Diving under waves?

Question

I just learnt how to surf and enjoying every minute except for when you go back out. Ive seen surfers like lean forwards on there board and sink the board and themselfs underwaves so has to avoid them can anyone tell me how to do it or what it is called thanks.

Answer 1

It's called a duck dive and can be done on shortboards or smaller funshapes.  Longboarders usually do what is called a turtle roll in larger surf that they can't paddle over.

Your best bet is to try to get over the wave but if it is about to break on you or is already broken, wait until it is about 8-10 feet in front of you, grab your side rails, extend your arms, push down with your full upper body weight, and push the nose down into the water.  Once you do this, lift one of your back legs onto the tail of your board and push down to get even deeper.  Once going under I will usually do a dolphin kick (if you're a swimmer, you know what I'm talking about) to help get a llittle more push under the wave.  You want to do this so that you have forward momentum and the combo of your board resurfacing and the wave churning you out behind it will usually pop you back out with some decent speed to continue paddling out.  Hopefully you'll only have to do this a couple times depending on how far the lineup is from where the waves start breaking.