How to stop getting up on one knee

Yay, you’ve made it. You’ve persisted and you are past the whitewash. Congrats Gidgets. But now that you are catching green waves you all of a sudden facing new challenges. Some of the most common challenges we hear are

• Can’t go left/can’t go right… why can only go one way?
• I’m always getting up on my knee first, help!
• Don’t catch enough waves/Can’t get quite onto it/ Keep on nose-diving.

Last time we talked about how to go the other way. This time we see how we can kick the getting up on one knee habit.

Getting up on one knee

Some of you might have learned to pop-up on one knee first. It seems to make sense initially when you are in the Whitewash. However, once you are catching green waves and pop-up timing is becoming more important, the knee first pop-up is no longer doing you any favors. Here are few tips that will help kick this habit:

Dry-Runs

Practice your pop-up without the knee on the beach over and over again. And sometimes it helps when you talk yourself through…paddle paddle paddle, lift (upper body that is ;-) and up (swing your legs under your feet) in the dry run until your brain has truly internalised it. And then do the same in the water, talk yourself through it…paddle paddle paddle, lift and up.

It’s all in the looks

Look in the direction you would like to go not to your legs when getting up. If you look down, you are likely to focus on your knee too much and guess what happens….you’ll use your knee.

No pressure, Gidgets

Similar to the one-direction-Gidget, the most important thing is to not put too much pressure on yourself. You are getting up on one knee. Ok, it’s not great but in the end not a big deal. You’ll see once you’ll let go and stop thinking about your knee, the issue will resolve itself.

I get a lot of gidgets telling me: I always get up on one knee, I always get up on one knee….and I think: yes, of course you are because you keep telling yourself J So next time just try to have fun in the surf, knee or no knee.

Happy Surfing, Gidgets! E-mail us if you have any surf questions.

Claudia x

Gidget Alex sent us a lovely email the other day after she’s been to our Surf&Yoga Escape and she was one very happy Gidget: “I am off my knees which is very exciting!”