Longboarding offers a unique and rewarding experience in surfing. If you’re transitioning to a longboard or considering picking one up, you might be wondering, how fast can you learn to ride a longboard and what are the key skills to focus on? This guide, inspired by insights from experienced shapers and surfers, breaks down the learning curve, essential techniques, and how longboarding can actually accelerate your overall surfing progression.
Understanding Board Awareness and Longboard Design
When you switch to a longboard, the first thing to recognize is the shift in dynamics. It’s crucial to understand how this board feels different from what you may be used to. A longboard responds in a more deliberate and gentle manner. Think of it as a graceful dance rather than a quick sprint. This change in pace is actually beneficial, especially when you’re aiming to refine your surfing fundamentals. Trying to force rapid, shortboard-style movements on a longboard will likely lead to frustration – and wipeouts!
The key takeaway is to slow down, be purposeful with your actions, and become attuned to the board’s response. It’s about riding the wave, not fighting the board.
Developing Your Stance for Longboarding Success
Style in longboarding is paramount, and it all begins with a solid stance. Many surfers, especially those accustomed to shortboards, can develop less-than-ideal stances – hunched over, unbalanced, with arms flailing. Longboarding provides the perfect platform to correct these issues. The inherent stability of a longboard allows you to establish and refine a neutral, balanced stance, crucial for trimming and smooth riding.
The secret weapon for stance improvement on a longboard is cross-stepping. However, cross-stepping effectively requires a fundamentally sound stance to begin with. If you’re struggling to cross-step, it’s a clear indicator that your stance needs attention. A good stance is characterized by being neutral, stacked (joints aligned), and allowing for small, controlled movements.
Improve your surfing style with this tip
Image alt: Animated GIF demonstrating the “kissing the knees” surfing stance technique for improved style and balance on a longboard.
Practice cross-stepping on land to get the feel. Imagine you’re holding a coffee cup – maintain that composure while stepping. This exercise helps eliminate tension, promotes fluid movement, and perfects your stance. Transfer this refined stance to any board, and you’ll see improvements.
Mastering the Bottom Turn on a Longboard
The bottom turn is a critical maneuver, often challenging for intermediate surfers. Common issues include not fully engaging the power zone of the wave and struggling to sustain the turn. Many surfers treat the bottom turn as a fleeting, instantaneous action, but on a longboard, this is even more pronounced.
Turning a longboard is inherently slower due to its size and volume. It requires a more deliberate and drawn-out approach. You can’t simply lean sharply and expect an immediate response. Adapting your effort to the board’s size is crucial. Coming from a shortboard, the tendency might be to lean aggressively, but this can easily lead to losing balance on a longboard. You need to learn to control your weight shift, compress and extend your body, maintain your gaze in the direction you want to go, and hold the turn for a longer duration. Adjust the intensity of your lean to match the board’s responsiveness and avoid overpowering the wave.
When transitioning back to a shortboard, remember the lesson of the drawn-out bottom turn. Even on a smaller board, resist the urge to rush the turn. Count it out mentally – it’s still a deliberate motion, even on a short 5’9”.
Cutbacks with Longboard Technique
Similar to bottom turns, cutbacks on a longboard require a sustained and deliberate approach. The core principles are the same: understanding how the board engages its rail and recognizing its slower turning radius. Executing a cutback on a longboard demands good technique. Due to the board’s size, you must commit to holding the turn, keeping your eyes focused on where you want to go, opening your body, and moving towards the wave’s foam.
Forget the frantic arm movements often seen in shortboarding cutbacks. On a longboard, such actions will likely result in you moving one way and the board another. This need for precise technique is what makes longboarding so rewarding. Successfully executing a clean cutback on a longboard is a testament to improved surfing skill.
Another key aspect is adapting to the wave’s shape. Longboards often don’t perfectly match the wave’s curvature, so you’ll need to adjust your cutback to be more diagonal rather than directly down the wave face.
The Time Advantage: Longboards for Skill Development
One of the less obvious but significant benefits of longboarding is that it provides you with more time – time to react, time to adjust, and time to learn.
Initially, this manifests as more time to paddle into waves, set your line, and get established. This advantage allows you to catch waves earlier, even further out on the shoulder, and get ahead of faster waves. While this is beneficial, it’s important not to develop a habit of taking off too far from the peak. The principle remains the same: identify the breaking peak and take off there, but with the added advantage of catching the wave earlier than you could on a shortboard.
More profoundly, longboards grant you extra time within maneuvers. Think of a longboard compared to a shortboard as a bus compared to a car. Turning is slower, more gradual, and this is incredibly valuable for learning.
If you attempt to surf a longboard with the rapid movements of a shortboard, you’ll quickly lose balance. You must move with purpose and at a pace that matches the board’s responsiveness. Moving faster than the board dictates will lead to falls. This teaches patience and highlights that in surfing, deliberate, controlled movements are far more effective than rushed, wild actions.
Taking more time translates to more fluid surfing. No turn in surfing is truly abrupt; they are all drawn out and require time to unfold.
Longboards also extend the time you have to feel the wave’s glide and power during your pop-up. Observe experienced longboarders; their pop-ups are often slow and deliberate. They are attuned to the wave, seeking the optimal line and timing to stand. Rushing the pop-up is a common mistake that prevents surfers from experiencing the true lift and connection with the wave.
These lessons learned on a longboard are universally applicable, whether you exclusively ride longboards or switch between long and shortboards. The emphasis on purposeful movement and taking your time, honed through longboarding, is precisely what many intermediate surfers need to advance their skills.
Summary: Embrace the Longboard Learning Curve
Longboards are invaluable tools for surfers of all levels. Switching between board lengths, especially to a longboard, effectively exposes your weaknesses and highlights areas for improvement. This principle works both ways; even progressing to a longboard will reveal aspects of your surfing that need refinement. If your shortboard turns are lacking, your longboard turns will likely suffer too. It’s about developing a feel for the board, understanding its response to your movements, and adapting your technique accordingly. The overarching theme is drawn-out movements, performed with purpose and grace, adjusted in duration based on the board you’re riding.
If you are new to longboarding or currently riding one: Concentrate on cross-stepping and refining your stance. Extend your turns, explore the limits of the board’s turning ability, and don’t be afraid to push those boundaries. If your turns are not progressing, revisit your fundamental technique.
When transitioning back to a shorter board: Maintain that neutral, stacked stance and surf with intention. Avoid sudden, jerky movements. Controlled, purposeful movements and sustained turns are the key to progressing from point A to point B smoothly and stylishly. Remember, in surfing, nothing is sudden. Always look where you intend to go and guide your board with deliberate action.
Have you experienced the benefits of longboarding in your surfing journey? Whether you’re a seasoned longboarder or a shortboarder considering trying one, we’d love to hear about your experiences and how longboarding has influenced your surfing.
