Whitewater

Reading that just made my spine tingle and the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

 

I use this method if it breaks right in front of me. I just referred to it in my head as letting the lip "roll off my back" Hard to explain but basically let the lip hit me in the lower back or butt and let it push the back end of me down allowing my nose to point up and shoot me through.

I use a similar method with whitewater. I think when I was younger I would just try to go deep and stay deep and let the wave go past and then float my way to the surface. Nowadays, I go deep but make a sharp "turn" towards the surface by pushing my foot down on my tractop, allowing my board's boyancy rocket me right through the whitewater. I still get pushed back a bit since I'm coming up through the moving water but it's better than just staying deep for a longer period of time and risking getting tumbled.

 

Exactly...ever duck dived under a wave that just barreled over like 5 feet in front of you and expected to get steam rolled and instead it just let you right through?

 

i always get wrecked by white water because i can never get my board anymore than 2ft under, any tips?

 

I think going deep is all about weight distribution on the board. Like if you try to duck dive with your hands in the wrong place then you won't go as deep. I put mine a little closer to the nose if I need to go deep.

Then there's the angle of entry. You want to cut throught the water at the right angle so there's less resistence. When it comes to whitewater, and you can only get your board under 2 ft. try:

hands closer to the nose
toes of your right foot on the tail of your track top
stick your butt in the air and right as the wave's about to hit put your left leg in the air to act as the lever and give you balance.
The board should be sunk by this point and the wave is right in front of you
Put your head under water and arch your back so that the white water hits you in the butt/leg in the air area and hits the "lever"
At this time push down on the tail with your toes and pull up with your hands as you bring your body close to the board and instead of trying to stay under the whole time while the whitewater passes, try to shoot yourself through it as I posted previously.
This will take some time to get used to as it requires a lot of balance etc. but it has helped me get out in the largest of days when only a select few can make it.

Then there's the whitewater that is just going to toss you around no matter what you do.

 

ride a thinner board, do some push ups, or change the way you duckdive. i used to just go deep and im still get it half the time. push down deep with hands then use a foot or knee (i use my foot near the bottom of my tracktion pad cause i thinkn using ur knee dings the stringer on the board my friend broke his that way) to push the bottom down and make teh top shoot up forward on an angle through the back of the wave. you can try even doing it just to ge through weaker white wash instead of just diving under with out your board cause everyone hates getting hit by a stray board