Here’s one tip that everyone below advanced intermediate level needs in their surfing! Get that chest up high, eyes down the line, and make sure you have enough space for an elegant, one stage pop up!
How To Wax Your Board Tropical Edition
As with the How to De-Wax Your Board video, this may seem obvious for the experienced surfer. My dad taught me how to do it, so if you don’t have dad or a mentor who has been surfing their whole life, you might find yourself surfing the web for answers. Believe it or not, wax and how to wax your board can be a polarizing issue in surfing. When I was taught to do it my dad used paraffin or candle wax to make the base coat “beads.” He swore by this method. As I grew older the wax companies got better and better at making different consistencies of wax (higher and lower melting temps) for different water temps. This made the paraffin unnecessary. Following the theory of the paraffin, however, the idea is that you want to use a very hard coat of wax as the bottom layer. This is regardless of water temp. We call this first layer the “base coat.” You can use a wax specifically named “base coat” (made by most brands) or you can use tropical wax, which is the hardest kind of wax after base coat. In this vid I use tropical wax for the base and the top layer. It’s hard enough to serve as both. It wouldn’t be a terrible idea to use base then tropical, but that’s not what I did here, and it served me just fine for a month in warm water. The main keys to a tropical wax job/first coat of wax: 00:26 make sure the board is laying on something soft so you don’t scratch the bottom (or rest it on your thighs in a standing position) 1:19 just get wax on there — you need a film to form — use the edge of the bar and press hard enough so the film forms but not too hard, which makes it difficult to do the movements 1:29 “cross hatching” that you see in other YT vids is not a “thing” for long time surfers — almost none of us do it that way 2:05 after the film has formed it’s all about BIG CIRCLES to make the bead 2:17 speed and appropriate pressure are the key (pay attention to the sound as you watch this part — that’s how it ought to sound every time you wax your board) 2:37 I describe why the circular motion is important to form “the bead” 2:56 how much of the board you ought to wax 3:13 make sure you get the rails 3:37 wax it again before every surf in the tropics (yes even if you surf multiple times in one day) Thanks for watching! Stay tuned for my wax preferences and how to wax for cold water videos in the future.
How To De-Wax Your Board
This might be an obvious one for the intermediate and advanced surfers out there, but unless you have a longtime surfer in your corner, it might not be on your radar as a beginner. In this video I go through how to take your wax of your surfboard. In this case I was in Barbados transitioning my cold water (NY winter) wax coat to surf in tropical waters. Situations when you want to change your wax:
When you’re transitioning from cold to warmer water — if you surf in warm water with cool or cold water wax it will melt off all over you and that’s gross!
When you’re surfing the same water temps but your wax has gotten really old, dirty, slippery and ugly (brown/black)
Or maybe you’re just neurotic and always like you board to look fresh and clean (in this case I’d recommend changing your wax every 2-3 months)
Tools I mention in the video:
Wax comb or scraper https://www.cleanlinesurf.com/products/block-surf-flexcomb-surfboard-wax-comb?variant=41100950568994
Pickle (a nylon sock with shaping dust from old surfboards inside of it — comes with a scraper) https://picklewaxremover.com/A beach towel for the final touches
More waves more joy!
How To Belly Ride: Everyone Needs to Know How To Do This!!!
I always say if you can't do a belly ride on the green face you're not surfing. Every beginning surfer wants to have this little move down. When someone asks you, can you catch a wave and go down the face? Even if you can't stand yet, you should be able to say, "Yep you betcha." If you can do this the part of surfing with the stand up becomes SO. MUCH. EASIER.
What Surfing Really Looks Like Ep 5: Finding the Lip Line
In this video I go over how to position for waves by looking at the lip line. I was struck when I went over this footage about how well you can see the bend of the wave as it comes towards me. It crucial to note that I'm not just waiting for the wave to come towards me but figuring out where the best place for me to be vis a via the peak is. In some cases I move OUT TO SEA to meet the wave. In other cases I have to paddle deeper. And still in others I have to paddle to the shoulder. I don't get it right every time! But when I do I am rewarded. Another point and tip is that you can use GoPro footage like this to diagnose your own tube riding. The session I had after this I didn't film but made many more tubes both backside and frontside based upon my diagnoses from this footage. It's hard to find that balance between being too deep/too greedy and too shallow/not deep enough.
Shot in SW Costa Rica, August 2023 using a GoPro Hero Black 11
Fall Tubes in NY, September 2023
A little mash up of a few tubes I got surfing in NY in September 2023. These are all from unnamed swell events. These are usually better for us than storms that have names because they're closer to land and therefore the interval stays below 10 seconds. All of these days had intervals in the 8-10 second range and wave heights (on the buoys) at 6-8ft from E, NE, ENE, and ESE. Overally the swell was pretty steeply angled from the E and NE due to the early season Noreaster we had that came after Tropical Storm Ophelia. The water is warm but the wind was cold so that is why I'm often in a hood. All the suits are 3mm or 3/2mm. I'm riding my 5'3" Barahona retro fish (yellow) and 5'5" Barahona modern fish (stripes). Filming from land by @mgbruno with my Olympus OM-D 1 and filming from the water by me with my GoPro Hero Black 11 using a handle cam. I paddle into the wave with the handle in my mouth then pull it out of my mouth as soon as I've made the drop. I shoot in 1080p at 30fps just for ease of use editing in iMovie. Song is "Lantern Room" by Torii Wolf from www.epidemicsound.com For more insights into tube riding and my philosophy be sure to become an online clubmember!!!