Perfect Your Pop Up: The Complete Pop Up Guide For Beginner & Intermediate Surfers

What Is The Pop Up?

In surfing the pop-up is a magical moment that is the gateway between paddling and surfing. It is the moment when your hopes, dreams and desires move from potential to reality. Because of the critical nature of the pop-up, it is important that you get it right, as early as possible in your surfing journey. From technique to timing, I want to help you perfect this simple but pivotal movement to make sure we realize your potential.

Like all elements of your surfing, your pop-up will move through a progression from slow, terrible and almost useless to fast, balanced and powerful. Let’s do what we need to, to speed up that progression and remove this constraint from your surfing.

When to perform the pop-up

The ideal time to perform your pop-up depends on several factors such as the size and steepness of the wave, your position relative to the peak, how fast moving the wave is, and the type of board you are riding.

If you are a beginner who is still riding white-water, the timing for your pop-up matters less than if you are paddling into green waves. So, the questions of “when” to perform a pop-up only enters the equation once you have moved beyond the white-water surfer stage. If that’s you, read on. If you’re a white-water warrior, jump down to the ‘Pop-Up for Beginners’ section.

Slopey, crumbly or fat waves. The timing for your pop-up is the same for most waves, except for fast-moving, steep waves, which we will get to in a second. For the majority of waves, there is a sequence of events that occurs leading up to the pop-up.

Once you identify your wave and move into the correct position to paddle in, you will do some very hard paddle strokes to accelerate up and create enough planing momentum to allow the energy of the wave to pick you up. As you feel the wave pick up the tail of your board, bring your chin down to weight the nose and continue with 2-4 more paddle strokes. You will feel yourself picked up by the wave as it begins to increase your speed. As you feel that, place your hands under your chest (not your shoulders) and push your chest up off the board with more of your body weight on the side that you will be surfing to, this will help you move in the direction the wave will be running and makes surfing the face of the wave much easier. As you take an oblique line (diagonal to the face of the wave so you are going across the wave), you are ready to pop-up. Do not allow yourself to drop into the wave while you are still lying down, if you do you will reach the bottom of the face of the wave before you are able to pop-up and subsequently lose your speed. That will result in riding the water-water instead of the green face of the wave. You are better than that, be better than that.

Steep, fast waves. The timing for your pop-up on a steeper or faster wave becomes more critical and more tricky.

Identify your wave and move into the correct position to paddle in. As in the other example, start to paddle deep and hard to pick up speed as the wave approaches. As the wave picks up your tail, get your chin down and give it 2 hard paddle strokes. With steeper, faster moving waves, you won’t have as much time to lift your chest and take an angle, it’s all going to happen too fast. As you tip into the wave (that moment when it begins to pick up your tail and point you down the wave), you need to begin your pop-up almost immediately and simultaneously take an angle to engage the inside rail of your board in the face of the wave (if you’re going right, that’s the right side rail, if left, the left-side rail). As the wave pitches, you’ll notice that the water falls away from under the nose of your board. If you are too slow with your pop-up 1 of 2 things will happen: 1 – you will nosedive and go over the handlebars for a spectacular wipeout or 2 – you will shift your weight back and drop into the wave still riding on your belly. Once this has happened, you have missed your opportunity to pop-up and ride the wave and you’ll either have to bail, belly ride, or surf the white-water. Because of the compressed timeline, pop-ups on steep waves are more difficult; they are also more intimidating because the steepness of the drop-in is very evident. You need to keep your eyes up and looking down the line you plan to take. If you fall into the trap of looking at the nose of your board, you will almost always bog the nose and go over the handlebars for another spectacular wipeout.

How to pop-up for beginners

When you are at the very beginner stage (also known as our white-water warriors), it is ok if your pop-up is performed in stages because you have enough time. As you paddle into your chosen wave and you feel the energy of the wave pick you up and push you forward, that is your trigger to begin the pop-up.

Begin by placing your hands under your chest (not your shoulders) and push your chest up off the board in a cobra like pose. Then bend the knee of your rear leg out to the side and place the inside surface of your foot in the middle of the board near the tail. Lift your hips so you are up on 2 hands and one foot and bring your lead leg through to place in between your hands. As your lead foot lands on the board, lift your hands but do not stand up straight. Stand up into a crouched athletic posture with your hips and chest facing forward and your hands on either side of your lead knee. Establish your balance and surf that white-water like the warrior you are.

How to pop-up as you progress

As you progress in skill and wave complexity, the 3 stages of the pop-up blend into 1 fluid process. But the order of the process remains the same. Place your hands under your chest (not your shoulders) and push your chest up off the board in a cobra position as you take an angle to the left or right depending on the direction of the wave. Put pressure through your knees, not your feet (even if you’re on a longboard), lift your hips, and swing your leg under your hips. Place your rear foot in the middle of the tail of the board shortly followed by your lead foot in between your hands. As your lead foot touches the board, your hands should be lifting off the board. Stay low in an athletic posture with your chest and hips facing forwards and your hands on either side of your lead knee.

As you further progress and you are catching larger and steeper waves, it can help to stagger your hands in the direction you will be travelling. For example, if you are catching a wave to the right, you would place your right hand deep under your chest, with your left hand placed a couple/few inches further forward under your upper chest. This asymmetrical hand placement creates and angle for your trunk and a little more room to swing your lead leg under you.

Pop-up exercises for home

The goal for your pop-up is a fast, fluid and balanced movement that you can perform in a high stress and unstable environment. To do that effectively, you need to instill the motor patterns over time until the process becomes an automatic one.

Because the goal is a fast and fluid pop-up, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking they should practice quick pop-ups. But that isn’t going to be the most effective practice. The key to an effective pop-up is clean technique and adequate strength, flexibility, and stability.

Therefore, it is more beneficial to practice the pop-up at home in a very slow, precise manner. To do that, you’re actually going to leave your board sitting on the rack. Find a section of floor that is large enough for you to lie down. Ideally, you want to do this on a smooth floor surface, not carpet, but you can make it work on carpet.

• Perform 2 paddle strokes with your chin close to the floor to simulate your last 2 strokes on the wave.
• Place your hands under your chest (not your shoulders) and push your chest up into a cobra position.
• Bring your chest down a little as you press weight through your knees (not your toes), tuck your knees up under your hips while placing your rear foot with the toes facing out towards the rail of your board
• Continue to tuck your lead knee up under your chest, between your elbows to place your lead foot directly between your hands
• Lift your hands from the board and stay low in a balanced, athletic position with your chest and hips facing forwards and your hands on either side of your lead knee.

During this entire process, keep your eyes up and looking forward. Resist the urge to look down at your lead foot—that’s a habit will cause a lot of nose dives in the water.

Once you are balanced and mentally surfing down the line, crouch down, place your hands on either side of your lead foot and reverse the movement until you are lying down again.

Repeat the 2 strokes and pop-up again. Each repetition should take you 5-10 sec to complete. By performing the movement in a slow, controlled manner, you will identify areas of weakness, inflexibility, or instability that you need to address.

Practicing this daily for 10 minutes will help you increase your strength and stability and instill the movement pattern into your body and mind, facilitating a faster, smoother, more balanced pop-up in the water.

Happy surfing y’all

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