Editor’s Note: This guide was created in collaboration with The Art of Surfing Academy, an online surf coaching program designed to help people break through performance plateaus and improve faster, including new content that is added monthly. Save more than 50 percent (now just $99 instead of $204) by accessing TAOS here before 9/15.
Your turning technique is one of those foundational movements from which to build your entire surf repertoire on a wave face. And like anything else in surfing, if you have poor technique, you shouldn’t count on doing much else very well.
One of the most common mistakes in the mechanics of any turn is simply not treating it as a full-body movement, understanding that momentum is created simply by turning our head (not the board under our feet) and letting that create momentum that carries us through a full swooping or snapping turn. Or as the head of the New Zealand Olympic Surf Team and Founder & Head Coach of The Art of Surfing, Matt Scorringe explains, it’s as simple as holding an imaginary set of handlebars in front of you.
Appropriately, he calls it The Handlebar Technique:
–Once your board is moving up the wave face you’ll point your front hip and leading arm toward the beach to initiate the turn.
–Reach with your trailing arm as if grabbing a handlebar in front of you. Both arms should essentially be parallel, in the same fashion of holding onto the handlebars of a bicycle.
–Let the momentum of your upper body follow those handlebars.
–Allow that same momentum to transfer down through your hips, legs, and eventually your board underneath you.
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