About the board hitting you thing...I've learnt (From being hit a lot) that you get hit a lot less and cop a much weaker flogging if to stay in the barrell as long as you can....
Just fight it Fight it and fight it and try to stay in there on your feet even when its hopeless (And huge/dry/rocky whatever). Eventually the foam ball will twist you off. If you've gotta fall, always fall toward toward the way out and try to penetrate hands first to protect your head , even if there less water than rock and always fall toward the front of the board.
Falling behind the board into the wave face or foam ball leads to you planning often into the board/ fins and or EVEN WORST up and over the falls onto the board or with it or both. Sometimes twice. Long Hold downs and big punishment.
Sometimes in really big barrels when they close out = if you just stay with them long enough and get deep enough you barely get hammered at all...you can sort of get spat out the back with all the air after it closes out. THIS IS DEFINATLY THE PLAN ON DRY CLOSEOUTS. DONT BAIL. STAY WITH IT MR X STYLE. (DID you ever see the Mr X Soul arch in the 80's straight into 15ft Pipe closeout???? SICK MAN but he knew....) Othertimes its worst. Law of averages...Most times its better to be as deep/far away from the lip as possible.
The negative to this story of fight it...fight it ...stay in the barrel is that you will break more boards. But youll also get admiring stares from people that think your a total sick mutha****er.(When your actually just going deep to save your skin).
