Navigating Your Board    Duckdiving    Practising on the beach    First Tube
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		a. duck diving caption.     Photo:				tip text.
				WRONG HEADER!! It means you won’t have to time lulls or only surf pointbreaks for the rest of your life. It means more waves and the more waves you catch, the more you improve. When you’re first starting out, duckdiving is a major catch-22. See, you want to stand up as quickly as possible, so you buy a big, steady board. Thing is, you can’t get that thing under the water to duckdive. Here’s some techniques that will sort you out. What is a duckdive? It’s the motion of paddling toward a broken wave or a wave about to break, sinking your board and body when the wave approaches, letting it pass over you and coming out unscathed on the other side. Well, in a perfect world anyway. The best way to duckdive a wave is to paddle hard toward it. This will give you momentum to penetrate. When it’s almost on you, grip your rails and do a push-up, just as you practised when you were learning to stand up (page 28), except this time you’re trying to push your board into the water. advertisement advertisement Your legs play a massive role in the duckdive. If the oncoming wave isn’t too heavy, just do a shallow duckdive by pushing one knee into the deck and straightening the other leg out. Try not to press too hard with your knee because you’ll dent your board. For deep, critical duckdives, use your foot, like I do in the sequence here. Arch your foot forward, put your toes on the tail and push it down once you’ve got the nose as deep as it will go. The idea is for your board to be level when the wave passes over you. When you duckdive bigger waves, resist the urge to let go of your board. Your instinct will tell you it’s unsafe to be tossed about underwater with it near you, but the truth is that you’re safer hanging on. When the turbulence subsides, that board is going to shoot you to the surface. Without it, you’re sinking. Even if you think you’re upside down, don’t panic. Gravity will sort things out real quick. After a few heavy duckdives your shoulders and arms will get stronger, and you’ll learn to maneuver through the turbulence, back to the surface and the sweet air. You’ll also be still on your board, ready to paddle for the wave behind while the gibbons who bailed are still frothing about in the impact zone. Sometimes the wave will be too big for your duckdiving skills, and you’ll wanna jump off and swim deep instead. Cool. But look behind you first. If the wave has snuck up on you, there’s a chance it has also snuck up on those around you. If someone is caught behind you, you must hang on. Let go of your board and it’s going to hit him. You might even get entangled in each other’s leashes. Bailing when someone is behind you is dangerous. Never, ever do it. Hang on, and the guy behind will respect you for it. When you’re learning to duckdive, approach the wave straight on. You’ll see other surfers paddling sideways and duckdiving, but don’t do it yourself until you’ve got the hang of it. A clean duckdive through an unbroken wave can be an awesome experience, especially if the wave is really sucky. Look up just before you penetrate and watch the lip throw out across the sky – it’s beautiful. And finally, the eternal question. Should you open your eyes down there? This is a weird one. People have told me that looking around underwater chills you out. Maybe, maybe not. But if you’re at a sandy beachbreak. Keep ’em closed. That sand hurts! I only open them when it’s heavy, like in Hawaii or Tahiti. It’s so much easier when the water’s clean, clear and warm.
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