With the Oreo Biscuit technique, you don't need to paddle hard to catch the wave.

Try to position closer to the peak where the wave is drawing water up, keep your body and legs straight and arch your back so you push the tail down and it will be much easier.

If you take off on the shoulder, you won't catch the wave until it peaks, by which time it's often too late.

Sascha Imagine your surfboard has handlebars, so if you want to go straight, you need your hands evenly in front of you.

Your take off isn't bad, but once you start to glide you should be looking down the line to see what the wave is doing, then look at the bottom of the wave where you're going to be next.

You don't need the back foot on the tail unless you're going vertical off the lip (next week 😉)

To find your stance length, draw a line on the floor and stand on it with your feet at 45 degrees.

Pivot your back foot 90 degrees on the heel, then 90 degrees on the toe. Stack on the front foot and compress and extend a couple of times and let your back foot move to where it's comfortable. That's your stance.

I'd recommend getting onto a surf skate to practice relaxing without the stress of trying to deal with all the extra inputs from a wave.

To start with, as you paddle into the wave and start to glide, you do want to look down the line to see how the wave is behaving, but then Clay's advice is to look at the "strike zone", ie where you're going to be next.

Do you have any video of your take off?

It looks like you have a similar problem that I've had in that you're overdoing it.

As Clay says, imagine you're trying to jump onto a low stool, but you are compressing like you're trying to jump onto a high table.

John Kuras That's fantastic 🤙

You didn't hold it for long enough 🙂

You need to get back to the foam, then use that to push you back down the wave.

Nice improvement.

I think possibly you're still a bit back foot heavy. Maybe try lifting the elbow on your front arm with your hand up as you go up the wave which may help you open the shoulder when you twist.

For your first try in years, that's looking good 👍

Sure, there's things to work on, a bit more extension as you go up and look through the turns a bit more, but you seem pretty relaxed and you're not overdoing things, so I'd be happy if I were you 🙂