What’s The Best Surf Advice You’ve Ever Received?  

Surf advice can come in many forms, and its delivery methods tend to vary. 

Sometimes, you pay someone to tell you that you need to bend your knees more and select better waves. Other times, you encounter someone who has ingested a large portion of LSD and never really wandered back in a parking lot at dawn, and they happen to spout something vaguely philosophical that resonates with you. 

In either instance, the wisdom shared can be incredibly valuable. 

To illustrate this range, we polled the Stab office for the best surf advice they’ve ever received. 

Share yours in the comments. 

Garrett James

Pops instilled into me to surf without a leash as often as possible. Without the security blanket, you’ll put in more effort into pulling every maneuver and keeping your board with you so you don’t have to face the swim of shame. Instant punishment for losing your board and a nice sense of gratification if you can avoid the swim for an entire session. Obviously, this isn’t much of a cheat code to act on if you’re a beginner, hard of swimming, or if you’re at a crowded beach/lineup. But when possible, scrap the leg rope and you’ll see how much more consistent your surfing gets. Also, surf like White Lightning. 

Ethan Davis

Face where you want to go, as opposed to look where you want to go. As in if you’re trying to get to X, X should be able to see both your ears. Forces you to engage your entire torso, hips, shoulder, and neck. Looks stylish and adds power. Very evident in an Ethan Ewing roundhouse, or a Jai Glindeman fade to bottom turn. Also means you’re not constantly looking ahead, and every section gets special treatment. Cited from Matt Griggs. 

Tom Bird 

The best surf advice I’ve received was from reading that article with Gerr. Overall theme was to just enjoy being out there, pretty simple.

Taylor Paul 

It was 2012-ish and we were making a “modern power” issue at Surfing Magazine. Whatever that meant. I went to Mexico with Dane Reynolds, Taylor Knox, Noa Deane and Craig Anderson and on one of the drives from the hotel to the surf, I rode with Dane and Taylor to do an interview (mighta been the one where I forgot to press record – not sure). Anyway, we were talking about power surfing and the bottom turn came up, and Taylor said that the biggest mistake he sees people make is doing their bottom turn way out in the flats, in front of the wave. He basically said that the best bottom turns happen at the bottom 2/3’s of the wave, where you leverage the water drawing up the wave face to slingshot you toward the top of the wave, where you do your top turn. Now, there’s certainly a time and a place for delaying your bottom turn or bleeding speed, but when I remember to make my bottom turn a bit higher in the wave, I’m always baffled by how much more speed you get. #arc

Cori Stephens

My older brother was my inspiration to start surfing, and was also my teacher during those early years of learning how much seawater my nasal cavities could hold. He taught me from the ground up, beginning with core guidance in water safety (including sage advice like staying underwater for three seconds after a wipeout, and coming up with hands overhead). Close to 20 years of riding boards bigger than me, and I have yet to incur a serious injury of any kind 

*knocks on wood*

This was followed by the fundamentals of lineup, how rotation works, and – most importantly (or so I thought) – an intensive curriculum on etiquette. I was instilled with a deep belief that burning, shoulder-hopping, back-paddling and anything of the kind is not okay. And even though I have a longboard that can catch all the waves, doesn’t mean I should.

Even though these basic courtesies seem to have gone the way of the beavertail, I still believe in their validity; Not just because it’s a respectful way to exist in the water, but because when you whistle someone into a wave that you yourself could’ve easily stroked into, it breeds good will, creating a greater chance that when that next set rolls around, you’ll have one more person hooting for you to go. So, in addition to the obvious reasons for abiding by the common courtesies of the lineup (ie. not being an asshole), there’s also a self-serving aspect to such altruism. Similar to the universal law that honey attracts more flies than vinegar, a “go!” attracts more waves than a “no!”

