O Bagus, please be more vigilant in your policing of the Curmudgeon. he's been very feisty lately. Thanks, Chavez Y Chavez Tuco Benidicto Pacifico Juan Pablo Ramirez. Otherwise known as the rat.
I think bottom turns are overrated. I mean... it's the first turn you learn how to do. How hard can it be? Discuss...
Clemmy's wood board project made me think of those old Hot Curl shapes from the 30's so I pulled up a story from Surfer's Journal. I mean, those guys weren't turning at all because they would just slide ass until they chopped a massive V into the tail (pre-skeg). The bottom turn is the easiest, but also the most critical. How many guys eat shit while setting up a bottom turn? And, how many guys blow their next manoeuvre after improperly setting their initial bottom turn? How often has the perfect bottom turn transitioned you into perfect position for that hollow tube or that crazy launch off the lip? The bottom turn has lost its popularity over the years, but it's still the meat before the potatoes. Without it, nothing else happens.
La_P... I agree with you on all you said. The bottom turn is essential on most waves, but not all. And there's all kinds of different bottom turns depending upon where you want to put yourself, the speed and shape of the wave, the next part of your line... Bottom turns can be low and compressed, relaxed and natural, or even soul arched. They can be done off the tail, or off the rail, or somewhere in between. I guess you could say the bottom turn is the most functional of all turns... but there's no one right way to do them. Unless you use the wrong kind of bottom turn for your line.
My favorite bottom turn is when the wave is steep and has power. I like putting her on rail and laying out with my inside hand dragging when going front side. Going backside it’s all about setting up a roundhouse off the lip, so I’m going to draw that bottom turn out to get verticle as I approach the top turn and coil my body to twist back around and back down the face. Without the propere bottom turn I’m not going to be able to pull that off. The feeling of a roundhouse off the lip trumps that of the bottom turn, but one doesn’t happen without the other.
so are you saying the bottom turn is the most functional maneuver you can do ?? without it nothing else is possible ??? o dp 321
Perhaps, it’s definitely the most foundational maneuver to lead to other maneuvers, but I wouldn’t say nothing else is possible. O Bagus
love that feeling of hitting a good drop at full speed, getting low for some good compression, letting the left hand skim right over the surface then balancing that with the back foot to float back up the face with a line set, or pressing hard on the back foot to go straight back up the face that's all front-side. pretty sure my back-side bottom turn is about non-existent unless it's a good sizable day which brings me to LB's point. bottom turns can pretty much be non-existent, all depends on the volume & size you got for the day's waves and what they are. i've had some small days where i bring out the big volume and there is pretty much no need for a bottom turn, just paddle at an angle and get forward on the board fast to keep as much speed as possible also had days where it's big and either closing out or crumbly and i don't want to lose time or speed doing a bottom turn and will opt instead to take off at an angle to get a good speed burst, wait for a section then do a good top turn to go down and do a bottom turn to gain or keep speed then there are the vids you see where dudes just drop right into the barrel - perfect position and timing all depends on a lot of variables i guess.
My bottom turn is actually improving a ton. Backside. Like LB mentioned, it can be a shallow bottom turn if im setting up a roundhouse or other type of cutback. Or it can be deeper if your trying to get more vertical for a snap or something. Backside i always had some trouble with the deep bottom turns. I never got as vertical as i would like. I was at like 2 o clock instead of 12. It worked still but just wasn't right. Started looking at my surfing to see how i could improve it. I came to the conclusion that i wasn't getting as deep as i thought i was and that i wasn't getting my head and shoulders around far enough to get to 12 o clock. I'd start to turn back down the face before hitting that 12 mark. So yeah. Iv been working on that. It's coming along nicely. Thanks for asking
When I was just learning I would see still shots in the magazines of Sean Thompson, Mark Richards etc doing these deep bottom turns with their bodies nearly parallel with the water. For years I would try to replicate that turn, I could actually do it but had no idea of what happened after that. For you young guys imagine a world where you never saw moving pictures of experienced surfers other than once or twice a year when a local shop would host movie night. Since I grew up surfing Sandy Hook NJ back when you would only see surfers in the late summer when the hurricanes came there was very little to go by other than magazine stills. When we would finally get waves I would drop in on the biggest wave I could get, gather speed on the way down, go into a deep wounded gull pose, continue the arch up the face and shoot right out off the back. I thought I was so cool until I started surfing south of my home break and saw how advanced some of those kids were. Rude awakening right there.
Yea.... me too. My favorite is coming hard off the bottom and pulling up under the lip... like when you're hitting your bottom turn as soon and as hard as you can after you make the drop... just eyballing the lip section ahead the whole time... and pulling right up under it and just making it under the curtain. Not the kind of bottom turn where you go way out on the flats to sort of wait to time it pulling up under the lip... the kind where if you don't hit your turn hard as soon as you get some weight back onto the board, you'll miss the barrel. If you watch a lot of Jersey guys who are good you'll see that a lot... 'cause the waves break like that a lot. Those are the guys who make a lot of waves/barrels when a lot of other people don't... including me!
Exactly, only it doesn’t barrel here like it does there, but yeah, get into that bottom turn ASAP on those waves, seems to really project your momentum down the line beating that 1st section and putting yourself in control going into section #2.
Best advice I received on my Indo trip from a guy that surfs way better than I do...don't bottom turn.
Well, he probably was unable to do one himself. A good bottom turn is essential for class and grace in larger surf. Coming off the bottom and then shooting back to the top is thing of beauty, looks and feels great - a favorite maneuver of "yours truly" In the era of longboards only they were awesome. With the short boards, most surfers cowardly take off at an angle and race for the shoulder so they can"air" (go kiteboarding, morons!). Well executed bottom turns can be done with any board size, but are best (IMHO) with mid-size boards. Each and every great surfer was perfectly adept to executing deep, slicing, practical bottom turns in waves of note. And they were always photographed doing so at the bottom of larger waves;nowadays, mags photos are of some moron up in the air, the wave isn't even part of the photo. Surfers are true morons (that will be my gravestone epitaph......)
On those big perfect days when your sitting on the outside and finally talk yourself into paddling into a bomb, do a late sketchy drop hanging on for dear life, get to the bottom, lean in, send up the rooster tail, straighten out and see that big, beautiful wave face and all those endless possibilities open to you I like big bottom... turns
