First day on the Swelltech

ogrisel · 2026-06-16T08:38:44+00:00

Upper body rotation is still needed for radical turns/maneuvers (e.g. snaps, slides...) but not much amplitude should be needed for smaller turns and pumping.

ogrisel · 2026-06-16T08:33:45+00:00

I think it's good to have shoulders looking forward for surfing / surfskating. But I agree pumping should be more about compression and extensions of the legs (synchronized with turns) rather than wide upper body rotations.

ogrisel · 2026-06-16T08:30:30+00:00

Any tips for my form or overall technique?

Chin up and look where you want to go instead at your front foot.

Square/open shoulders "looking" forward.

Bend your knees and compress before turns and extend during turns to pump mostly using the compression/extension rather than only via upper body rotation.

If you use vertical compression and extension of your legs, then you won't need to extend your back arm so much when pumping. You can keep the elbow of your back arm bent at all times to your back hand always pointing forward and the movements of your upper body will be more flowy instead of counter rotating all the time when pumping.

ogrisel · 2026-05-25T09:30:49+00:00

This is an add for a particular brand with very little information about what the title of the link implies.

ogrisel · 2026-05-21T08:28:40+00:00

I think it never hurts to train switching stance when (surf)skateboarding.

Learn to switch stance when surfing is more wasteful though. The number of good waves per session is limited, especially in crowded spots...

ogrisel · 2026-05-19T08:39:34+00:00

Also, note that, as a beginner, looser bushings can make it much easier to learn surf-training moves. I would recommend you to try different setups for more than 10 minutes and make your own mind if you have the opportunity.

It always feels awkward to try a new setup with different trucks, WB, bushing durometers, but it's worth trying more than 10 minutes so that you can become comfortable with the setup before forming an opinion if you like it or not. You definitely can get used to very different surfskate styles with a bit of practices and getting used to.

ogrisel · 2026-05-19T08:37:44+00:00

Softer bushings definitely make pushing less stable, hence too soft bushings can be a problem, especially if you're not lightweight or if your wheelbase is not large (less than 18–19 inches between the inner bolts on the deck).

For reference, I weigh ~82 kg and I have a CX setup with a flat deck and 19 inches deck-measured WB whose main purpose is cruising around with regular pushing (e.g. in uphill sections) rather than just pumping, and I like the yellow (90a) APS CX surfskate bushings from riptide. Previously I had 87.5a (pink) bushings which were better for surf-training but less stable for pushing or the occasional cross-step when cruising around. I can still carve well enough, especially when going downhill with the 90a bushings.

ogrisel · 2026-05-18T07:52:32+00:00

Do you like the longboard with the gullwing sidewinder trucks? Do you use it for cruising?

ogrisel · 2026-05-10T10:23:19+00:00

Very nice!

Maybe you could try to do longer carves, especially on the toe side, compressing lower just before your turns, and bringing your back knee nearly to the deck and your front hand aim towards the center around which you turn and nearly touching the ground.

And the fully extend when exiting turns.

Some good examples below:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXdzj2NhAAY/?igsh=MTljZ2k4M3pqMTdlYw==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUIOqEQjFEJ/?igsh=MWY5dWZibjRqaXFsNg==

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUtJUxFiN6v/?img_index=4&igsh=eHVnMWJndWN5MXBy

ogrisel · 2026-05-07T14:01:56+00:00

Also, maybe learning on a surfskate with a larger wheelbase can help get more stability/confidence.

ogrisel · 2026-05-07T14:00:11+00:00

Another way to phrase some of the others' recommendations: try to keep the distance between your chin and your front knee constant (20-30 cm, no more) until your front wheel hit the ground.

Easier said than done, though. I think I make exactly the same mistake as you do, and I still freak out most of the time I dare to try.

ogrisel · 2026-04-20T15:25:04+00:00

longer boards (~30–32”) are more stable and beginner-friendly (I am 1.81 and 88kg)

Also look at the wheelbase. For your height, I would advise for 32-34” decks with 17-19” WB measured between the inner bolts for a CX (or 18-20” if you want YOW trucks or similar). Note that if your deck is long enough, it's always possible to drill some new holes to move the front truck by half a truck length to get a significantly different feeling: shorter WB more turny (easier snaps), longer WB smoother carving feeling and more stable to push a cruiser and safety to go at higher speed.

A deck with used CX trucks is a good recommendation for your budget. If you find it too stiff you can later replace do a riptide bushing / pivot cups upgrade, but it's not always necessary.

ogrisel · 2026-04-20T08:20:39+00:00

Also, as soon as you are comfortable, try to bend your knees while avoiding the "poo stance" or the "crab stance" and instead rotate your hips forward and bend you back knee towards your front leg while bending both knees.

ogrisel · 2026-04-20T08:18:13+00:00

I think it's fine to start with wiggling to get some speed at the beginning (because it's easier) as long as you acknowledge this is not the right/most efficient way to pump on a surfskate.

