“A lot of people get too far on the shoulder, and you end up sinking the nose. There’s not enough leverage to really make sure that you are levitating.” Photo: @ez.rivero
Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in learning to hang five, ten, or heels from one of the world’s most stylish longboarders in 35 video lessons, check out Kassia Meador’s Definitive Guide to Longboarding 2.0 here. The Inertia readers get a 10 percent discount with code WELCOME10.
If you’re trying to figure out how to get to the nose of your board, be patient. It’s a process that you’ll refine over time. Here are a few tips that I wanted to share to make it easier for you, as they’ve proven to be tried and true for me, and I dive deeper into them in my updated longboarding course with Inspire Courses.
1. Set up your wave with a strong bottom turn heading toward the top of the face.
Ideally, you want to drop in and have an opportunity to set up that first big bottom turn and be more towards the top of the wave. You should be climbing (up the face) when you first set up your noseride and then as you’re noseriding, you’re coming down. I really like to walk to the front of the board, and I’m taking my time to get there. I’m not trying to go fast.
2. You need to be in a steep section of the wave to ride the nose.
I wait until the wave peaks up in front of me and then I start to really walk up to the nose. And from there, you go from five to 10 quite easily, because you have all that leverage, all that wave in front of you. You have steepness in the wave that allows for you to set up optimally for that noseride. That’s really important. For still noserides, you want to be in the critical part of the wave. So it’s important to be back more towards the whitewater and make sure you have a line in front of you.
A lot of people get too far on the shoulder, and you end up sinking the nose. There’s not enough leverage to really make sure that you are levitating.
Everything about noseriding relies on that first bottom turn and that first setup, so that’s number one. Number two is making sure that you have a wall in front of you. You don’t want to be in the front part of the wave and you don’t want to be too far back. It’s really the steepest part of the wave where you want to be hanging.
3. Tightly control the distribution of your weight between your front and back feet.
I also go back and forth a little bit between weight on the back leg and the front leg. And it’s like 60/40. Sometimes it’s 70,/30. It’s really just taking that time with that navigation.
It’s almost like when birds fly and their wings might be in two different directions, but their head is the same. That’s kind of what you want to do with surfing and noseriding. Your hips are like the bird’s head and your legs are those wings just adjusting. Maybe your front leg is the right wing, and your back leg is the left wing. But you want to keep your hips as that bird’s eye view and keeping that really settled.
It’s constant navigation between those variables, and quite a few others we discuss in more detail in my longboarding course. It’s like, “Okay, cool. I’m going to set up with my turn. I’m going to get to the nose. I’m going to get up there. The wave is steepening up. Now I’m going to take those couple extra steps.”
Always make sure to pay attention to what’s going on in the water. Have the best time ever, and just say hi to me in the lineup. Hopefully, I’ll see you guys out there!
Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in learning to hang five, ten, or heels from one of the world’s most stylish longboarders in 35 video lessons, check out Kassia Meador’s Definitive Guide to Longboarding 2.0 here. The Inertia readers get a 10 percent discount with code WELCOME10.
