Definitely agree. taught myself to surf back in 2014 (I was 24, 5’8” 130lbs and clueless) watching those “how to” videos on surfline. Never even thought about surfing before because I watched a movie called “deep blue sea” (spoiler alert) when I was young and got traumatized when Samuel L Jackson got eaten. also thought surfing was for rich people. I skated a little before but mostly just as a cruiser. Walked into a rip curl store one day before I had to go to court to pay for a ticket i got for riding my bicycle past a red light(had saved up $1400 trimming the reefer). felt up a brand new CI #4 5’6” groveler dims and just remember the board feeling so sexy and smooth in my little asian hands even though I knew nothing about surfboards and surfing. Went to court and learned I had to pay $1000 for the bicycle ticket but the ganja made me say “fk it”. Didn’t pay the ticket and went back to ripcurl and bought the 5’6” #4 and a wetsuit when I knew nothing about surfing. First video I watched was “how to paddle like world champ Kelly slater”. Went surfing almost everyday (no car so I rode the metro bus with my surfboard at 5am everyday) and only surfed short boards (used to call longboarding “long boring”) for the first 2 years. (5’6 #4, 5’5 weirdoripper, 5’4 hypto, 5’3 couch potato, 5’0 tomo vanguard) started to diversify the quiver and added a 7’0 roundnose pintail single fin to the mix and learned that there’s tons to learn from each shape. Next board was a 90s 9’2” DT model T handshape with a glassed on fin (got lucky) and then a 5’2” CC fish shaped for rob machado. Learned how to bottom turn on a thruster, pump on a quad, manage speed on a twin, stay in the pocket on a single fin, and feet adjustment on a log. carver skateboards helped a lot too. not trying to brag cause I still consider myself a kook but, after 2 years people told me they thought i had been surfing all my life and these days I’ve been told I surf like Gerry Lopez, David nuuhiwa, Craig Anderson, or rob machado. Even had a lady trying to interview my self-conscious azz saying im going to be a legend
I just tell people I smoke tons of weed and just try to hold on and enjoy the ride. I still kook it up and learn something new every time I try a new shape. scored on a 6’10 CC flat tracker2.0 and learned to really drive off the rail. trying all those different shapes smoothed out my style. I see a lot of people making wrong board choices. Seems very misguided. Just my honest opinion but when people say “you need a bigger board”, I think it means a bigger board as in a longboard or a midlength that’s sized for someone your size. Not a 6’8” shortboard shaped for Andre the giant ripper. hard to feel the full potential of the board when it’s oversized. Sorry for the life story but i tried to keep it short.