Ahh, as I know nothing about surfing I thought "hang ten" was "surfer speak" for nice style etc.
What I am trying to find out is if the surfers changing postition fore/aft affects the way the board responds to the wave etc.? Or does standing at a certain point of the board suit a certain type of wave more than standing elsewhere on the board etc.?
Great observations from someone who doesn't surf!
Yes depending on many factors like the thickness, the shape of the rails, the rocker on the bottom.. the nose, the shape of the tail, the fin, it's size and flex and shape - crazy all these factors coming together to be expressed in a dynamic fashion by the person riding it. And each person has a unique style and connection with the board and how it responds to their weight.
So all these factors coming together while flying down the face of a wave - and there's so many kinds of waves and situations - and so the person should be shuffling at times to force a certain kind of movement from the board.
I ride the grey longboard .. I move around a lot and have fun with it. My arms sometimes are doing "flaps" il sit down, and try to stall and do turns and connect sections in my way. I need to work on my board walking to get more gracefulness out of the movements. There are some rad graceful female longboarders out here who just have such amazing style.
I might not look the coolest, but I'm definitely having tons of fun in just trying new things but it's always a working progress.
With that being said- I find I must move forward toward the nose on certain areas because if not, I will fall out of the wave by losing too much speed. Sometimes we go too fast and then we outrun the wave and that's no good and so we stall by going back on the board and hitting the breaks so that we can float back to the sweet spot where the wave is breaking - but we can break too hard and fall out of the wave.
If can feel that I'm losing speed, by running up forward, which is thinner than the tail, I can force the nose down the wave with speed and then I have to quickly move my feet back once I feel the speed and drop from the top because if not, the nose will pearl into the wave face and I will go flying over the falls. And then we enage our feet - it's easier to turn the board from the back - like a skateboard.
Sorry if I'm not doing a good job of explaining it but hopefully you can can the gist?
It's amazing that our body/mind connection can account for all these factors and let us go surf waves and have fun with nature.
Surfing is definitely one of the great joys of my life.