Surfing or Bodyboarding? Which to start with? (2024)

So the time has come for you to learn to surf, at last! Youhave had it on your bucket list for a number of years, you love the ocean butmay have never spent that much time in it since it is cold in the NW, you don’thave a group of friends yet who surf, and you have a little fear overall aboutlearning to surf, which to start with surfing or bodyboarding?

Well depending on how you answer these questions andpersonal considerations, I hope to help guide you towards the entry level sportthat not only will give you the most fun NOW, but also will aid you indeveloping a rich ocean knowledge and skill set for your future surfing, be itbodyboarding, riding a surfboard in waves, or both. So take a few minutes and ponderwhere you are at with these questions:

1. Howfit are you? 1 to 10 scale. Both bodyboarding and surfing wavesrequires a good fitness foundation in order to paddle or kick out, to sprint tocatch waves, and then to ride them. Bodyboarding has a much easier learningcurve than surfing and is physically less demanding, partly because you’reprone instead of required to “pop up” into your surf stance and balancestanding on a board on a moving wave. With bodyboarding, your skills are inwave judgment, positioning on the wave and the power in your kicking with swim finsbecomes the challenge to catch a wave. Surfing requires a strong sense ofbalance, a bit more courage to “pop up” than prone bodyboarding, upper bodystrength to paddle out, and a willingness to accept wipeouts repeatedly. Withbodyboarding, you don’t have as many wipeouts, because even when a wave closesout, you can still hold on and ride the white water in. If you wipeout surfing,you eventually come up and then need to find your leash and pull in your board,then get on it to paddle back out and to try it again.

• Whatis your ocean knowledge? When I started to surf, I started outbodyboarding instead of surfing because in the early 80’s when I was living onthe North Shore of Oahu attending college, there were very few women surfingand I had no real ocean knowledge having been a Pacific NW girl all my life, soIt made sense to start with bodyboarding.Had I been raised on the North Shore and been an avid, young ocean girl,then I could have see myself starting with bodyboarding and then surfing soonafter.

If you’ve had prior ocean knowledge andwave experiences from swimming, bodysurfing, kayaking, SUPing and sailing, thenfrom these experiences you have developed helpful awareness that a “newbie”just won’t have. Even if you’ve tried bodyboarding and surfing on a fewoccasions or in random vacation lessons, these ocean experiences are beneficialto your picking up skills easier in both sports.

• Howoften over the key summer months in the Pacific NW do you plan to be at thebeach, in the ocean, practicing catching and learning about waves? Herealong the North Oregon Coast, there are about three critical months to applyyourself to surfing waves, on a bodyboard or a surfboard, they are mid June tomid September. If you plan to be at the beach 3-4 times a month over the summerwindow, getting about 9-12 hours total time practicing in the waves each month,then you have a good chance you will pick up and learn the skills well enoughto not be limited to only these smaller swell periods on a surfboard. But ifyou’re more likely to be at the beach 2-4 times over the entire summer period, then it becomes much more difficult toprogress especially in surfing with a surfboard. In this scenario, you wouldprobably gain more ocean knowledge, build up your stamina, strength andconfidence and have more fun in each session, first learning to bodyboardbefore pursuing surfing.

Surfing is much more difficult for thebeginner to get to the point where you’re catching waves and noticingimprovement overall in how you’re doing with it than bodyboarding is. Withoutthe required time and practice dedicated to surfing, you will often findyourself on a plateau in your progression. You need to really dedicate time andprioritize it over the summer months here on the North Coast, if you want to beable to surf into the larger fall, winter and spring swell windows.

As I mentioned before, the learning curvefor bodyboarding is much less steep, so you can excel in bodyboarding in thesame size waves much faster and have the adrenaline high quicker with it, thanwith surfing. After my first full summer bodyboarding, I was riding biggerwaves into the fall and throughout the year. Then when I took up surfing on a board,I leap frogged over most beginners surfing skills and felt confident right offthe go on my new board, having already established ocean awareness, knowledgeof the take off zone, surf etiquette in the lineup, comfort in bigger surf and havingdeveloped physical prowess.

In sharing these insights, I hope to guideyou into the right sport for you to start surfing with. Know that I love both sports! Ibodyboarded for about 5+ years before I bought my first surfboard, a 7’10”Allen Gibbons performance fun shape, and started committing myself to surfinghere in the NW. The 5+ years of ocean and wave knowledge, confidence in biggerwaves and riptides, traveling to world class breaks to bodyboard while myhusband surfed all set me up with a deeper well to draw upon with the morechallenging sport of surfing. Surfing is my first preference, but I have tosay, I have started to rekindle my past early passion for bodyboarding. Itprovides me a different and unique perspective of wave riding. Both are ablast!

Note: NW Women’s Surf Camps is proud toannounce our commitment to both surfing and bodyboarding in our 2019 summerprogram. This summer, we’ve added an all woman Bodyboarding Day Camp to theCoed Bodyboarding Clinics we will continue from last season. Three of us bodyboarding coaches, all women,will be sharing our love and experiences in each bodyboarding event and clinic.The Day Camp is open to teen girls and adult women of all ages. The CoedClinics are open to teens and adult, women and men, girls and boys.

We also have our popular surfing Day Camps,Surf Weekender Immersions, Coed Group Surf Lessons and Lil’ Kid’s Coed GroupSurf Lessons offered starting Memorial Day Weekend. Custom surf andbodyboarding lessons can be arranged as well for your individual, family andgroup needs.