Sometimes it's the simplest or smallest things...

I've been trying to get my shortboard walk up working, ie pushing up onto my knees, rather than my toes for when I'm using a smaller board.

When I'm at home, I can practice it on the carpet, no problems, it works fine, but today I, again, couldn't get it to work.

Because of the conditions (small, a bit messy) I was using my 7'6 board which is about the shortest I can do the "toes" method, but trying to avoid doing that.

Except, every time I walked up, I was finding I still not using my knees and I couldn't figure out why, even though, before I went out, I'd practiced on the beach and it had been fine.

So eventually I rode a wave back in, put the board on the beach and tried again, seeing if I could figure out what I was doing differently.

And suddenly it clicked!

When I was on the waves, my hands were coming a bit further forward on the board so they were under my shoulders, but when I was practicing on the beach, they were down by my lower ribs!

So I went back out again and, ok, it wasn't perfect, but I was definitely using my knee/ shin much more 👍

I'll have to practice more to get it drilled it, but it's amazing how much a few inches difference in hand placement can change things 🙂