How the World's Best Surfers Pop Up (Slow Motion)

I can beat Kelly skater yeah I can.

I keep coming back to this video. Thanks

I rmember watching this years ago I was like THEY'RE ALL THE SAME
today I can FEEL the momentum of the wave and I can see the differences clearly
Glad to see I'm not a total kook by planting my rear foot a little sooner than my front
haha I'm old and my front foot is coming, just give it a second

Most boring 10 mins after the first 30 seconds your monotone voice left me so god damn bored and annoyed for wasting my time. Worst presenter ever...

Something else that is interesting is most of them kick there legs while paddling into the wave, ive heard mix reviews if you should kick or not

I would just follow the goat and John John ..same style

There is lots more in these videos than the popup. This video is clearly the coaches go-to. 🤙

Great video

So insightful! All looking own the line it seems

Most of them put the head a bit down before the take off to generate more speed.

key takeaway for me was they drop their heads and chest forward before popping. likely to get some more speed

My pop up is far superior than all theirs just nothing else

Great video

OK, I "learned to surf" in California in... the late 50's... on inflatable rafts. Fiberglass surfboards came later for me, in high school in about 1963. We lived inland, in SoCal, so only got to surf on about every other weekend. THIS video is showing me things I should have learned all those years ago, and with your beautiful eye for detail including video composition and all that. A brilliant presentation -- thank you!

Moving to shortboard in the last few moments and realized that longboard and shortboard are 2 different disciplines. What makes sense on longboards.. doesn’t on shortboards and viceversa.
The video is very interesting since is showing different techniques between pro surfers, some of them dropping before the back feet, others both foot same time.
My personal style is dropping before the back, sometimes it s working, however there are so many variables in a goos take off, that I consider it as an alchemy :)

Le climat part en sucette mais je fais du surfe dans une piscine à vague🤦

Thanks, would like to see slow-mo of the same surfer popping up 3 or 4 times just to see how consistent they are.

Great video. As a somewhat older surfer on the Carolina Coast with hit or miss surf it is easy to get sloppy on my pop ups. Now I can get off the couch and practice with the pros so I can be ready for the next swell.

Great video, note no one looks down, eyes looking where they want to go 👍

This is totally essential viewing

Next how to snap carve tailslide anymore slow motion

The ocean's too polluted and privately owned so, yeah, make a mockup in the desert you know? Why not?

This is precious archives

Dude!
This is such an amazing video!

Great video, thank you! I have always regretted that they don't show the take-off in surf movies or events, because I find it the most critical part of surfing, especially in the beginner to intermediate range. I lived in Manhattan Beach (LA county) for three years in the early 2000s and used to surf the beach break over there pretty much every weekend. Later I moved to Southern Bavaria and got into mountaineering, which is great, but I have to say even a ski ride in the best champagne powder doesn't come close to surfing a good uncrowded wave.

One aspect in the take-off I have never figured out is the difference in difficulty between a frontside and a backside take-off. Manhattan beach is a fast breaking beach break, so I had to angle a lot and get out of there as quickly as possible. I always found it so much easier to take off on the frontside than on the backside and even though surfing is obviously an asymetric sport I never understood why that is. I thought the movement pattern should be exactly the same, no matter if you take off on your frontside or backside. Watching this video I think I found the answer: It seems to be due to weight distribution. When I as a goofy foot turn left on a wave, which is my frontside, I kind of lean to the left already in the take-off process. That creates a lot of room under my torso for my front foot, which is my right foot, to land on the board. On the other hand, when I turn right on a wave, which is my backside, I lean to the right and my back foot, which is still my right foot, has very little room under my torso to land on the board.

I think even with the pros in this video you can see that the backside take-off is harder for them than the front side. Don't get me wrong, it still looks very smooth, but you can tell that it requires more mobility of your legs when your torso is bent forward. So now that I seem to understand the reason for my poor backside take-offs, I still have no remedy I could use for my trip to Portugal that I have planned. Perhaps all I can do is practice take-offs in my living room and try to work on the mobility of my right leg...

I've been looking for a video dedicated to just this. I noticed none of these pros grab the rail while popping up. I've got some adjustments to make. Thanks for the vid🤙🏽

: )

Learning to surf in the mid-90s, it was always frustrating that all the videos I seemed to watch pretty much only ever showed the surfer riding the wave. I remember finally getting my hands on one video (perhaps Litmus or Morning of the Earth) that showed some pop-ups which I was able to slo-mo and really understand the mechanics of it. All of this is a long way of saying great vid and wish this had been around when I was trying to figure the pop-up out (can still learn something now of course).

U should do a video of takeoffs of pros on very heavy surf cus on heavy surf pop ups are a lot harder and need to be quicker and also have a high chance of nosediving, or going over the falls.

I’m surprised that you didn’t take into consideration the proportional length of their arms. That way we could at least compare what techniques people with shorter arms use versus people with longer arms. Besides hip flexibility which would be rather similar amongst these kinds of athletes, it is arm length the biggest factor for pop up styles.

Most of the surfers back foot hit deck b4 the front is what i saw....which makes sense as front foot has farther to travel

Such a great video, just learned so much about what I do wrong

This is interesting because I remember my surfing instructor said you always have to paddle perpendicular to the wave. While looking in these guys, they all point they're board in the direction they're going.

heck yeah man!!!! I love this! and totally agree! this is the most interesting and important part! positioning and taking off and generating speed as you do it. sooo key. with out this move you can not do much else. I love this video.

A tip if you have shoulder pain is to keep your elbows in (touching your sides) when popping up and duck diving.

Great descriptions

Great video, thank you!

this is such a gem of a video ... thank you for the footage ... I refer back to this video so often.
something I've personally been working on in my own surfing - and it's so beautiful to see it here in slow-mo - is the actual setup to their takeoff.
before they even bring their feet under them, the projection (many use a subtle shift with their head), then setting their line ... this makes such a huge difference.
the other thing I notice is that there's so much variance which goes to show that there are actually a lot of functional ways to get to your feet ... also that adjustments are important.
great video - thanks again!

As a coach, glad to see I haven't been teaching bullshit for the last 40 years 😎

pop up 5x every hour... set your phone timer...becomes natural

Blah de blah de blah de blah ....
Who cares?

They do something that I find very difficult and I am working on this. When their front foot touch the board just the tip of their fingers are in contact with the board. Whenever I try to do the same my hands stay fully planted on the board when my front foot touch the board.

Keep finding myself coming back to this video - always learn something new. Thanks so much for posting.

A good paddle in and pop- up would most of the times determined how good the rides.

Just want to mention, watch as almost every surfer here drops their head at the same time they start to plane on the wave, and they keep their upper bodies over the nose as they get to their feet. For years I would bring my upper body back while dropping in, pulling myself out of the wave. These two techniques put you into the face. Pearling is what teaches you the aforementioned bad technique.

👍

Could you do one where you do slow motion manouvers? Like Off the top, cutbacks snaps etc..?