The Beginner’s Guide to Learning to Surf a Shortboard Fast

If you ask most people, especially the coaches at beginner surf schools, they will strongly advise you against learning to surf on a shortboard.  They say this because longboards are far more forgiving in almost …

surfers walking with shortboard at sunset

If you ask most people, especially the coaches at beginner surf schools, they will strongly advise you against learning to surf on a shortboard. 

They say this because longboards are far more forgiving in almost every way. You can catch more waves, more easily, in a wider range of conditions. 

In this sense, there’s no question longboards increase what is the most important aspect of improving your surfing as a beginner: wave count. Foam longboards are also safer for beginners and their fellow surfers. 

But let’s say you want to do it the hard way. Or maybe you’ve surfed a bit and want to make the jump to the shortboard. 

Either way, you’re going to eat it, a lot. So let’s walk through a few ways you can eat it less and start shredding sooner. 

Get the right kind of shortboard

In the early 90s, most shortboards sold were high-performance shortboards. These are the wafer-thin, narrow boards with pulled-in noses that you see pro surfers ripping on. 

Shortboard stuck in the sand

No beginner should try to ride that kind of shortboard. Even intermediates are better suited to something more user-friendly. 

The good news is that these days “shortboards” encompass a wide variety of far more beginner-friendly surfboards called hybrids and funboards. 

As a reference, consider the dimensions of the Gerry Lopez 8-foot foamie, a quintessential beginner board. It comes in at 22 inches wide and 3.25 inches thick with a volume of about 70 liters. 

The Sweet Potato by Firewire at 6’4” is 23.125, 3.25, and 57.1L, and the Greedy Beaver at 6’10” is 21.75, 2.875, and 52.1 liters. With these dimensions, the Beaver and the Potato are very beginner-friendly shortboards. They’re wide and thick with plenty of volume but they’ll still be much harder to ride than a Gerry Lopez since they’re shorter. 

The point is if you’re learning to surf on a shortboard, get a beginner-friendly one. There are lots of options. 

Stick with your board

You might notice that more advanced surfers are always swapping out boards. Maybe they ride a fish one day, an egg the next, and a thruster the next. But they’re not you and you’re not them. 

Stick with the board you’ve found unless you have a compelling reason to get a different one.

Every day in the ocean is different. Tides, winds, swells, crowd levels, and temperatures all change, which is what makes surfing so difficult. Don’t add another variable and start swapping out your shortboard for a different one every few days. 

The more time you spend on your board, the better feel you’ll have for it when you’re paddling, popping up, setting your rail, or attempting to lay down a turn. Once you get better you can start trying different boards. 

Prepare to take a beating

When you’re trying to catch a wave on a shortboard, you need more power to get into the wave. That means you have to take off deeper and closer to the most powerful part of the wave, called the peak. 

Surfer wiping out

As you might expect, positioning yourself closer to the most powerful part of the wave means mistakes have greater consequences. So if you insist on learning on a shortboard, prepare for your beatings.

Unless you’re paddling out in conditions well beyond your abilities, your longest hold-downs will be less than five seconds; stay calm and you’ll be okay. 

Commit to your waves

A good portion of my first year on a shortboard was spent surfing at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. When it’s good, Ocean Beach is steep and fast and scary. But without fail, my worst beatings were when I didn’t fully commit to the wave. 

Despite what you may think, the further down the face of the wave you get, the less severe your wipeouts will be. And the easier it will be to get away from your board. Beyond self-preservation though, fully committing is just good technique and will get you into more waves and in a better position.

Learn to wipe out correctly

Surfboards tend to have pointy noses and sharp fins. That, plus the shallow, rocky bottoms of many breaks can lead to injuries that keep you out of the water. And nothing’s more important for a beginner on a shortboard than maximizing time in water.

So follow these tips from SurferToday on how to fall safely:

  1. Fall away from your surfboard
  2. Cover your head and face with your arms
  3. Fall butt or feet first, never head first. 

And if you prefer a visual, check out this YouTube video from Surfdome:

Keep in mind too that the last tip, committing to your waves, also helps you get into a better position to wipe out. Because when you’re on your feet, you have a much better chance of falling away from your board than if you’re prone. 

When in doubt, don’t paddle out

Whether you’re learning on a short or longboard, you should never paddle out in conditions beyond your ability. It’s dangerous for you and the people around you. When in doubt, don’t paddle out. 

If you paddle out only to realize you’re in over your head, hold on to your board and ride the whitewater in.

