Oreo Biscuits and Surfboards, how to effortlessly catch waves
Implement this one tiny change into your surfing. The oreo biscuit method and how it can help you catch more waves easily.
The humble Oreo Biscuit can teach you how to effortlessly catch waves. Here at Ombe, we're all about that high performance gear...
Most surfers paddle into waves wrong, chin down, paddle hard, push the nose rocker down and hope gravity gives you a bit of speed to get up. If I said this was fundamentally wrong, would you say I'm mad and close this?
Let me explain.
What you need to know first
Firstly, we need to understand the power zones of the wave, where we can draw energy from the wave to generate speed. We have water moving up the wave as it hits the sand bar creating lift and at the top we have water being thrown back down from gravity, allowing us to create speed.
As a surfer, we want to tap into water that is moving up to create lift.
To do this, we need to tap into the bottom part of the wave. But how do we do this as we are paddling in to a wave? Simple, we lean on the back of the board and arching our backs. This puts pressure on the back half of the board which now opposes the water coming up the wave and this creates the lift.
Look at the oreo biscuit below as it's squeezed. By applying the weight at the back of the biscuit, all of the water is forced out the front and creates lift to the top biscuit. This is the same principle we are applying here.
So what do you think happens if we push the oreo biscuit from the front? All of the energy coming up the wave will pass us.
Putting it into effect
We've done a simple analysis of this effect with a board, small wave and weight thats on the back or the front. See if you can see the difference in effect.
What does it look like in reality?
Watch the comparison below between a learner and Clayton. Notice how little effort Clayton uses to catch the wave. Where as the learner is gung ho, head down, paddle hard but ultimately comes off.
How can you practice this?
There's two ways for you to practice. Obviously in the water, get out there, get wet and try it. Start just by doing what Clayton is doing, not even getting to his feet to feel the energy of the wave, understand that feeling. Long term, bring this into your land based training drills with your pop up. As you start to pop up, push up exactly as clayton does here before you move your feet.
