You and i are similar, well except Im and OFB male and your the complete obvious from what i can tell, but i digress, in SUP we are similar, I started a little over 12 mths ago, and cant get enough, I never surfed, used to body surf a lot, but that didnt translate over too well.
People tell me I am going ok for someone with no skills and its just persistence, and watch and learn. i was fortunate to hang with a bunch of guys that could surf. So i watched and learnt and got little bits. It was in a number of steps over many months.
1. I found when I got into my surf stance early i was more balanced at take off and stopped walking off the back of the board.
2. Dont worry about turning it will come, like a newbie in surf school, just get on the wave and go forward
3. Not sure what you are on but being bigger i was on a 11'6 so I next learnt to creep forward and backward to go a little faster, i guess by now i was more on the face of the wave
4. And most recently i have learnt to take a BIG step back at take off and was then really able to turn the board, so now its onto coming back as the wave closes out.
But as i said i did this over many months, going out at least 1 or 2 times a week and its sort of been a steep learning curve, very flat for months and then all of a sudden 3 & 4 came together within a couple of weeks.
So after 12 mths for me surfed my first point wave down the coast with some boys and had a blast, not as fancy as those little 9' boards but did ok. And they were 4-5ft waves and didnt need to change my wettie once
So my tip forget learning to surf a board, stick to your knitting, and dont get hung up on the paddle just go with the flow
Greg
