Emily Brooks Nice, last couple years I've had the goal of surfing once a week which quickly turned into trying to average one surf session a week. 

2025 was the year of the frontside cutback/carve for me.  That was my focus on every session where the waves cooperated.  Still want to focus on improving it, but not necessarily obsess over it like I have been.

John Kuras If you can swing it, make a trip to the wave pool in Virginia Beach and do a session or two.  

The camera system records two angles of every ride, so you can walk away with a lot of video footage to analyze.

The thing that helped me the most with this is going for the cutback/carving turn earlier in the wave.  I definitely sacraficed some longer rides, but it increased the number of attempts and I think part of it just comes down to getting in the reps.  Also, like Graham said, I think if you initiate the cutback too far out on the shoulder where the wave is flatter and slower you're more likely to bog it.

Technique wise, the thing I've become most aware of anytime I bog the rail is where I am looking.  I've noticed I am looking down the line while bogging the rail on the top turn rather than looking back toward the foam.  I would try to pay attention to where you are looking when you bog the rail. 

What are your arms doing on the cutback?  Are you able to "pass the coffee" with your back arm and clear your lead arm out of the way, or are they moving across your body in the wrong direction in more of a counter balance motion?  

How is your hip mobility?  It looks like you are lifting your hands off the board to create space for your front foot to step through.  I think you end up with a little too much weight on the back of the board and get a little hung up as a result.

I noticed the toes on your front foot lift off the board on your top turn. Are you aware of that when you're surfing?

I don't know if that's a common thing or not.

Clayton Nienaber The turn you do at the 5:50 mark in this video, would you call that a front side carve or a cutback?

Does this turn have the same look and wait for the board to respond feeling that you describe when doing a cutback, or does this turn feel/happen faster since it's closer to the pocket and more vertical?

Might be wrong, but to me it looks like you need to paddle a little harder. Looks like the wave drew you up closer to the lip where it was pitching over and you had to recover your balance as you dropped down it.

I think your actual pop up looked pretty good.

Jason Daliessio I really enjoyed surfing here, and probably logged more time actually riding waves in one weekend than I do in a year surfing 4-5 times a month in NJ. 

I was riding a shortboard, but did one progressive session which is more oriented toward longboards/funshapes.  Based on my arrival time it was either that or a more advanced setting, so I went with the safer option.  The session was okay, but I wouldn't recommend it for a shortboard.  It was a little weak and a little more work to catch the waves. 

The rest of my sessions were the intermediate setting, and as a goofy footer, I surfed all lefts to work on frontside turns.  This setting had a pretty mellow take off and mellow shoulder to start the wave, and then it stood up a little more on the inside section.   The start of the wave was perfect for practicing a carving turn/cutback.  It had a enough power, but moved slow enough to not get left behind the section (though that happened a couple times).

I went there with a specific goal in mind, so I did more or less the same thing on everywave.  Whenever I get back down there, I'll probably do another intermediate session and try one of the advanced settings to mix it up.  I don't see myself doing frontside snapping turns, so less interested in the higher level settings that are steeper and faster.  The barrel setting looked cool, but would probably be more frustrating than fun for me.

Some general observations:

Wave count- I think the range was between 13 - 18 waves in the sessions I did which felt like plenty for my current level of conditioning.

The water felt colder than I expected.  Not sure what it will be like in the middle of winter. 

There's not a lot of room to change in/out of wetsuit in the locker rooms.  A changing towel would be good to bring if you have it.

I brought my own board/wetsuit so can't comment on the rentals. 

If any concerns about the take off, I would maybe err on the side of using a board with more volume.   Some people in my sessions missed/wiped out on the takeoff on a lot of waves using shortboards that were probably too small for their skill level.   

The flow state camera system is really cool. Even if you don't buy the clips from your session you can still see gifs of all your waves. I purchased the clips from a few of the sessions which was super helpful for making adjustments for the next session and identifying what I need to fix (the most) in my surfing.

Clayton Nienaber Thanks. I've been psyched to make some progress on the cutback. It's the main thing that led me to look up surfskates which is how I came across OMBE.

Now that I am starting to get a little more of a twist rather than constantly leaning and digging the rail on the first part of the cutback, I'll have to start paying attention to the second part of it and rebounding off the foam.

Also trying to improve my timing on the bottom turn.