The biggest mistake beginner surfers make. Just one.

What are the biggest mistakes you can make as a beginner surfer? Are you kidding me? That’s the entire raison d’être of The Wipeout Weekly. You can’t distill it into a listicle, even if Surfer Mag believes so.

Surfer Mag published a listicle on the 8 common mistakes beginners make. An article that included words like: Pyzel, twin pins, mini mal—words that few beginners will understand.

Advice on keeping your biceps close to the rail when paddling. Ouch, och, ouch.

Or staying in the whitewater long enough to understand the “intricacies of your board.” Finally, my favorite—your pop-up is too slow.

Some valid points, some shallow points, some misleading points. Most likely not on purpose—just because the author hasn’t been a beginner for a very long time.

I have a lot of feelings about Surfer Mag. Very complex, very complicated feelings. I covered my boobs for the London Nude Tech Calendar with the July 2009 issue, which featured Top American Surf Towns. That was a good article! But since the acquisition and change of direction in terms of what constitutes quality, I just can’t.

What we’re not doing here

But that’s not what we’ll be talking about today. Instead, I wanted to offer our own version of “common mistakes that beginner surfers make.”

This is going to be different from yet another listicle that is so all over the place you just know it was written for SEO purposes only—because it lists applying too much pressure to the tail with your back foot and leaving your surfboard wax-side up as the biggest mistakes you can make as a beginner. Gimme a break.

The only real mistake? Believing everything you see

As far as I’m concerned, there’s only one mistake that beginner surfers make.

Namely: you don’t get into surfing with your eyes open.

Or—perhaps if I had to make it more specific—I’d rephrase it: You believe in everything you read about surfing online. Or watch on social media. As a result, you may have an overly romantic and/or misguided notion of surfing. And that ain’t it.

Surfing is subjective. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone believes their definition of surfing and what it should look like is the correct one. And on top of all of them, some people just want to sell you stuff.

Plus, surfing is plagued with ambiguity. There’s no manual, no entry exams. You have to figure out so much stuff on your own. And there’s so much content out there! Be smart and selective about whose advice you take on board. Accept that some advice won’t work for you, and some solutions you’ll have to come up with yourself.

Not to blow our own trumpet, but at The Wipeout Weekly, we either offer advice generated at scale—i.e., based on tons of info and feedback from our Girls Who Can’t Surf Good community—or at least we preface it with: this is the general way of doing things, but it’s not guaranteed it will work for you. We don’t claim to know it all, because no one does.

And if you do go on Reddit, watch out! Some of the dudes there spend their days trolling unaware beginners, offering bad advice because they fancy themselves as stand-up comedians.

BTW, just for fun—because it’s not how we write our stories—we asked ChatGPT what the biggest mistakes beginner surfers can make are. You can do it too in your own time. Honestly, it was a more valid collection of mistakes than Surfer Mag provided, but you gotta roll your eyes when you read that progress in surfing is tide-sensitive and moon-mood-dependent magic.

I think ChatGPT is ready for Reddit.