If you look back at tip 7, we talked about how you want to be positioned in the upper third of the wave for your noseride. There’s a few different ways to go about doing this, but in today’s tip we’re going to focus on using your inside rail.

And to make sure we’re all on the same page, the inside rail is the rail of your board that’s closer to the face of the wave regardless of whether you’re going frontside or backside. So if you’re going frontside it’s your toe side rail and if you’re going backside it’s your heel side rail.

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so why is your inside rail important?

Because consciously applying or releasing pressure from your inside rail helps to position you higher or lower on the wave face.

As water travels up the wave face, if your rail is engaged in the wave it will push the rail (and therefore the board) in an upwards direction. If the rail isn’t engaged, your board will be planing along the surface instead travelling down the wave face.

By applying more pressure on your inside rail, you’ll “climb” up the wave face & position yourself higher in the wave.

Releasing pressure lowers you back down if needed (this can be necessary if you’ve applied too much pressure or are starting to go up & over the back of the wave or if you’re just making an adjustment as conditions change).

Consciously applying or releasing pressure from your inside rail helps to position you higher or lower on the wave face

The way you apply pressure is done one of two ways (or a combo):

• by pressing down with your toes or heels (whichever is on the inside). This can be sufficient for minor adjustments.
• by moving your hips towards the inside rail to put weight into your toes or heels. This is probably the more common way to do it, just make sure you’re not bending at the waist to lean over!

Balancing this pressure on the inside rail helps your board to find its position on the wave face & gives you an easy way to keep making adjustments as you go.

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