Fix your pop-up. Read the wave. Surf more waves.
Upload a clip from the beach and get your pop-up timed, your stance measured, and an honest read of your wave choice.
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What the coach measures
Chest-down to feet-planted in one motion. Under a second is the standard - hesitation is what buries noses.
One continuous rise, no pause in the middle. A stall mid-pop-up usually means the knees touched down - the classic habit to break.
Shoulder-width or a touch wider. Too narrow tips over; too wide can't move.
Bent knees, not a full squat. The number shown is the inside angle of your knee - 180 is standing straight; the target window is roughly 115-150, which is about 30-65 degrees of bend. Your legs are the suspension; locked knees transmit every bump.
Hip position in the image: 0 = back ankle, 0.5 = halfway, 1 = front ankle. This does not measure weight or pressure on either foot.
A slight forward hinge from the hips, chest over the board - not bolt upright, not folded over.
A category the clip can't show clearly comes back blank rather than guessed.
The report, start to finish
Explore it: this is the layout you get. The numbers below are a worked example, not a recording of someone's clip.
Practice you can choose
Without a board or entering the water, rehearse the chicken-wing method you were taught at a pace you can control.
How to film it
- ✓ Film LANDSCAPE from the beach, zoomed as far as your phone allows - the surfer should stand about a fifth of the frame tall, head to feet. Below about 8% of the frame height the clip is usually rejected
- ✓ Keep the surfer AND the wave face in frame
- ✓ Panning to follow the surfer is fine for the pop-up and the ride - but the weight-split and knee-bend reads need a fixed camera, and under a pan we can't measure which foot is forward, so anything that depends on regular vs goofy is left unscored
- ✓ Start before the paddle, stop after the ride (or the wipeout - we're kind about those)
- ✓ One wave per clip works best
- ✓ Normal frame rate at normal playback speed - no slow-motion export. We read the pop-up at 30 frames a second, so 60fps adds nothing, and a slowed-down clip reads as a slow pop-up
Fix your surfing
- Back Foot Placement: the Inch That Changes Your Surfing
- More Waves Per Hour: the Math of Improving Fast
- Standing Up, Then Falling Instantly? Fix the Landing
- Your First Green Wave: When and How to Make the Jump
- Hesitation at Takeoff: Surfing's Most Expensive Habit
- Wave Selection for Beginners: Catch Waves You Can Make
- How to Pump for Speed: Compress, Extend, Repeat
- How to Spot a Closeout Before You Waste the Paddle
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