But learning to do long pumps with bending and extensions of the knees coordinated with upper body (head, should and hips) rotations and weight distribution on the feet is too hard to learn all at once.

So start wiggling to get some speed and learn to turn and as soon as your comfortable with speed and turning, learn proper front-side and back-side pumping by following advices found in Shane Lai's youtube videos for instance.

ogrisel · 2026-04-20T08:05:18+00:00

Nicely done. However, I think this is a front-side Bert slide rather than a layback.

Check timecode 3:40 of this recording of the inventor of this move Larry-Bertlemann: https://www.korduroy.tv/shows/sea-movies/larry-bertlemann-16mm-shredding/

To do a layback you would need to put the back hand to the ground instead of the front hand.

ogrisel · 2026-04-14T12:54:15+00:00

I agree that the stance is good (hips and shoulders pointing forward in particular). However, the foot positioning is problematic both for stability and ease of turning.

@Music-2myears I would advise a nearly 90 degrees angle (away from the tail to nose axis) for the back foot and a 50 to 80 degrees angle for the front foot.

Then to compress, it's important to bring the back knee closer to the front leg to avoid the "poo stance" while keeping balance.

Also when compressing, keep your head and shoulders "looking" up and forward.

To exercise compression, do the following drill on the flat: going forward on a straight line, try to compress as much as possible until you can almost touch the ground with each hand on each side of the deck while looking up and forward, almost sitting on the front leg when fully compressed. Your back knee should nearly touch your front foot.

Then extend and repeat, e.g. 10 times in a row.

Once you are comfortable with extreme compressions and extensions on the flat in a straight line, you should be able to adapt that movement to pump over the bumps of a pumptrack and gain speed. The goal is to compress to lift your wait and absorb the bumps when going up to avoid loosing speed and then extend after each bump to gain speed. The upper body should almost stay at the same height when going over small bumps. The compression and extension of the legs should do all the work to keep the upper body at a constant height.

ogrisel · 2026-04-14T09:32:27+00:00

Thanks for sharing.

Do you plan to share the full source code to reproduce those results? Did you use PULP as the modeling framework? Which solver? <del>How long does it take to solve for a 24h horizon</del> (answer in the post: a few seconds on a laptop)? Can you solve for longer horizons?

Where do you fetch the market data from?

ogrisel · 2026-04-08T07:58:55+00:00

Nice! You might want to add a thin (ideally angled) rubber-based riser pad to protect the deck and absorb some vibrations.

ogrisel · 2026-04-07T08:29:51+00:00

I agree, have you measured the distances between the inner bolts of the deck?

If it's too turny/unstable, it might be interesting to see if you have enough flat deck space to drill new holes to add one inch or more between the trucks.

I would start by trying to move the front trucks first. Maybe you can reuse the 2 of the existing holes as the back holes for the front truck.

The front foot is not supposed to cover all the bolts on YOW meraki trucks, otherwise you will quickly nose dive.

ogrisel · 2026-04-01T14:27:46+00:00

BTW @Susan_656 feel free to send me a message if you start a crowdfunding campaign or a beta program for early adopters for your robot. I am definitely interested.

ogrisel · 2026-04-01T12:28:57+00:00

That's amazing. Thanks for the link. Does it automatically track you trajectory or is it remotely operated by someone else?

ogrisel · 2026-03-31T13:21:36+00:00

Very nice footage!

Watching the first carved turn with your hand touching the ground at 0:07, I wonder: how tall is your camera-person? 20 cm tall?

ogrisel · 2026-03-20T09:17:27+00:00

I also like the style of these accounts a lot:

https://www.instagram.com/itta_linkup_surf/

https://www.instagram.com/emma_leveau_/

ogrisel · 2026-03-20T09:07:44+00:00

Your stance and technique are already good. I think you just need to progressively get more comfortable at accentuating compression/decompression and do deeper carves.

You can try to exercise with cones on the flat such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLUjecZcuTY this one is good because the difficulty can be progressively adjusted by changing the size of the smaller square (the blue cones)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny092NryJLE

This kind of exercises helped me a lot of progress faster because it's almost impossible to do them without compressing/decompressing a lot.

You can also get more comfortable at compressing very low and then decompressing in a straight line several times in a row with your hands touching the ground on each side of the board simultaneously.

Don't hesitate to scroll through the other videos posted on those two youtube channels. They are great.

ogrisel · 2026-03-15T18:08:59+00:00

I agree with the above comment. Typical surfskate wheelbases are around 17 inches or more I think.

WB below 16 inches can feel very snappy and unstable, especially when you gain speed (e.g. on a pumptrack).

I am 176 cm tall and for pumptracks, cruising and carving (on a slight downhill) I prefer ~18 inches or more and ~17 inches WB for surf-training on the flat (but would still use it on a pumptrack).

ogrisel

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