If you’ve followed along with the last 2 posts, by now you know where to be & how to get there & so the next thing to focus on is managing speed & timing your steps.

Whatever your approach, you want to land yourself on the nose just as you’re getting into the right spot on the wave. To do this, it’s important to know that standing on the front part of your board is sort of like stepping on a gentle accelerator as it helps create speed.

To illustrate this, let’s break down this clip of @shinji_dog making 3 attempts on 1 wave to get to the nose:

attempt 1:

Shinji’s wave starts with a fade takeoff (not shown) to try & get himself in the correct position right from takeoff, but as he moves forward on his board he speeds up & falls out of position.

attempt 2:

Next he does a little check-turn stall thingy (that’s the proper name for it 😉) & gets much closer this time, but still just slightly in front of it.

This one is so interesting to analyze because Shinji is actually in the right spot, the only issue is that he still has 2 more steps to take! If he continues with those steps, he would walk out of position & most likely nosedive.

attempt 3:

The final attempt is a more exaggerated version of the last as he’s now realised he needs to make more of an effort to slow down. Shinji goes into the flats for a bottom turn with a little stall thrown in at the end. At this point the wave is travelling faster than he is. This is what allows him to walk to the nose without outrunning the pocket. As he walks forward, he picks up speed & is able to stand on the nose while positioned in the pocket.

If he didn’t move forward on his board after the stall (or waited too long), he most likely would’ve floated up & over the wave or been caught in the whitewash.

If he moved forward too soon, he wouldn’t have given the wave a chance to catch up to him & probably would’ve outran the pocket again.

Make sense?

Check out this clip for more examples:

💬 What’s your biggest takeaway from this breakdown?

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