The 3 Biggest Mistakes That Keep New Surfers Stuck (Most Beginners Do This)
Saturday, March 07, 2026
The Learn To Surf Secrets Blog/The 3 Biggest Mistakes That Keep New Surfers Stuck (Most Beginners Do This)
(Most Beginners Make These Mistakes)
The 3 Biggest Mistakes New Surfers Make That Prevent Them from progressing.
I have been teaching beginner to intermediate surfers for over a decade now and have witnessed COUNTLESS students make these SAME mistakes that prevent them from progressing their surfing. These mistakes are commonly made because of the desire to get better faster, aka a lack of patience... If you are a new surfer and make sure to avoid making these mistakes, I believe from my experience, you will actually progress faster.
Mistake #1
Not Formulating a pop-up process
"A Repeatable pop-up process is CRUCIAL for your progression in surfing."
Well, what is a repeatable pop-up process you may ask?
It's a step by step process you follow every single time that you stand up on your board.
Everybody has a different body, center of gravity, strength, flexibility, and the list goes on. SO, although we may all follow a similar process to stand up it is VERY important that you find a process that works for you BEFORE you move onto anything else with surfing.
So many students that I have worked with view standing up as the simplest step in the process (because it technically is) but it still requires a ton of attention at first and you must not move on to the next steps of turning your board or catching bigger waves until you have found a process that works for you.
The main goal with finding a repeatable pop-up process that works for you is being able to successfully stand up the same way without thinking about it every single time.
What tends to happen is that new surfers sort of muscle their way up to their feet and then adjust their stance once they're up and riding. Because its not a clear process that they are following it may change every other time and therefore their stance will change every other time as well.
Could you imagine how this inconsistency in your stance would make it hard to start progressing into the next phase of surfing?
We teach a very clear step by step pop-up process we call "the 6 steps to a perfect pop-up". This is our foundation for surf progression and oftentimes have to take intermediate level students back to this step regardless of them thinking they already know how to stand up.
THE GOAL WITH YOUR POP UP PROCESS: You stand up in the same way and in the same position on your board every single time. As you surf new boards and bigger waves you may have to adjust the way you do this pop-up, but because you have a framework or process its easy to adjust small parts of the process instead of starting from scratch every time you upgrade your environment or equipment.
I have seen that one of the biggest things that keeps surfers from progressing is that they don't know what they are doing right or wrong and there isn't really a way to know unless you have someone videoing you or coaching you that is experienced.
SO, learn a repeatable pop-up process that works for you and has you standing up in the right spot on your board every time before moving forward with other skills as a surfer. It will save you a ton of time down the road as you will not have to go back and reform your technique.
BONUS TIP: Video yourself with your phone doing these pop-ups on the floor in your living room or yard and learn from your mistakes that way.
Mistake #2
Riding The wrong boards
"So many new surfers think that a high performance board will make them surf better... but it won't."
Coming in a close second to not formulating a repeatable pop-up process is the second biggest mistake we see new surfers make which is riding the wrong equipment.
"I want to surf like that guy so I'm going to buy and ride the same board as him!"
If it worked like that we would all just ride the exact boards as the pros and all be pros. This is such a HUGE misconception and one of the BIGGEST things I see hold intermediate surfers back in their progression.
I don't blame new surfers for wanting to get better at surfing and attempting to do whatever it takes to get there. However, I wish more new surfers realized if they practiced their pop-ups on the right boards for longer, they would progress to their goals SO MUCH faster.
What typically happens here is that a new surfer will learn how to stand up consistently and go straight on a wave and is now super excited to start learning how to turn down the line or do tricks so they go from an 8ft or 7ft board to a 6ft board thinking that will help them turn better and unlock these new moves. (Or even worse they go down to a 5.5ft board)
Technically speaking they aren't wrong for thinking that this board is going to be easier to turn and do more tricks on but what they fail to realize is that a smaller board is also going to make it harder to catch waves AND stand up!
When you go down in size with you board you are losing what we call "volume" which is ultimately how much it floats. And if you can imagine something that doesn't float as well will sink when you stand on it in water that is exactly what happens when you go to paddle this board and stand up on it. Therefore its much easier to fall off the board and much harder to get into waves.
