time elapsed between starting from zero and being able to ride an easy wave. The very stable board, the big paddle and no pop-up solve a lot of problems.

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I dunno, Iggy's still in nappies.

bobjs wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:23 pm

I reckon most young physically able teenagers could learn to surf if they really wanted to and could devote enough time to it. The thing is, the reality of learning to surf and surfing doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. It’s physically exhausting, often cold and lonely and can be scary at times. So they need to be risk takers or just really love it. That cuts out a lot of people.

ie, it's too fucking hard for most people to learn.

compare with riding a bike, which is fcuking easy.

bobjs wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:23 pm

I reckon most young physically able teenagers could learn to surf if they really wanted to and could devote enough time to it. The thing is, the reality of learning to surf and surfing doesn’t appeal to a lot of people. It’s physically exhausting, often cold and lonely and can be scary at times. So they need to be risk takers or just really love it. That cuts out a lot of people.

That and it is actually quite a complex thing to do due to the variables that determine where you can surf, when, what board etc.... It can take years just to "know" this stuff, cams and forecasts have definitely helped but they're still macro level.

I think that is what has kept me in the water for 30-odd years, not because I am any good at it(I actually have pretty shitty balance for one thing), but because I like the complex challenges it always throws up.

Cycling, running bores the shit out of me because to change the dynamics and not ride/run the same old trails you have to move around. Surfing I can get it all in one location. Skiing probably would bore me too although I've never tried it.

I’ve pub crawled commuting on a bike 20 beers deep on a number of occasions and got home.
I don’t think I could have surfed though.

How often to you fall off your surfboard (not including bailing), how often do you fall off your bike?

There are heaps of people who get to the stage of having a decent pop-up and cruising across the wave, and that’s when they give it up. They give it up not because it is too hard, but because they don’t find surfing compelling enough to continue. They enjoyed their surfing foray, but now prefer to do something different.

can one of you know it all cnuts please tell me what the fcuk is a pop-up?

I don't even know if I do a pop-up.

ps: I think only about 5% of surf school grads keep surfing and many of those are done in about three years, you need a lot of stuff working for you if you're going to keep surfing and get actually good at it. a) start young b) be close to a consistent surf zone c) have a peer group d) have at least neutrality in the family about your disgusting surfing behaviour e) have a larger local group of skilled surfers for you to grow toward f) have access to increasingly better boards g) be willing to be scared shitless.

Gender doesn't matter even though everyone used to think it did.

Windswell matters a hell of a lot, surf in 6-8 second interval wind swell for the first two years of your life and you've got a big jump on a lot of other surfers. You'll have just caught way more waves by then.

The combination of skills required and they way they have to chime together means that you will go through long periods of plateauing skill levels, then experience sudden jumps to the next plateau. These jumps will sometimes be triggered by an extraordinary surf or series of surfs, or a new board, but more often just come from endless repetition. Trouble is, once you've made that jump, your new level needs a challenge for you to keep moving and progressing. A LOT of surfers get to a plateau and never find the next challenge. They may keep surfing for a long time but nothing much changes. I sense this is true for almost every Realsurfer, and I don't mean that as a put down at all.

Oh and given the time you'd need to spend purely riding waves in order to reach your true potential skill level, I dunno if any surfer ever has done that -- got to his or her true potential.

foamy wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 25, 2020 9:52 am

There are heaps of people who get to the stage of having a decent pop-up and cruising across the wave, and that’s when they give it up. They give it up not because it is too hard, but because they don’t find surfing compelling enough to continue. They enjoyed their surfing foray, but now prefer to do something different.

Thats not been my experience.

Which is ten years as a surf coach/guide and having seen two kids go through various stages of learn to surf and all their peer groups.

Collectively I've seen thousands embark on the journey and a very, very low percentage rate of maintaining. Way, way less than 5%.

I've never seen a single adult learner progress to the competent stage, although I have heard it can happen.


There are a lot of box tickers, but I hardly think those dabblers can have been said to have had a surfing foray.

Most who do progress to that stage give up because they have careers in the city, other interests etc etc. Surfing, when you are stuck in the babyfood spiral is very hard to progress onwards.
ie it's too hard. Too little reward.

I think that is different from finding it not compelling enough.

There are also, a surprisingly high percentage of people who actively don't like it.

It's easy to have a dabble. V. hard to continue on.

which is the direct opposite of bike riding.

Bike riding is easy to learn and easy to continue on.

I’m really regretting using that analogy

Let me put it this way. I was surprised that after a 9 month hiatus, I found I really hadn’t lost much skill wise. Just fitness.

It was a great way for us to spaz out though, BA. Some more than others.