How to Change Positions on a Surfboard

Video Transcript

MIKE JONES: Hi, I'm Mike Jones from AZ-HI-AZ-I-AM and I'm here to teach you how to change positions on a surfboard. Positioning is everything on the board. Guys, you know, aside from what board you're riding, where you put your feet on the board is very important. In surfing, we call them sweet spots on the board. We don't have bindings where our feet are stuck in. We are able to move our board--our feet around on the board and find that sweet spot ourselves. It's pretty much individually based. It's all about you taking a few waves and finding that sweet spot for that particular board. And basically, the positioning thing, you're going to have your feet, you want to stand like this, you're not standing like this on the board or you're going to figure out which way you like to stand up. Either--the way I stand up, left forward is called regular foot and some people stand up right foot forward and that's called goofy foot. Basically, like a little shuffle you do, you know? You kind of shuffle up an inch, back an inch, you could be pumping down the line, and if you're going to do a turn, a lot of times, like you just set back on the board a little bit, get back to the tail, so you got a better pivot, and then just use that pivot to your advantage, and you're going to get a lot more drive. If you're up on a board, you're not going to be getting that same pivotal access on the tail that you would if your feet were back. So basically, little teeny position changes up and down the board. You're not necessarily going from side to side, like I'm not moving back or like this. It's all just these little micro adjustments.