After finally getting the hang of noseriding & having some level of consistency, I thought it would be helpful to share the most common mistake I personally made at the start of my longboard journey & one that I often see others make as well.

👉 Attempting your noseride on the wrong section of a wave.

I see this take form in 3 ways:

1. Being too far on the shoulder of the wave.

This is the most common thing I see people do & one that I constantly did myself when first starting out. The shoulder is too soft & you’ll pretty much always end in a nosedive.

It wasn’t until I started seeing photos/videos of myself that I realised just how far away from the pocket I was! If you keep nosediving instead of noseriding, try & do what you can to get closer to the pocket (see tip 8 for ideas).

2. Waiting until *after* a section to noseride.

A section that’s standing up in front of you is the perfect opportunity to noseride, but often I see people ride through it & try to noseride after. At that point though, you’ve missed your chance. Similar to above, once you’ve passed the section the wave is too soft.

Although it may seem counterintuitive to walk to the nose just as the wave is getting more critical, that’s exactly what you want to do.

3. Not timing things right.

Once you start making adjustments on the first two points above, the next thing is getting your timing right. If you go to the nose too early, you’ll nosedive. Too late and you’ll go off the back of the wave (or get caught behind the section).

Getting this right can only come through trial & error but just play around & you’ll start to get a feel for it. I know when I first started out I was full of excitement and so often went to the nose too soon. Maybe you are too?

Or maybe your board sucks itself into the pocket really well, so you can actually go up sooner than you might think. Just play around until it clicks.

💬 Any of these sound familiar to you?