The Eyes Have It
A key body part you can employ in surfing is your eyes. Yes, your eyes, and more specifically "sighting" to help project where you are headed on a wave. A great surfing technique to improve your surfing performance is using your eyes to help initiate, and make solid and stylish turns. All good athletes -- be it an NFL quarterback, a major league baseball player, or even professional snowboarder, use their eyes to lead their movement. Look where you want to go, and your hips, then your board will follow.
Let's consider the backside off-the-lip -- a fundamental surf move, and one you want in your repertoire. There are three key moves within this maneuver, and you'll use your eyes and sighting to help make this turn.
HOW TO
1. As you paddle for the wave and make the drop, immediately look down the line to see how the wave is breaking. Once this quick assessment is made, look five to six feet ahead and look for a good section for a bottom turn.
2. As you go into your bottom turn you are already looking to the next section -- the mid-face or even top of the wave (Figure 1). This is the critical part of the turn and looking where you want your body and board to go, will help you get there.
3. As you approach the top of your turn start to think and look towards the bottom of the wave, the next place you are headed (Figure 2).
1. As you paddle for the wave and make the drop, immediately look down the line to see how the wave is breaking. Once this quick assessment is made, look five to six feet ahead and look for a good section for a bottom turn.
2. As you go into your bottom turn you are already looking to the next section -- the mid-face or even top of the wave (Figure 1). This is the critical part of the turn and looking where you want your body and board to go, will help you get there.
3. As you approach the top of your turn start to think and look towards the bottom of the wave, the next place you are headed (Figure 2).
And so this repeats on down the line, or on the next wave.
Try to remember this tip on your next session. Use your eye sight and look where you want to go before you are there.
See you in the water,
No comments:
Post a Comment