You want to do this more, right? Photo: YouTube//Screenshot
Getting barreled is the peak of the wave riding experience. The best turns, the best airs, whatever — you’d be hard pressed to find a surfer who would prefer turns or airs over tubes. Matt Bromley, a guy with plenty of barrels under his belt — many of them huge ones — isn’t a selfish guy. He wants to teach you how you can get more barreled. That’s why he’s been dropping YouTube tutorials, the most recent of which focuses on getting tubed.
First and foremost, you’ve got to get positioned right. Once you’re in the spot, you’ve got to do the most important thing: drop in.
“The take off is the most critical part of the ride,” Bromley says. “Once you’ve completed that, you know it’s game on.”
For Bromley, one of the most important things to remember once it’s game on is that you need to be going fast. Barreling waves aren’t generally barreling slowly, and you’ve got to be able to keep up with them.
“Speed in the barrel is your friend,” he explains. “As soon as you lose your speed, you get a little bit wobbly.”
It’s a fine line, though, because each wave is different. You’ll have to be adjusting constantly, putting the brakes on one second and pumping the next, but when you’re entering a barrel, you need to go fast.
“The pulling up and pulling in part, that’s on your bottom turn,” he says. “You’re going to be compressing. You’re winding up the spring and you’re going to generate speed up and into the barrel.”
As mentioned, Bromley is a good guy to listen to. He’s got hours under the hood, and his advice is sound. Want to get more tubes? Use his knowledge.