Get fit

The other beating you’re going to take when you learn to surf is to your body. Few (if any) sports or activities replicate the physical stress of surfing and a shortboard is going to take an even bigger toll on your body. 

With less volume and less length, shortboards are inherently harder to paddle, placing more stress on your shoulders. Positioning yourself, getting out the back and out of the way, and paddling into waves will take more paddle power and more endurance. 

And even if you’re in good shape, you’re not in good surfing shape. So get ready to climb the fitness curve as you learn to paddle that shortboard. Swimming is a great cross-training exercise if you can’t get to the surf every day. 

But don’t forget about strengthening and stretching your back, shoulders, core, and lower body. Greater strength and flexibility will help ward off overuse injuries that come with the territory of surfing. 

Practice your explosive pop up

When you catch a wave on a shortboard, you’re doing so on the steepest part of the wave. That means the board is falling away from you, so you have to get your feet on it before it’s too late. 

This makes the difference between popping up on a shortboard and a longboard like night and day. Whereas a longboard allows you time to clamber to your feet, your pop-up on a shortboard has to be explosive. 

A good way to practice is on dry land. Take the fins out of your board, lay it on a flat, padded surface and practice smoothly, explosively popping to your feet. It’ll also help to watch others—here’s a great video of professionals popping up in slow motion. 

Focus on where you’re going

The best surfers focus their eyes on where they’re surfing, not themselves. This isn’t a theory; it’s a well-studied fact. 

On a shortboard especially, you’re going to need to make your visual gaze a point of emphasis because the tendency is to look at your foot positioning. 

But nothing will slow your progression more than a downward gaze. Your head follows your eyes and your body follows your head. And downward is not where you want your body going when you’re surfing. 

Don’t be a surf snob

Wave count is your most important metric for surf progression as a beginner. So don’t wait until the conditions are ideal before you paddle out. When you’re just starting, crappy days are a great day to learn because the crowds will be lighter. 

Plus, you’re probably not getting much further than the drop on most of your waves anyway. You don’t need long, open shoulders to practice positioning, paddling, popping up, and dropping in. Reps are everything.

Perfect your paddling

Longboards aren’t just more forgiving to stand on, they’re also easier to paddle. So to surf a shortboard well, you’ll need good paddle technique. I’d suggest reading this breakdown on paddling from Barefoot Surf Travel, but here’s a few quick tips on improving your paddling technique:

  • Position your body vertically so the nose of your board is about one inch out of the water.
  • Arch your back to life your chest up, imagine you have a volleyball under your chin
  • Keep your head, upper, and lower body still while paddling
  • Paddle with long, full range of motion parallel to your surfboard’s rails
  • Aim to have your elbow high when your hand enters the water
  • Avoid splashing water, paddling with two arms, paddling wide or excessively rocking your board back and forth by shifting your weight.

Learn to read the water and the waves

On a longboard, you can be 20 feet off the peak and still catch the wave. This isn’t the case on a shortboard. You have less margin for error in your positioning which means your wave reading needs to be that much better. Here’s another great post from Barefoot Surf Travel on the topic of reading waves.

Good longboarders read the water just as well as good short boarders. But being able to read the water better as a beginner will help you more as a short boarder. 

Don’t listen to the haters 

If you really want to try learning to surf on a shortboard, go for it. As long as you’re not putting others in danger and you’re having fun, who’s to say how you should learn? Maybe you would learn faster on a longboard, but maybe that’s not the point. 

If people feel the need to tell you how to surf, just nod your head and keep paddling. 

Revisit your why before learning to surf on a shortboard

In a post on the Surfing Waves forum, a user said, “If you think longboards are uncool and that’s your reason, you’re going to look just as uncool learning on a shortboard.”

Besides making me laugh, this post also made me think about how important it is to consider why you want to learn to surf on a shortboard. The sex appeal of a shortboard is definitely a motivator for many, but as the Surfing Waves user pointed out, you’re not going to look sexy for a long time on that shortboard. 

Lots of beginners also figure they can skip to a shortboard because they’re a good skater or snowboarder, or both. But that’s not a great reason to skip the longboard. 

Yes, skateboarding and snowboarding are similar to surfing in that they require standing on and turning a board. But the variable of the ocean changes things too much for your proficiency in skateboarding or surfing to be more than a very marginal advantage.  

All this is not to discourage anybody from learning to surf on a shortboard. It’s just to set realistic expectations. Whatever you decide to do, have fun out there. 

And if you want to read more, here are a few threads you might enjoy:

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