Surf Blog to Make You a Better Surfer

Getting pitched over the nose on the takeoff feels like bad luck or a wave that was too fast. It is almost never either. Pearling comes down to a small number of fixable things, and usually just one.

Across these articles I have shared the core of the ESC method: eyes, compression, and arms. These three things, done in order, separate surfers who progress from surfers who plateau.

Watch your arms during your next turn. For most surfers they are passive: they move, but they do not direct. Here is the simple idea we use to change that.

Most surfers think good surfing looks tall and upright. It does not. It looks loaded and compressed, like a spring ready to release.

In almost every surfer I coach for the first time, the eyes are too close. You look at the water in front of you instead of where you are going, and everything stays small and hesitant.

Almost everything about good surfing comes down to three things: eyes, compression, and arms. Get them in the right order and your surfing changes.