Michael Ciaramella 

I learned this tip from Noa Deane, who said he picked it up from watching Dane. Keep your back hand down by your rail when you’re doing a frontside cutback or carve. You don’t have to grab the rail, just make sure your hand is lingering in the vicinity. Every time I do this, I have significantly more drive, control, and power in my turns. Every time I don’t do it, I look like a miniature, half-cocked version of MR.

Ashton Goggans 

“If there’s whitewater, you can hang five.” Which is to say go surfing no matter what. A ninety year old man told me that at the Cocoa Beach pier as I was scrambling to put a fin in a new longboard and couldn’t find a bolt and plate. He enlightened me that you can use a little piece of cardboard, or a square of the packaging for Sex Wax, to keep a single-fin wedged into a box. I haven’t used a fin screw ever since, and in the twenty five years since I’ve only lost two fins.

Danny Johnson 

Back in the early 2000s Mike Stewart the bodyboard king wrote a piece about duck diving in bigger surf. It’s the sort of stuff we’ve all figured out on our own to an extent but he breaks down the science of how to navigate a wave’s detonation in an interesting and useful way that it made my life better. He even mentions using this knowledge to navigate impossibly hairy situations so seamlessly that he was “feeling guilty for my lack of punishment.” 

Brendan Buckley 

When I was a teenager decimating others in the Junior Men’s [15 – 17] division on the Eastern Surfing Association’s Central New Jersey district circuit, I came across the teachings of prominent Australian surf coach Martin Dunn. This was my first exposure to the world of surf advice. I spent countless hours analyzing video (DVD players let you go 1/8 slow-mo) of my favorite surfers and tried to distill it into technical cues. I performed the drills Martin provided for free on Martin’s site. I designed strategies before paddling out in 12 minute 6-person heats. I absorbed everything I could. And, though I continued to decimate others, it became increasingly clear to me that none of that shit was working. 

Which is why I think the best surf advice I’ve ever heard was given to Erin Brooks by Nathan Fletcher at Stab High last year. Erin was struggling to land a backside air and you could tell she was getting frustrated. Nate paddled up and said something along the lines of, “Don’t try so hard. If you paddle into a wave and don’t even think about the trick, I guarantee you’ll land it first try.” It made me realize there had been a correlation between not trying too hard and getting my surfboard to behave how I’d like it to all my life. 

I don’t think it worked for Erin, at least not right then and there, which made me appreciate the advice even more. Nathan Fletcher’s wisdom works for some, Ben Dunn’s dad for others, and there is no wrong way. 

Shinya Dalby 

Mine isn’t super groundbreaking but it did change my life! Back in 2016, we did the original version of Cheat Codes on the Gold Coast while Quik Pro was in town. We got a bunch of pros to give us a how-to on various topics – and one of them was ‘how to ride a tube’. A classic. Creed McTaggart rolls in for his interview pretty loose (ready to paint the town red, presumably) and I thought he was gonna take the piss, then he sits down and said something so profound, yet so basic – he said something like “One time I got told to look up at the lip whenever I was in the tube.” That simple. We interviewed top shelf pros this day and that little advice by Creed is all I remember from it, and it is the most useful tip ever. He finished by jokingly stating “…and I’ve made every barrel since then.” And I have too.

Blake Michel

I learned this from Parker Coffin. When you’re dealing with a wet wetsuit, lay it out on the ground flat, then lay a towel on top of it and then roll the two together long ways like you’re rolling an air mattress. It squeezes the wetsuits’ water out and into the towel. 

Quinn Graham

If you can’t get your fins out, throw on some dishwashing gloves. I don’t know why this works but I’ve always been able to get a salty fin out when wearing those rubber hand shields.

Ryan McFadden

Kind of a no brainer but living in San Francisco I learned to always have a spare leash and board in the car. You never want to be that guy who breaks a board or leash 30 minutes into a sesh and it’s the only day of offshore wind of the week and you gotta drive home feeling defeated. Or just don’t bog and get caught inside a lot like I do. 

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Coral McDuffee

“Let the transients scrap, you live here, fucking go.” -Tex Mitchell