109 How to Catch More Waves and Abolish Surfing Shame

https://learn.surfmastery.com/wave-catching-academy-1

If you've ever felt frustration, shame, or disappointment from missing waves, this episode provides actionable drills and insights to help you surf with more confidence and consistency.

3 key techniques that can help surfers at all levels improve their wave-catching ability: Mastering timing, overcoming the fear of falling, and dealing with the emotional fear of failure.

Click HERE to register or find out more about the Wave Catching Academy

Tim Ferris - How I learned to Surf in 5 days:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_c_FCTX0gk

Transcript:

 Welcome back, or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast. The podcast that helps passionate, lifelong surfers to catch more waves, surf with more speed, style, and grace, and to gain wisdom and confidence in the water. I am your host, Michael Frampton. Today's episode will be another solo episode. That is a follow on from the episode that I released two days ago.

And we will expand on catching waves and give you some solid tips to do that. Next week we've got another long form interview coming your way, all about surfing philosophy. So excited to release that one. So make sure you subscribe and stay tuned for that. In the last episode I was talking about a breakthrough I had in catching waves.

And for some reason it didn't really translate into catching small, soft waves on a small wave shortboard. Which was something that I really wanted to do. I was lucky enough to live in an area where the waves were mostly pretty good all the time. They were mostly head high. But every now and then a nice small swell would come through.

And I remember pulling up to the beach and the waves were small, only about waist high. But they were really nice. And it was no wind. Perfect shape to them. And there was no one else out. And I was so excited. And I grabbed my small wave shortboard and paddled out and spent at least 20 minutes. Just could not catch anything.

any of these waves. Just could not figure it out. I just remember being so disappointed and frustrated and by now you've got a handful of people sitting in their cars watching, ready to come out surfing or decide whether to. So you're feeling shamed as well. And one of these surfers decided to come out and it was an older man in his 50s, on a board even smaller than mine, and he just paddled out and was just Catching these waves like any other wave, just gliding into them with ease, going so fast, doing roundhouse cutbacks, just blowing my mind, and meanwhile, I couldn't even catch any of these waves, let alone stand up and surf one, and the contrast from them.

From going from being excited to go surfing to just feeling ashamed and disappointed and frustrated just was not only gut wrenching, but it left me confused because it was like, how is this guy doing it? The waves are so soft and slow. How is he surfing a shortboard? And I was so determined to figure it out.

I ended up approaching him and He was, turns out he was a former pro, really friendly, and ended up getting some coaching from him, and it changed, had another breakthrough on small waves, because in surfing we often think it's quite simple, the wave comes towards the beach, and you paddle for it in the right part of the wave, and you glide in, and that's true for most waves, but when you start wanting to surf smaller waves.

On a shortboard, you've really got to get an eye in for the details and what I noticed he was doing, which was pointed out, was he was waiting a bit longer, and really letting the white water hit him, which gave him enough momentum to, to get going on the wave, and if you want to surf a broad variety of Wave shapes and sizes, you need to be far more versatile and adaptable than you think.

And, sometimes you really need to be able to let the whitewater hit you and come from behind the section with speed to get going on small waves. And once you learn that skill, it actually expands the take off zone for you. If you mis time a wave and the wave hits you, you can actually still come around the section.

So learning to catch these smaller, softer waves. Helped me in all types of waves, and the drill that this surf coach got me to do is a really simple one, and this is it, tip number one, timing. I'll firstly describe this tip in a beginner friendly version, and then I'll Elaborate into how an intermediate or even advanced surfer can utilize it.

So the key here is to stop paddling for waves. That's right. If you're a beginner, first of all you need to be on the right surfboard. Needs to be an 8 or a 9 foot soft top, depending on your height and weight. And no other surfboard is appropriate for a beginner. Stay away from places like First Point, Malibu.

Go to a beach where you see surf schools take their groups of 50 tourists. That's the beach you want to practice this drill. And what you want to do is you want to stand in waist deep water, with your board facing towards the beach, hands in the middle of the board, holding each rail, and then wait. Wait until the white water is just about to hit the tail of your board, and then you jump.

onto your board and forward to match the speed of the wave at the same time. And you land in your paddling position and that jump forward has allowed you to match the speed of the wave. And that's it, no paddling necessary. The focus here is getting the timing of the jump don't even worry about standing up at this stage for beginners.

You're just looking to catch the wave with good timing without paddling. Play around with it. Wait until the wave has passed the tail of your board and is about to hit you and then try it. Just play around with the timing. Get really comfortable with catching waves in waist high water without paddling.

For the intermediate and advanced surfers that are struggling to catch small waves, the drill is exactly the same. It's just the type of surfboard you'll be using. So for an intermediate surfer, you might be on a fiberglass mid length or your favorite sort of mid size soft top, and for your advanced surfer, just get on your small wave shortboard.

But the drill is the same. No paddling, get the timing right. So how does this apply to catching unbroken waves for the intermediate and advanced surfer? When you're sitting on your surfboard and a small wave is approaching, you want to time two to four sprint paddles just as the wave is about to hit you.

And if you've practiced the drill, as I mentioned, you'll be used to popping up in the whitewater and maintaining speed from that. Push because actually popping up and riding the wave in the turbulence of that white water is a lot harder than you think. And it's a skill that you might not have practiced in a while.

