Graham Marsden Been focusing on getting my front arm out of the way on frontside top turns. I've read your "put your elbow in your back pocket" comment enough times that it's finally starting to carry over into the water.

I think I still need to open that shoulder sooner, but at least my arms were both pointing in the direction I wanted them to go.

Well as usual it felt better than it looked, but I'm happy anytime I don't dig the rail on the top turn.  I can see I am still releasing out of the bottom turn too early and I didn't follow through with my back arm on the top turn, but glad the board got directed back to the foam anyway.

My main take away from this footage is my positioning at the take off.  I should have been closer to the peak right? There's a jetty offscreen that I was anxious about getting too close to, but it looks like I should have been further to the left of the screen at take off.

Anybody have any good tips for assisting a brand new surfer catch whitewater waves and attempt to stand for the first time?

I'll be helping my niece in a week or so.  I have a 7'6" soft tech foam board which has plenty of volume but hoping it won't be too short.

Should I try to push her into the white water waves or just help keep her in position and have her paddle into it on her own or have her paddle and give a little push if needed?

This clip is a few months old and maybe too zoomed out to see enough detail, but this type of fall at the end of the wave drives me crazy. Some variation of that fall happens about 50% of the time I go for a cutback/carve. Used to be 100% of the time, so there has definitely been some progress. What's the number one thing to focus on to prevent digging the rail and/or flopping backwards on the cutback? I can see a few things I did wrong in this attempt but what was the biggest issue?

Plenty of room for improvement in technique and video quality but over all psyched about this turn.  Probably surfing a little flat, but I was happy with the line, not digging a rail and flopping straight to my back (as has happened many times), and passing the coffee toward the foam.  Work in progress but starting to feel a lot better.

Clayton Nienaber I am starting to hit my forehand carves with more consistency and I think the biggest change has been going for the turn early in the wave... take off, bottom turn, forehand carve... versus trimming down the line building speed and trying to cut back from the shoulder of the wave.

I almost always bog the rail when initiating the cutback on the flatter shoulder, but this is much less of an issue when carving more in the pocket.

Does turning in the steeper part of the wave make it less likely to bog the rail since there is less water in the way?

These waves are about one year apart. Different wave pool settings and different loaner boards. It's not a perfect comparrison, but my top turn is starting to feel better. On the one from this year, you can see I am still having an issue with getting my shoulders to open. It literally feels like my right arm and head are blocked from rotating, but at least my back arm isn't wildly swinging in the wrong direction like the turn from the prior year. I've had turns in the ocean that felt better where I was able to clear that right arm and look back to the foam, but I don't have any video to analyze exactly what I am doing different on my better attempts.

For speed generarion, I think I need to lift my arms higher on the extension part of the pumping so that I go up the wave more rather than just across it, but any feedback on the pumping or the turn is welcome.

Anyone have experience surfing standing/flow waves, and if so, are they helpful at all for practicing turns or is it just totally different than an ocean wave?

My schedule and the waves, or lack thereof, haven't been lining up well lately, so looking for some different things to try in addition to surf skating. No proper wave pools nearby, but a couple places have flow waves.

Thanks.

John Kuras You motivated me to give the figure 8 a go. I've practiced single turns in these corners but never tried to link them. I had a bunch of failed attempts before finding a little rythm. I kept jackknifing on the front side turns in my early attempts and stalling on the backside. I found the main thing that helped was looking for the opposite wall as I went through the turn. I can see this being helpful for getting the head around on turns in the water, but I've found these sharper turns aren't necessarily realistic for where I am at in my surfing. Having corners opposite each other with a more mellow turn would probably be better. Something closer to the OMBE bowl.

Finally starting to get some consistent forehand cutbacks in the water. I wouldn't say I learned it on the surf skate first, but once I started to get the feel for it in the water I could feel how the surf skate reinforced the mechanics during the weeks between surf sessions. I have the Carver CX trucks which are fun in the bowl, but I recently picked up a Carver C7 setup which I think is more responsive and fun on flatground. I feel like the C7 allows me to replicate the twisting motion and passing the coffee it little better than the CX. Been practicing some variation of this clip lately, and it's definitely helping in the water.