Hey, I thought I’d post here about my recent trip to Sri Lanka. First off, I loved it. I met some great people and scored some great waves.

Normally, I spend most of my time surfing in wave pools in Bristol, in the UK, so what I found really hard was actually the line-up in the ocean — and most of that difficulty was just in my head. My mind was getting in the way.

To explain this better: I was surfing the best point break in Sri Lanka, and because of that, the line-up was rammed — maybe 50 people in the water, all sorts of abilities, people dropping in all over the place — but very long rides.

For the first session, I kind of just sat on the shoulder a bit and watched. I could see who was getting the most waves and where the take-off point was. It was a fairly small area, but I just didn’t have the confidence to sit there. I was so bothered about the people around me, and whether I was even good enough to be in that spot.

Anyway, even after knowing all this and having a good talk with myself in my room the next day, I still couldn’t find the confidence to sit in the right place in the line-up — even though I knew what I should be doing. At that point, I was catching about one wave per hour!

It was only when I found the ‘Surf Psychology’ course on the OMBE app that I was able to reframe what was going on in my mind. The next day, I sat in the take-off zone and caught a load of waves. I just had to get my mind out of the way.

Below is a clip of my surfing in Sri Lanka. It’s not my best surfing, and there’s plenty wrong with my technique on this wave — but that’s not really the point of this post. It’s more about understanding that sometimes, it’s what’s going on in your mind that matters more than how your body moves

Hey just a quick question. I’ve been surfing the advanced wave at the wave pool and I’m fairly comfortable on this setting. Recently I’ve started surfing the advanced plus setting (a bigger more powerful wave). I make the take off on this wave about 50% of the time and I’m trying to work out what I’m doing wrong. The times I mess this up even though I’m angling the board I tend to nose dive. I’ve tried a few things to try and make this better. First I changed board moving to more of a high performance short board with a bit more rocker as I thought maybe the board wasn’t fitting into the wave. Now I’m thinking perhaps I should experiment with the take off angle. Looking at some footage it looks like I drop in to the bottom of the wave and bottom turn. Perhaps I need to angle the board more, stay higher on the wave, pop up, then ride down the face and bottom turn? Anyone have any thoughts?

Same question here, too compressed, should I be extending now?

Hi everyone, do you think I’m compressed to much here or just right?

Hey Guys,

Thought I would post some content from the wave pool. I remember when I did this bottom turn, I felt on the edge of losing control of it. Very close to falling off. But after looking at the photo after the session I realised its probably the best bottom turn I’ve done. So I suppose it is about getting that balance right between what is a comfortable in terms of control, so you can try something new until that becomes comfortable. Have said that I haven’t managed to replicate this turn again! Well not yet anyway 🤣