You would have practiced it a lot when you were learning, but it's good to go back. So not only are you practicing Catching the wave in the whitewater, but you're also going to practice popping up and surfing those beginner waves. One of the most common mistakes at all levels is rushing. I see too many surfers just paddling frantically rather than being patient and timing some good sprint paddles.

Watch really experienced surfers when they're in the right spot. They don't rush. They wait for the wave to engulf the back of the board, and then they execute like a breaststroke kick with their legs, combined with a couple of sprint paddles, and the board's buoyancy kind of pops them forward like a cork in water, and they just glide into the wave effortlessly.

Sometimes a lot of the paddling for the wave Surfers do, is actually to get in the right position to be able to do that. And by no means am I saying don't paddle hard for waves. In fact, you need to be a strong paddler that can paddle hard for waves. The first step is to master the timing in broken whitewater waves.

Tip number two would be overcoming the fear of getting hurt or held underwater. Now, this fear will never go away completely, it's natural, you should be cautious about getting hurt or drowning. But you can prepare for it so that it's not so overwhelming. The drill here is just to simply play in the white water.

Just like kids at the beach. They love playing in the shore break, getting hit. tumbled around. They love feeling the power of the ocean. You should get comfortable with getting tumbled in the shore break, getting held under and having sand go everywhere. And if this makes you feel uncomfortable, you have to spend time doing this.

I remember Tim Ferriss did a TV series called the Tim Ferriss experiment, where he tried to learn a bunch of skills as fast as possible by working with experts intensively for five days. He did golf, drumming, dancing, and surfing was one of them. And he. Got Laird Hamilton, and the first thing that Laird got him to do was to play in the whitewater.

He had to get rid of that fear of being held under and rolled around. Because if you're afraid of what happens when you fall off or make a mistake, you simply can't be present. I strongly recommend you go and watch that episode. It's free on YouTube now. I'll put a link to that episode in the show notes.

And I used to teach. Adult skateboarding as well, and the first thing that we'd learn is to fall safely on the grass. And then we'd progress to learning how to fall and slide safely with all the gear on. And only then can they be present enough to learn how to skate. Kids don't have this fear anywhere near as much because they're made of rubber and naivety, but you simply cannot learn anything without falling.

Prepare and minimize the fear of falling. Choose a safe sandy swimming beach where there's lifeguards and stuff and practice this. You get a bodyboard as well, play around. Wear a wetsuit, helps with flotation. A tip that goes along with this one is you need to be a strong swimmer.

You should be able to swim 500 meters non stop and 25 meters underwater. So if you can't do those two things, I highly recommend just going and getting some swimming lessons. Tip number three is overcoming the fear of failing. Now we just covered the physical fear of falling, but now we're talking about the emotional fear of failing.

And the fear of failure is, it's tied to shame. The fear of looking bad in front of others. What's the solution? Practice tip one and two in a place where other surfers aren't. As I mentioned in tip one, stay out of the way. If you're a beginner, there's no need to go to A surf break where good surfers are.

You can go to any swimming beach out of the way and find your own spot away from people and practice these drills. Find out where the local surf school takes their groups and does lessons and stay around there somewhere. There's, there are always nice sandy, flat, easy waves to practice this sort of stuff in.

The fear of shame, it's never going to go away completely. The goal here is to get to a point where you feel confident and competent enough to surf with other surfers, despite the shame, and you should be able to focus on successfully catching the wave, not on how you look. Because even when you go to a place where good surfers aren't, the fear of failure is still going to come up.

There's a certain amount of that you're just going to have to push through until your skills improve. The most important thing is just stay safe, stay out of the way, and if the desire to get better is stronger than your fear of failure, you'll put the hours in. Because surfing is hard, it takes time, there's no way around that.

But these three tips will help you to get there fastest. So to summarize, you're going to practice the timing by catching white water waves in waist high water without paddling. You're going to play around in the shore break and get used to what happens when you fall. As well as making sure that you're a strong swimmer and you're comfortable being underwater.

And you're going to practice these drills away from surf breaks where other surfers are watching and judging. And you're going to make sure that you're doing it at the right spot. Now if you're truly serious about learning the art of catching waves and overcoming the shame, the frustration and the disappointment of missing waves and watching others.

Then I've got good news for you. Registrations are open for the Wave Catching Academy which starts up very soon. There is no need for you to spend the years that I spent guessing, overthinking, and struggling to figure these things out on your own. And that's why I created the Wave Catching Academy so you can fast track your progress.

You'll go from being hesitant and ignored in the lineup to being someone that catches waves with confidence and competence. No more getting dropped in on, no more getting snaked. You'll understand positioning and how to read waves, and of course, how to catch any wave that you like. Registrations are open until the 7th of March, but numbers are limited as well, so Get in quick.

The first 10 people who join will also get a free one on one session with me. So if you're serious about transforming your surfing and finally feeling like a surfer instead of a kook, it starts with learning how to catch waves. So click the link in the description or the show notes, or go to surfmastery.

com and join in the Wave Catching Academy. Hope to see you in there, and until next week, keep surfing.

For the passionate surfer—whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer—this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more—so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner Surfer to advaned.