Top tips from our Wales bodyboarding coaching weekend that you can apply to help you improve your riding!
On September 20/21 The crew from the Bodyboard-Depot shipped over the border to Wales to hold our annual bodyboard coaching weekend in Wales. We used a combination of knowledge, research and discovery to score some epic waves for the crew on the course.
What is a good bodyboarding wave?
The crew bodyboarded at Llangennith and on Saturday and were greeted by knee to waist high, wind ravaged ‘thigh slapper waves’. Not great! But the gang toughed it out and made really good use of the conditions to fine tune rolls, spins and trim style. Getting speed in small waves is hard, but once you get it right it means that when you have bigger waves you can easily plug in to the power. Small waves can be really, really good for practicing as you catch about 3 times the amount of waves than you do when the swell is bigger.
Waves that are good for bodyboarding can be described by these terms:
- Wedging waves. A combination of an incoming wave and a cross wave that connect to produce a wave with twice the power of a normal wave. This supplies the bodyboarder with twice the speed.
- Clean waves that are groomed by an offshore breeze.
- Waves that break in shallow water. So shore breaking waves, waves that break on a defined sandbar or reef break waves offer the best ‘push’ and make bodyboarding easier.
- To practice open face moves you need a ‘running wall’. To practice lip moves it’s better to have a wave that closes out quickly.
- Waves that barrel or tube are by far the best for bodyboarding and the type of wave that a bodyboard performs best on.
How do you find good bodyboarding waves?
Well it isn’t by chance. You can massively improve your chances with some detailed research. It wasn’t due to total luck that we scored sunny weather, offshore wind and a groomed ground swell for the second day of the coaching weekend. Late September is the BEST time of the year to be a bodyboarder in the UK as that is when we get the most abundant offshore winds, groundswell and sun combo. When you get these conditions, it’s important to find the best beach to shape these swells though, so we headed to a little known spot that really served up the goods. Wedging lefts and rights, tube rides, bowls, walls for cutback practice and some awesome ramps. Did I mention that the water was warmer than it was in Portugal for our coaching holiday the week before?! I hate to gloat, but the crew scored big. Research, planning, local knowledge and just a little sprinkling of welsh good fortune certainly helps.
Why are good bodyboarding waves important?
The wedging waves that we rode during the Welsh coaching weekend enabled the riders to have speed on tap. That’s the key to good riding, SPEED. When you can harness that speed and control your board while flying down an uber steep wedge peak you will find every move easier. Every lip that you hit, you will be more likely to launch off it. Every cutback that you nail will have buckets more spray. When the waves are tubing then the lines that you choose on the wave can become way more adventurous as well. You can stall for the tube, or lunge down the line to hit the pitching end section. The speed that the waves deliver will increase the adrenaline buzz. The sensation of being close to the water as you ‘fizz’ along a wave at speed will long stay in the memory.
Another awesome bodyboard coaching weekend. It was great to catch up with some of the Welsh Bodyboard Club members. With a Saturday evening Bar B Q held at the base of some sand dunes amidst some of the most beautiful countryside in the UK, with the back drop of an awesome sunset — it was a corker.
The Welsh crew, and also the guys and girls that travelled from all over the country and the local riders all caught up on bodyboarding gossip and shared a tale or two about weekends in Newquay!
Finally, a big thank you to our awesome photographer Aaron Parsons for capturing beautiful sun-soaked Wales and all our superb bodyboarders. www.aaronparsons.co.uk
