Beginner Maneuvers for Surfers

What comes next after you've nailed your pop-up and can go across a green wave?

Backflips? Rotations? Spinny fizzers?

The short answer is none of the above (and especially not spinny fizzers... we made that up). But that's a good thing. You don't need to be launching an air reverse or getting spat out of the tube to be "surfing" for real.

There's a whole ladder of surf maneuvers between "I stood up once" and "I ripped that wave to bits" and the bottom few rungs are more fun than they get credit for.

Learn the main maneuvers and you'll go from riding waves to actually milking all the joy outta them.

Below are the main surf maneuvers worth learning, roughly in the order you'll meet them on your surfing journey, plus a quick look up the road at the advanced maneuvers waiting for you later.

What is a surf maneuver?

A surf maneuver is any deliberate move a surfer makes to control speed and direction on a wave, from basic movements like the pop-up and the bottom turn to challenging maneuvers like the tube ride or a full-rotation air. A few notes on surf maneuvers:

• Pre and beginner surf maneuvers are the foundation
• Master them and the advanced techniques later have somewhere to grow from... no shortcuts
• It also helps to understand where and how waves break. If you can anticipate a section, you can already pre-plan what you're going to do on it
• Nearly every maneuver comes down to where you put your body weight, whether your weight is over your front foot or back foot and whether you commit at the right moment
• Get those habits into your muscle memory during your first Bali trip and you'll be right as rain

Surfing pre-maneuvers

The stuff that comes before the on-face maneuvers. Just as important. You’ve got to crawl before you can walk.

The duck dive and turtle roll

Before you can ride waves, you have to get past the ones already breaking. Two moves get you through the incoming waves: the duck dive and the turtle roll.

The duck dive

For shortboards. You push the nose of the surfboard underwater with your hands, sink the tail with your back foot or knee and slip under the breaking wave as it passes. Much easier than what's about to come next but it does require some skill and practice.

The turtle roll

The beginner-friendly version for bigger boards. Grab the rails at chest height when lying prone and facing towards the oncoming wave. Roll sideways so you and the board are both inverted. Let the whitewater roll over you before flipping back over. Easier than it sounds but effective once you get the hang of it.

The pop-up and takeoff

Every maneuver is built on these pre-maneuvers, so they’re worth mentioning.

Pop-up

The pop-up is the move that gets you from lying down to a standing position in one clean push. Hands flat under your ribs, push your chest up and swing your feet under your body in a single go, landing with your knees bent and your eyes looking down the line

Takeoff

A slow, messy takeoff wrecks everything that comes after it, so drill this on the sand until it's muscle memory. Precise timing on the takeoff, catching the wave at the right moment as it lifts your board, is what turns a nosedive into a successful pop-up and ride.

Note: Most beginner surfers point straight at the beach and ride towards it like a human torpedo. Fun for a while, but a dead end. The next step is angling your take off: instead of dropping straight, you aim along the wave in the direction it's peeling. This small change lets you travel with the wave and change direction along the open face.

Trimming

Once you're catching green (unbroken) waves and standing up, trimming is the first thing that'll actually feel like surfing. If you're not sure which stage you're at yet, our surf levels guide is handy.

Trimming means finding the fast part of the wave face and riding along it, making tiny adjustments to maintain speed. You're not throwing turns yet, you're gliding and reading the wave. The trick is all in your feet:

• Weight on your back foot is your brake. It slows you down
• Weight on your front foot is your gas. It helps you generate speed and drive down the line

Surfing maneuvers

The stuff that comes once you’re on the face of the wave. The fun, showy and highly satisfying stuff, to be exact.

The bottom turn

If you only master one move, make it the bottom turn.

The bottom turn is the turn you make at the base of the wave, right after you take off and drop down the face. 

It doesn't look flashy, but many surfers and coaches call it the single most important maneuver in surfing, because it sets up everything else.

• As you drop, you build speed heading toward the bottom
• The bottom turn redirects all that speed back along the wave so you fly out with momentum instead of losing speed at the bottom
• Vertical drop in, horizontal speed out

To do it: as you reach the bottom, bend your knees, load your weight through your back leg, keep some drive in your front leg, press on your inside rail and look where you want to go. The board follows your eyes and your rail.

The floater

One of the most underappreciated but satisfying maneuvers!

A floater is when you direct your board to the lip or whitewash breaking in a section in front of you and glide (or float) over the top of it.

It's kinda like grinding the coping in skateboard parlance. The surfing equivalent of hitting a rail in snowboarding, if you will. 

When done correctly, it'll boost you into the next section. When done poorly, it'll chuck you off the back of the wave or catapult you into the flats. Aim for the former.

The cutback/roundhouse cutback

This is usually the first turn that makes people feel like a proper ripper!

Sometimes you build too much speed and race out ahead onto the flat shoulder, the dead part of the wave with no push left. A cutback is the turn that swings you back toward the breaking section, the pocket where all the energy lives, so you don't waste the ride.

Lean into a smooth arc, bring the board around and reconnect with the power by hitting the lip or the whitewash in the breaking part of the wave.

Pretty straightforward in theory, but cutbacks (or cutties) are deceptively hard to master. 

You're essentially performing a couple of maneuvers in one: the turn on the face and the rebound off the lip or whitewash. As such, it's difficult to make it look smooth.

More advanced maneuvers

Seen a cool Instagram reel with a surfer smacking the lip, boosting off the end section or getting shacked over a shallow reef? Here's a quick map of the challenging maneuvers that advanced surfers spend years chasing:

• Carve: Burying the rail to change direction in one powerful, drawn-out arc
• Snap: A sharp, radical change of direction off the top that throws those flashy buckets of spray
• Off-the-lip: A vertical hit where you drive off the wave's lip on a steep slope and bust the fins out of the wave

• Tube ride: The ultimate surfing maneuver. It involves riding inside the hollow part of the wave, fully covered by the lip. It's the greatest, most critical section a surfer can ride
• Airs and rotations: The surfer spins and flips above the wave's surface. This family includes the air reverse, plus expert-only moves like the rodeo flip, the kerrupt flip and the flynnstone flip... each a different flavour of full rotation with a grab

FAQs

Q. What is the first surf maneuver a beginner should learn?

After a solid pop-up and takeoff, focus on trimming (riding along the wave face with speed) and then the bottom turn. The bottom turn is the foundation every other maneuver is built on

Q. What are the main surf maneuvers in order of difficulty?

Roughly: pop-up, trimming, angling the takeoff, bottom turn, cutback and roundhouse cutback, carving turns, snap and off-the-lip. Then, advanced maneuvers like the tube ride and airs such as the air reverse, rodeo flip, kerrupt flip and flynnstone flip.

Q. How long until I can do turns on a wave?

If you're surfing regularly and catching green waves, basic trimming and changing direction come within a few sessions. A rough bottom turn and cutback follow over a few weeks to a few weeks. Consistency beats raw talent every time.

Q. Do I need small waves or big waves to practise?

Small, clean waves are perfect for learning most beginner surf maneuvers because they give you time and forgiveness while you build muscle memory. Save the bigger, more challenging waves for once your basic movements are dialled.

Q. Will surf lessons actually speed this up?

Massively. Good surf lessons fix the one small thing holding you back and turn guesswork into precise timing and clean technique, which is exactly what a surf camp is built for.

Ready to level up your surfing in Bali?

Nothing fast-tracks this like daily surf lessons on quality waves with a coach watching your every move. And surprise, surprise... that's what we're all about. Learn the fundamentals with us and take your surfing to the next level in Indonesia.