Practice catching waves just lying down or in the 'prone' position. Stand in waist depth water, point the board to the beach and aim to go straight in from a standing start. Push off the bottom towards the beach to give you a degree of forward momentum when the wave is about a metre behind your board, this technique will start to teach you the 'timing' needed to catch a wave. This is a very important stage of your learning.

Land lying prone on your board with your toes just hanging off the tail or just touching the tail of your board. Your body should be in perfect alignment to the middle of the surfboard parallel with the rails. Your hands should be positioned under your shoulders on the rail or 'sides' of the board with your elbows facing out, lift your head up, arch your back up, and straighten your arms slightly taking some of your torso weight in your hands. Use your hands to counter balance the side to side rocking nature of the board, push your head up and back if you feel like the nose of your surfboard is likely to submerge resulting in you nose diving or pearling your surfboard. If you find that waves keep passing under you and you keep missing them try jumping on to your board into the prone position earlier in front of the broken wave. Check your foot positioning 'toes on tail, hands on rail' shift a little weight forward to accelerate and back to decelerate. Start to do some paddle strokes preferably in a front crawl motion to build up speed. Lean left to steer left and right to steer right. A good prone position allows a stable platform to then pop up or get to your feet.

Practice your prone technique and combine it with paddling for the wave rather than jumping forward and on to your board. Remember you need forward momentum for the wave to pick you up gently - speed equals stability. Lift your head up, look forward, cup your hands and reach as far forward and pull with your hands close to the board for maximum muscular efficiency, to as far back as possible. Make each stroke 'long and strong' small jerky hand dips will not generate a controlled speed build up. Keep looking over your shoulder to see where the wave is, keep body alignment, feet together and control the rest of your body from moving around which will only wobble your board. Look left and right to check if a surfer is already up and riding. If there is slide to the side and try not catch the wave as this will prevent collision and you 'dropping in' on another surfer.

For the intermediate adjust your paddling speed based on the waves shape behind you so you don't over run or under run your paddling approach resulting in a miss timed take off or a missed wave.

You will need at least 6-8 long and strong paddles to get you up to speed to catch a wave. Once the white water wave hits you a couple of double arm paddles or two alternate arm paddles will make sure you have caught the wave.

Now put your hands on the rail, remember where? Yes, on the rail under your shoulders, push down on the rail maybe shift forward to accelerate, count to 2 before driving off your hands using upper body strength and bring one foot forward to roughly where your chest was. Twist to one side so you are positioned with your shoulders running from nose (front of board) to tail - keep parallel to your board you aren't skiing!

Control your arms, there is a tendency for learners to throw their arms up in the air and lock their legs thus unweighting the body and resulting in the board shooting forward with the wave and you flying up and off the back. Point your front hand forwards as this places weight forwards to help keep momentum. Control the natural instinct to flap, bend your back arm in with elbow up as if you were grabbing your ear. Stay low, bend knees, do not lock your legs and try not to counter balance by rocking your head. Keep your head in line with your front foot and focus ahead, do not look down at your feet. Counter balance with your heels, toes, ankles and knees, absorbing all the motion with your lower body. This is called the pop up and takes a lot of agility and ability to move your whole body mass in one movement.

Practice makes perfect and a favourite drill whether you are a professional surfer or just starting is to mark out to scale the plan shape of your surfboard on an old carpet. Lie in prone position (toes on or just off tail) with hands on rails under your shoulders this is where your front foot needs to land, roughly chest area, mark an 'x' in the middle of the board. Now stand in your surfing position with your front foot on the 'x' bisecting an imaginary line running from nose to tail by 45 degrees. Adjust your back foot so your feet are a good shoulder width apart. Your back foot should bisect our imaginary line by 90 degrees, remember make sure there is equal distance from toes to rail as there is heels to rail, make a second 'x' for back foot position. Now turn your back knee in towards your front leg but remain sideways on your board. This is your surfing stance and is how you want to end up after a pop up. Focus your mind and imagine how your body feels in this position, log in your memory your body position and how it feels. Then get back down to prone position, simulate paddling, then pop up trying to land in your surfing position on your carpet surfboard, make any minor (or major) adjustments necessary and try again - keep this up for at least 10 repetitions. Do this drill everyday gently increasing the repetitions and you will dramatically improve your strength, agility and thus pop up. This is also particularly beneficial for advanced surfers as it speeds up the pop up ready for those critical take offs.

If you are a novice or intermediate surfer the best waves to start on are gradual spilling waves. These are generally found on gently sloping beaches and are ideal for beginners and improvers. Avoid crowds where possible, rocks, piers, groynes and waves which are breaking steeply in shallow areas. It is also advisable to stay within eyesight of the lifeguard patrol in case you get into trouble. Avoid overly windy conditions; start off in waist depth on a gentle rolling solid line of broken wave or 'white water'. These waves are easier to catch and help you perfect the hardest manoeuvre for the novice - standing up. Get in tune with your fear and become alert to the warning signs that you might be out of your depth, imagine what could happen to you, make a mental plan of what you need to do if you get into trouble. Make an informed decision based on what could happen if things go wrong. Just because there are other surfers out there does not mean it is going to be suitable for you. Know your own limitations and always respect the sea.

Gently progress further out, temper your enthusiasm and do not be over confident, the sea has a habit of humbling over confidence. If you think your pop up and timing has improved it might be about time to go for an unbroken wave or green wave. Catching a green wave is a lot more difficult than a broken wave simply because the time you have to make the decision to pop up to surfing stance is reduced. This is based on the wave shape and face gradient. A gentle spilling wave is easier as the wave gradient is at a favourable angle to catch for a longer period. A barrelling, hollow wave tends to suddenly rear up out of the deep surge forward going from very little gradient to a concave gradient in a very short space of time. The decision to get from paddling to surfing stance is ridiculously critical. For the novice it will pick the tail of your board up and throw it further forward than the nose of your board….not good. Do not frustrate yourself or cause danger to yourself and others - practice your pop up on spilling less critical waves thoroughly and work up to waves which are more critical.

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