I do it all the time…
But riding bigger boards 9’+ will make you paddle lazy so keep your time short.
The key is adjusting your timing and to remember to slow things down
when you ride shorties everything is in hyper mode from the get go you are constantly turning, carving trying to scoop out every ounce of speed off the tail. It’s easier if you switch back and forth from a fish or bonzer to a mal but you know it ain’t the same as tail skating off a hi-performance thruster or quad.
The “boys” out here that shortboard rip like Denton Salicido pretty much wiggle waggle the tail off the top as they drop in to loosen up the board and just wack it all around like any other “shortie”.
these guys surf or should I say rip the same short or long…
so you can wiggle waggle off the tail dropping in or angle in classically or take the drop and power off the bottom at a slight angle.
You can surf anyway, anyhow and with anything you want as long as you’re having fun doing it. That’s the golden rule… Once your buds see you’re taking it way too seriously then your in for it… Also a couple classic Dora of the tail board launches at the shorties dropping in will wake up alot of “hasslers in the line up”. People forget how it was just done in the day so sad…
Anyway I love shortboarding even at 50 and being 20-30 pounds overweight for my height… It’s the best work out I can ever get and takes my mind off the Mon-Fri hassles. Nothing like huffing and puffing out my 6’4" mandala to get the ol’ arms back in shape… And my bottomline to the longboarding animal crowd is don’t ever make a shortboarder go in and get a tanker, cause they will out paddle and out snake you every single time.
You can ride-em for fun doing all the poses (buffalo, allenwrench, quasimodo, walking backwards etc etc) or you can just smack the lip with all your might like you would do on any shortie and do the free fall dance with the white water in the lip.
Bert will like this…
But there is nothing more satisfying to me than to take my favorite 9’2"-10’0" and time a big bottom turn to launch into a throwing lip catching it midair on the bottom of your board to make a huge smacking sound and then successfully land the drop and come around the section to throw a huge spray with a roundhouse. Do that once and you will not only open alot of eyes in the lineup, but you’ll scare off all the hasslers and friends teasing you about giving in to the “darkside”… Of course you better know it’s the right wave or you’ll be paying the price… I love when Bonga or Rusty does this at Makaha or Alii…
never get stuck in one type of board one type of wave, there’s no fun and no surfing in that…
But then I’m just an old geezer(like you Chippy) who started in the late 60’s so what should I know. That “Surfing for Life” movie has me looking forward to alot of fun though…
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