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.

Graham Marsden If you look at the intro video to the bottom turn course, the turn that Clay does around the 30:35  mark is closer to what I was actually trying to do.  I projected so far onto the shoulder that all my turns became more of a cutback than a carving turn.

I think part of the issue with my bottom turn is that I start opening my right arm/shoulder before I even travel up the wave.  I get to the top of the wave with my upper body pre-twisted.  I think this stalls the top turn, and forces me to fight through my upper body wanting to counter rotate instead of moving in the same direction as my board. 

Some of my attempts were better than others, but you can really see the way my I open up my right arm too soon in this gif.  I am guessing that may also contribute to being back foot heavy.

What do you think?

Thanks, yeah that screen shot is what I was looking at as well.

Graham Marsden yeah I noticed in most of the clips from the session I wasn't looking back at the foam. Had a little better luck the next session. I really like the Flow State camera system. It shows two different angles of every wave. Plenty of footage to analyze and/or agonize over.

Emily Brooks Thanks! First time at a wave pool like this. Great place to practice. I am getting more consistent with getting the board to turn back to the foam, but I see my biggest issue might be the lack of a proper bottom turn to setup the cutback.

Hoping to work on that next session. I always release my trailing arm behind me while still going down the wave and I think I extend too soon when at the bottom of the wave. I think that throws off the timing of the top turn portion of the cutback.

Jason Daliessio Nice, I'm in NJ.

I'll give my thoughts about it after the sessions and hopefully have some video to post.

I'm mainly hoping to work on improving my front side carving turns/cutbacks.

I think you're trying to do too much with your arms for a ramp that size. There's not enough time to throw your arms straight over your head and then get them back into a good position for the turn. You end up turning with your arms over your head which is probably making it more difficult than it should be, and doesn't really allow you to work on dipping your head.

I get the gist of what you're going for, but I don't think it's the right ramp for it.

Would be curious to see you try a backside run on this ramp where you keep your arms below your head and just focus on the top turn once you've built up some speed. You're already pumping down the ramp which should give you plenty of speed, no need for big sweeping arm movements going up the other side.