Surfing Pop Up Technique | When To Pop Up
The surfing pop-up technique is a fundamental skill in surfing that is the connection point between catching a wave and riding it. It’s the act of transitioning from lying prone on your surfboard to standing and is one of the hardest maneuvers in surfing, which tends to keep beginner and intermediate surfers from progressing.
Timing is everything. A well-executed pop-up allows you to catch the wave in the top third, before you assume the drop and gain too much speed. If you pop up too early, you’ll miss the wave entirely. If you pop up too late, you risk getting caught at the bottom of the wave lacking the speed and control to get back to the top.
In the next section, we’ll break down how to know when to pop up on the wave and why timing the pop up is so important.
Table of Contents
Why Timing the Pop Up is so Important
Obviously popping up on your board too early is very easy to identify. If you pop up too early, you”ll end up off the back of the wave as the wave leaves you behind. This is because you either haven’t created enough momentum to catch the wave, or you paddled enough but aren’t in a steep and powerful enough part of the wave to stand up.
The biggest misconception with catching waves is most people believe their paddling power is to blame. But, to be brutally honest, it’s all about positioning in the line up. Being out of position to catch a wave is the most common mistake beginner and intermediate surfers make because reading waves is undoubtedly the hardest part in surfing. The reason that positioning is to blame, is because, you can literally catch a wave without paddling at all if you are in exactly the right spot.
However, most surfers don’t realize that when the are catching waves, they are actually over paddling, and as a result end up standing at the bottom of the wave with no way of getting back up to the top. More about this in the next section…
Popping Up Too Late
As mentioned in the previous section, it’s pretty obvious when you pop up too early, because the wave will leave you behind. But, it’s less obvious if you pop up too late because you’ll still be able to catch and ride the wave, you just wont be able to do much with it. Here’s why;
Wave Mechanics
Waves break when the steepness of the wave exceeds a critical angle because the bottom of the wave experiences friction on the seabed while the top of the wave continues at the same speed. This typically occurs near the shore, where the wave encounters shallow water and slows down. As the wave slows, it becomes steeper until the top of the wave eventually collapses over the bottom, forming a breaking wave.
As a surfer, you are catching the top part of the wave and it’s the waves’ movement towards the beach, combined with gravity of you dropping from the top of the wave to the bottom that gives you speed on the wave. Think of it like you going down a small hill or a half pipe except the half pipe or hill is moving with you.
When you ride down a half pipe, while you are accelerating down the half pipe you end up moving away from the steep part in towards the flat part of the half pipe, AKA the trough. Once you get to the bottom you start to loose speed. It’s the exact same in surfing, even though the wave is moving forward, its very easy to accelerate ahead of the wave and end up in the trough where you start to lose speed.
The key difference between riding a wave and riding a half pipe is that with a half pipe, all you have to do is go straight to end up back at the top where you will gain enough speed to drop back down to the bottom again. Versus a wave, you have to turn the surfboard back up to the top of the wave in time, before you lose too much speed and the wave leaves you behind.
How Do I Know When To Pop Up
Describing the perfect point to pop up on a wave is pretty difficult because it’s more of a feeling than anything else. Obviously you want to stand up at the top of the wave, but how do you know when that is? Here are a few noticeable queue’s that might help you know exactly when to pop up on the wave.
The Tipping Point: Best described as the moment when you start to feel like your feet are higher than your head, as if you are tipping and starting to head down the face of the wave. This feeling is only felt when you catching green waves. As soon as you start feeling this feeling, it’s time to stand up
Easy Paddle Strokes: In general, paddling should be relatively difficult. But, once the wave starts to take over, those paddle strokes become really easy on the shoulders. This is a great indication that the wave has taken over and you can focus on standing up.
Swishing Sound: While you are paddling in, as your speed increases you may notice a specific swishing sound on your the rails of the surfboard. It can increase as you get more momentum from the wave. This is also an indication of when to stand up.
Timing The Pop Up Is Only Half The Battle
While timing the pop up is important. The time that it takes you to react to the above mentioned queue’s, as well as the length of time that it takes for you to go from lying down to standing up, is equally as important as knowing when to stand up. You will end up in the same position at the bottom of the wave if you time the pop up well but have poor technique because it will take you too long to stand up.
How to Pop Up Faster Surfing
Here are a few general tips to help speed up your pop up surfing;
Proper Instruction: I hate to say it, but there is so much misinformation out there. Doing a 1 hour beach lesson with Johny’s Surf School is simply not enough to master the pop up technique in surfing. You need to constantly work to improve your speed, control and technique of your pop up at home.
Watch the Pro’s: If you are unsure of whether or not you are doing the pop up correctly, watch what the professionals are doing and try to copy them. They all have great technique and if they can do it, so can you.
Get Professional Coaching: Seek out a professional surf coach in your area that offers detailed surf coaching with combined video analysis and theory classes. Just because someone claims to be a qualified surf coach, doesn’t mean they are good at it. Do your research.
Film Yourself: This is a tough one for most. Having someone film you surfing is difficult. But, you can always film yourself practicing the pop up at home and use a clip of a professional surfer to compare the differences. Get expert feedback via video analysis from our team to ensure you are doing the right technique.
Practice at home: You can pop up 100 times in an hour at home. You’ll only get 10 chances to pop up in an hour while surfing. You are also distracted by so many external variables in the ocean like catching and reading waves. Where as you can focus on the pop up at home without any distractions. The pop up becomes a habit, so what ever you do, yo will always do unless you make a considerable effort to change it.
Final Thoughts
As someone who has learned to do so many things in life including:
Playing soccer, field hockey, rugby, cricket, basketball, bodyboarding, ice skating, snowboarding, volleyball, waterpolo, tennis, built websites, produced music, started a business the list goes on.. Surfing is by far the hardest thing I have tried out of all of these things. Surfing is very difficult, the path is long and hard. There are no short cuts to surfing, so be patient and please practice your pop up at home. It will undoubtedly speed up your rate of progress.
