🏄‍♀️ How to get better at surfing by not surfing 🤯

👋 Happy December! We’ve got only 28 days of surfing left this year. You know, just in case you haven’t managed yet—and you don’t want 2025 to be “The Year I Didn’t Surf.”

🏄‍♀️ Let’s surf:

• How to get better at surfing by not surfing 🤯

• Everyone’s talking about Waimea 🌊

• You don’t want to tombstone. Like, ever 🪦

• Agony Aunt at your service. Also: poems 🫶

• Lots of mixed surf news 🗞️

^SURFODRAMA

😱 How to get better at surfing by not surfing 🤯

Wouldn't you want to magically get better at surfing while you’re not surfing? Wouldn’t we all. Alas, no magic trick available—but we do have some good ideas about the sports we could be investing our time into when not surfing.

Surfing is basically five sports wrapped into one: a paddle sport, a sprint sport, a balance sport, a mobility sport, a strength-endurance sport, plus yet another five quasi-sports that you need to master to survive in the lineup.

🏋️‍♂️ Paddle sports: What will work your shoulders, lats, and scapular endurance? Swimming, rowing, boxing and rock climbing. I’m a big fan of climbing, especially for building confidence under an incredible amount of stress.

⚡ Sprint sports: Good for those “OH GOD GO NOW” moments. You think it’s still paddling, but this is more of a panic paddle. A few sports that deal with sprinting are: running intervals, HIIT, SkiErg, and my fav: kettlebell swings.

🛹 Balance sports: For some beginners, this is our kryptonite. But we can get better at balancing if we’re willing to try out skateboarding or surf skating. SUPing is a fantastic primer for balancing, but slackline may be taking it too far. There may be no straight line between surfing and horse riding, but if you ever tried Western riding, you will realize that how you hold your body, shift in the saddle and where you look makes a massive difference in how you ride. I recommend!

🧘 Mobility sports: Hips, spine, ankles—let’s face it: your pop-up is a yoga pose you learned under duress. If you want to build your mobility and improve your thoracic flexibility, yoga is a natural choice. But so are martial arts and dancing. I sometimes wonder if some longboarders take dancing lessons too. Yes, yes, Pilates works too.

💨 Endurance sports: Any sport that will get you wheezing: trail running, hiking, strength training, but also breathwork—obviously not a sport per se.

By this point, you might be wondering: you promised us 10 types of “sports”, what possibly can be left?

So much. And the most important stuff really.

👥 Crowd competence sports: And by crowd competence we mean being comfortable in a regular lineup as well as at some stupidly overcrowded breaks without suffering a meltdown. The land sports that match include: basketball (chaos, spatial awareness), roller derby (chaos, human elbows), pickup soccer (human traffic) and dodgeball (fear management).

💥 Assertiveness sports: That really should’ve been the very first sport we talked about. AKA: taking your chances, because any hesitation equals missed waves and danger. The sports that correspond best for this one for me are martial arts & boxing plus sprint starts. Or you could ask your boss for a raise.

⏳ Patience sports: Patience skills are totally underestimated in surfing. But learn the art of sitting, watching, and doing absolutely nothing for long periods until suddenly doing everything, and you will be a better surfer. Standing in a line at Costco Friday lunchtime works for this. Or getting badly delayed at the airport. Fishing is a natural fit. Maybe golfing?

♟️ Prediction sports: This is something that can improve your surfing massively. Think about it as predicting your opponents’ movements: who’s going on this wave, who’s snaking, who’s clueless and who’s about to ruin your wave. Not to mention “is that wave gonna be any good and worth going for”? Try chess, maybe defense in soccer or hockey, or practice your spatial intelligence + pattern reading in traffic on a Friday afternoon.

Now onto our sports types that will revolutionize your surfing. I want to call it ❤️emotional regulation sports—or we could call it “not taking yourself too seriously” sports. Your choice.

It’s no secret that to surf and be happy, you need a lot of resilience, tolerance, and occasional selective amnesia. If we remembered every wipeout or every snarky comment in the lineup, fewer people would surf, that’s a fact.

For the land version may I recommend: relationships—new ones and the long-term ones—parenting (any number of kids will do), or working in customer service (any time, anywhere).

Or learning any sport really as an adult learner and laughing at your mistakes along the way.

