You will have to twist more than engage the rail if your board has a lot of volume and you may have to do back foot pivot turns, but I have an 8'2 Torq V+ for small waves and I can do a lot of the regular OMBE techniques on a long board, eg the Oreo Biscuit take off, walk up etc.

Look under Browse/ Surf Start programme.

Get a wax crayon and write "Look up!" on the nose of your board!

Seriously, it reminds you of what you need to do in a stressful situation and then you can start to break the habit 👍

A smaller board with less volume will make your take off positioning more critical, so you may miss more waves.

However it will be more manoeuvrable which would help with turning.

Of course it will also probably be more twitchy and less stable, so you'd need to have your stance right too...

Try chatting with other people in the line up who are of similar or slightly better skill level than you and ask about their boards and maybe try swapping for a few waves if they're amenable and see how you get on.

Clayton Nienaber

Giulio Bamonte Glad to see you're getting the take off nailed 👍

I was just thinking that you needed to lift the elbow, but I see you know that 🙂 (also, of course, it would help you twist at the end instead of leaning which made you fall 😉)

It's all just a matter of practice and getting the muscle memory...

Yew! 🤙

Emily Brooks Unfortunately the waves were so small I was in chest deep water at most and there wasn't anything *to* duck dive ☹️

Two (linked) things I'd suggest working on:

1) Lift your front arm and, as Clay says, "put your elbow in your back pocket" which will help you to do...

2) Don't just stare down the line, look back at the foam 👍

You look pretty relaxed, though, which is good 🙂