You will lose your paddling power, the support when you stand up, and the support of the board from turning like crazy when you stand up on the wave.
The most common thing I see happen in my students is they DON'T take my advice to stay on a longer board for an extra year and instead downgrade in size because why would I know what I'm talking about? Then they stop catching as many waves, fall way more often when they do catch waves, and start to think that surfing just isn't for them because either the "waves suck" or they "aren't in good enough shape"... Then they slowly quit.
It's honestly so sad for me to see this happen because most of these students were having SO MUCH fun on their longer boards (which is the whole point by the way) but were just so eager to get to the next step they didn't take the proper amount of time to build up to their next board.
SO, it's VERY important that when you first start surfing that you stay on a longer board for quite sometime. I usually tell my students that we never suggest downgrading more than 6 inches at a time when getting a new board. So if you learn on an 8ft board the next board after a year should be 7.5ft then after a year on that a 7ft board and so on and so forth.
It's really easy to fall victim of the surfboard industries flashy marketing verbiage about how these boards will make you a better surfer over night and all you need to do is ride the newest model and you'll surf like Kelly Slater.
If you don't know what board you should be riding, we are here to help! We also have a beginners board guide that breaks down the progression of boards that we suggest as a new surfer.
Mistake #3
Surfing the wrong conditions
"If I want to surf better I just need to surf bigger waves"
Last but not lease mistake #3 is surfing the wrong conditions. This comes in multiple forms; surfing waves that are too big, too small, or even too messy.
When you surf conditions that are not applicable to your skills it will create frustration through repeat failure.
The biggest thing we see in this mistake is that new students think that if they go out on bigger days they will get stronger and better as a surfer. They aren't necessarily wrong about that, however if you don't paddle out knowing that you're likely just going to get your ass beat by the waves and not catch anything then you will more than likely come in defeated with your tail between your legs and be less likely to go surfing the next time you can.
A side note here too is that experienced surfers CAN'T STAND when beginners try to paddle out on days they are not equipped for because they become a hazard to other surfers around them. They don't have control of their board or where they are at in the lineup and you will lose other surfers respect when you make these mistakes.
When you first get started with surfing you typically catch already broken waves or what we call "white-water waves". This is further in from the breaking waves and mostly away from the other surfers. Then we upgrade to smaller breaking waves before we go up to surfing bigger waves.
One of the best sayings I find myself saying quite often is "just because you can get out there doesn't mean you should be out there". And this statement couldn't be more true specially with point breaks or surf spots that have a "channel" or a paddle out zone where no waves are breaking.
We want to stick with waves that are about waist to stomach high for the first few years of surfing. Anything bigger can likely injure your or discourage you from continuing to surf. You can tell how big waves are by watching other surfers catch waves before you paddle out. Reference the wave height behind them to their body.
This mistake, as do the others, goes back mostly to patience and being content riding the smaller waves for a longer period of time before going out in the bigger stuff.
How do you know if you're ready to upgrade to bigger surf you might ask? That's a great question and honestly hard to pinpoint at first. I typically tell my students that their heart rate or fear levels will dictate that. If you are feeling scared while you're out there then it's likely too big. Once you feel super comfortable and relaxed in a type of condition then it's about time to upgrade in size a little bit.
However, just like surfboards, we want to make this increase slowly but surely. We do not want to go from waist high waves straight to head high waves. We need to go from waist high waves, to stomach high, to chest high, to shoulder high, then to head high, and then head high plus waves. Surfing is about building foundations at each step of the way that you are comfortably moving forward from.
With that being said, in order to progress in surfing you will in fact have to step out of your comfort zone at each new phase, however new surfers need to practice more patience and do this moderately over time. Not all at once!
Now, with that said...
Here are some resources that will help you avoid these mistakes as you get into surfing.
Hi, My Name Is Alec Zappone
Founder of Learn to Surf Secrets
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I believe surfing is more than a sport—it’s a lifelong passion that fosters resilience, confidence, physical and mental strength, and a deep connection to nature.
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