^{WAVE OF THE WEEK SURFING THRU HISTORY}

🌊 Everyone’s talking about Waimea

Waimea Bay on Oʻahu’s North Shore is one of the most iconic big wave surf spots in the world. It’s the birthplace of big wave surfing as we know it and the spiritual home of the Eddie Aikau Invitational.

Wai means “water,” mea means “reddish,” “stained,” or “something of importance/feature.” So Waimea roughly means “reddish water” or “reddish-colored river/stream.” It remains very much of importance!

🌪 When Waimea actually breaks

The first and only time I saw Waimea, it was flat. Of course it was—it was the middle of summer. But even during winter months, Waimea doesn’t break that often, and even less often does it become real: meaning it hits at least 18 feet.

It’s a tricky one. Because once it gets to 30 feet or bigger, it becomes unrideable due to the closeout across the channel. And when it’s under 10 feet, locals call it “Waimea Shorebreak”—and it’s still dangerous. Wipeouts are another story. Apparently, when you’re underwater Waimea is black, in comparison to Pipeline being white and Sunset being gray.

📚 How Matt Warshaw describes it

Here’s how Matt Warshaw describes Waimea in the Encyclopedia of Surfing:
“Waimea hits peak only a handful of times during an average season. The character of the wave changes slightly with the direction of the incoming surf—north swells create an easier takeoff and longer wave; west swells are steeper and shorter. The ride is for the most part straightforward: a huge drop, often made at an angle, followed by a bottom turn, and a beeline race for the adjacent deep-water channel. Tuberiding is sometimes possible.

Although Waimea has long been dismissed by some as ‘just a drop’ (big wave bulldog Buzzy Trent once described the break as ‘a mirage; now you see it, now you don't’), this near-vertical plunge from crest to trough is in fact one of the sport’s greatest challenges, testing the surfer’s equipment, wave judgment, fitness, and nerve. The drop will often ‘jack’ (steepen and expand) without warning as the wave curls over, a phenomenon that can actually reverse the surfer’s forward motion and send him back up toward the crest—and then to an annihilating wipeout.”

🏺 A little history

Some historians believe that Waimea was surfed by ancient Hawaiians, but no one really has solid evidence.

In the modern surfing world, Waimea crops up in 1943 when Woody Brown and Dickie Cross found themselves forced to paddle from Sunset Beach to Waimea, and Dickie drowned. When you hear and see this story in Riding Giants, you understand why it kept surfers away until 1957, when Greg Noll and a small group of surfers descended on Waimea on a 15-foot day. It got filmed, so of course it broke whatever the predecessor to the internet was—oh right, surf mags.

It stayed popular in the 60s, less so in the 70s and 80s, until Mavericks was “discovered” in the 90s—Mavericks broke more often—and Jaws came onto the scene with its tow-in surfing. Waimea had a comeback when big-wave paddle surfing (instead of tow-in) became a thing again in the early 2000s.

And this week, Waimea is so back. It’s been pumping, and you can’t go on any socials and not see some spectacular footage of five brave souls coming down the line on a 40 foot wave.

^{WORD OF THE WEEK}

🪦 You don’t want to tombstone. Like, ever.

In surfing there are things you want to happen to you like barreling and the things you don’t happen to you like tombstoning.

Tombstoning describes the very moment when a surfboard sticks straight up in the water—like a gravestone—while its rider is being held underwater by a powerful wave. It’s one of the most recognizable signals of a heavy wipeout.

It usually lasts only a few seconds, although it feels like a lifetime. And it’s extremely visually dramatic. The surfboard stands vertically, half-submerged, pointing toward the sky, pulled upward by leash tension while the surfer is still deep below the surface.

🌊 When does tombstoning happen?

Tombstoning occurs when a combo of circumstances happen at the same time.

The wave has a lot of power and hold-down force. The surfer wipes out and gets pulled underwater while the wave’s energy keeps driving them downward or inward toward the reef.

The surfboard is buoyant and attached by a leash. And the leash tension between the submerged surfer and the floating board pulls the board upright, like a fishing float signaling a catch.

There’s significant depth or turbulence. In shallow, mellow surf, a wipeout might just send the board bouncing around. In deep, powerful waves (like Pipeline, Teahupoʻo, Mavericks), there’s enough vertical distance between the surfer and the surface for a full tombstone effect.

🚨 Why it matters

It’s never a good sign. It means that the surfer is still underwater and being held down. And the wave is heavy enough to trap someone beneath for several seconds or multiple wave cycles.

The whole situation might require rescue attention, especially if the surfer doesn’t resurface quickly.

At spots like Pipeline or Jaws, when tombstoning is visible, lifeguards and ski teams immediately note the location—it can help them track where the surfer’s body is underwater and plan a pickup if needed.

And I guess that’s good news: tombstoning doesn’t happen at most breaks, just the big wave ones with deep reefs or heavy beach breaks with vertical takeoffs. Or when the surfer falls headfirst or backward into the trough, increasing the depth difference between them and the floating board, with the leash stretched to the extreme.

🧠 What to do if it happens

I won’t be surfing any big, tombstone-inducing waves any time soon, but if it does happen to you, don’t fight the leash too early. Relax, protect your head, and wait until you feel the pull lessen before swimming up.

If you see someone else’s board tombstoning—keep an eye and watch them resurface. If they don’t appear within a few seconds, it’s time to alert safety crews or paddle over if you’re trained to help.

Well, that was depressing. The term “tombstoning” has also been used outside surfing in cliff jumping to describe entering the water feet-first, like a “tombstone.”

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY SURF NEWS ROUNDUP}

🗞️ Rocks fly. Lifeguards warn. Fiji goes $. Records fall. Eisbach collapses. Emily triumphs.

🇮🇨 Tenerife surfer arrested after throwing rocks at surf tourists
A local at Punta Blanca attacked two visiting surfers—first in the water, then from shore—accusing them of “stealing waves” amid rising anti-tourism tension in the Canary Islands.

🌊 North Shore lifeguards issue chilling warning
A 30–40 ft swell triggered chaos and rescues, leading one furious lifeguard to warn inexperienced surfers: “You will come home in a box.”

🇫🇯 Fiji may bring back pay-to-surf rules at Cloudbreak
A new bill could re-privatize iconic Fijian breaks like Cloudbreak and reintroduce paid wave access for both visitors and locals.

🏄‍♂️ Obscure Guinness World Record broken
Dylan Graves logged 46 top turns on a single tidal-bore wave at Indonesia’s 7 Ghosts—earning one of surfing’s weirdest Guinness records.

🦦 Eisbach goes flat, Munich hits wave pool
SURFTOWN MUC offered free sessions to river surfers after Munich’s Eisbach wave collapsed post-dredging, donating roughly €120,000 in rides.

🇺🇸 Oregon’s “sightless surfer” joins Team USA
Adaptive surfer Emily Purry went from blind beginner to Team USA in weeks—flying solo to Japan for her first contest, then helping the U.S. win silver at Worlds.

👉 Read the full news roundup

^{THE WIPEOUT WEEKLY FOMO}

😫 “Am I too friendly for the lineup?” & Sunday Surf Poems

There’s so much more to The Wipeout Weekly than what you get to read in the newsletter. Here are a couple of segments you might’ve missed.

😵‍💫 Hey, Zuz! I’m confused
Sometimes there’s a surf topic or a surf-related question that requires more of an “opinionated” approach. For those, we created the “Hey Zuz! I’m confused” segment.

Some of the questions we tackle come from individual readers, some are an amalgamation of several different doubts and concerns we come across on social media. And some are just the things that I am “asking for a friend.” And that friend is me. And I am answering it. 😜

Do take it with a grain of salt though: my background is in sociology, social psychology, mentoring young marketing pups, and being bad at surfing for 15+ years. But I am not a trained psychologist.

👉 Read “Hey Zuz! I’m confused.”

🛀🏻 Sunday Surf Poems
There are surfers who are poets, poets who write about surfing, and great, Pulitzer-winning poets who write surfing-adjacent poetry. For all of them, we have a weekly segment: Sunday Surf Poems. Every Sunday, a new poem.

👉 Read Sunday Surf Poems

Anything on your mind? Got a poem to share? Drop us a line.

⬆️ Aaaaaaand that was the last wave of the week!
If a friend forwarded this and you liked it, hit subscribe & join us! We will see you all next week! 🌊

^HOUSEKEEPING

More than a newsletter: You can find more stories+ on The Wipeout Weekly website.
Join us: If you’re not a part of our group yet, join Girls Who Can’t Surf Good.
Feedback: We do want to hear from you! Whatever is on your mind, drop us a line.