Board for Narrow Stance

get a board from brazil

 

Is your narrow stance

A) the result of being short, or having short legs? Basically, your in a normal stance, it's just narrow due to your physical characteristics.
B) the result of some odd preference to keep your feet closer together than most people when you surf?


If it's due to A, talk to a shaper. It might be tough to find something off the rack. I have short legs for my heaight and weight. I let my shaper know I wanted a short board where I could have my rear foot over the fins, and still have my front foot on the sweet spot for pumping up some speed. He made me one. It's only 5'11" and has 1.53 cu ft of volume. Only shortboard where i don't have to inch forward and back frequently, just plant and go.

If it's due to B just learn to widen your stance. Lots of drawbacks to having too narrow of a stance. Plus it looks really weird.

 

There are some advantages to using a narrow stance, provided that the board is suited to it and provided that one is not trying to do aggressive hacks and so on.

For example there are good reasons why noseriding is usually performed with a narrow stance.

Boards which do well with a narrow stance do have certain characteristics but being designed to ride off the back end with the back foot over the fins isn't one of them.

So, if one is trying to do 'HP' shortboarding on a regular 'hpsb' then best to learn to widen the stance.

For typical examples of narrow stance riding look at 70's singlefinning, some excellent surfers of that era used a narrow stance... as did Tom Blake in the 1930's.

It's similar to stance in martial arts, narrow and wide stances both have their place, and they have advantages and disadvantages. Use each stance in the right way at the right time and it is win/win.

Narrow stance is about subtlety, balance, and letting the board follow its natural path.

 

Reno Abellira:






Sometimes larry Bertlemann also:

 

Terry Fitzgerald:

 

What is going on in the Reno pic? Is that two pics morphed or something? I mean, the guy with his shirt pulled over his head, and the chick casually paddling around seem awfully mellow considering what's heading their way...

 

That's the same boat I am in. I just have my boards for under head high made with this in mind. For head high and better, I want the extra length and don't find it quite as important.

There's actually a huge number of different small wave models out from virtually all the major manufacturers that pack a lot of foam Ina. Short package. That's likely what you'll want, but there are so many, each with their own spin, it's tough to sift through them.

 

It looks like they are in the channel and the shot was taken with a long lens.

Isn't Sunset notorious for having a channel full of oblivious tourists who've been sucked out not knowing how big the surf is?

 

check out this board. narrow stance seems to work best on it.

[video=youtube;KRSTvSwvZAI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRSTvSwvZAI#t=49[/video]

 

i tend to do the same thing. been working for about a year to widen it out, you just need to catch like hella waves and for every pop up think wide stance, sometimes i still find myself basically standing straight up with my back foot no where near the pad, i'm getting better though

 

You could get a board which suits your stance, wide stances are inelegant and detrimental to subtlety.

 

i tend to have a narrower stance. Shorter, wider boards work for me. In my own opinion.

 

I think Roy is right- wide stance for hpsb and narrow for longboard/ or singlefin sb style... Not real conducive with thrusters

 

On a shortboard, you shift everything back for riders with narrow stance... wide point, bottom contours, rail profile, thick point, foil, etc.

 

Agree. The narrow stance will screw you on longer short boards. Short boarding - go shorter and wider.

Btw: the channel at sunset ain't as safe as you think!

 

I have this problem. I am 5'6" and 175lbs. I end up popping up and lurking too far forward all the time. I need 30+liters and its hard to pin it down on the right shape. I started going shorter and eider with my boards, and ultimately fishier and fishier. I went from 6'2" down to 5'2", lost true shortboardiier shape and rocker in the process, and then started working my way back up. I'm currently snagging career waves on a 5'8" dhd double shot and s 6'1" DHD skeleton key. The trick for me is to pay attention to the location of the outside fin boxes, and the point where the rocker starts. Also where you paddle from on the board will determine where you land when you get up. In that regard, length becomes a detail.

 

*YES - THIS is exactly right... for a narrow stance on a HPSB.

I'm a taller guy with a somewhat narrow stance for my height. I'm heavily back-footed and find that best boards are those which "like" to be surfed from the back. This means that you'd be avoiding 90% of the current crop of HPSBs (for example, most of the Lost shapes seem to favor a 50-50 or even forward leaning stance). With your narrow stance, you'd be fighting against the natural curves of these boards, as opposed to having a board which works with your style.

So... change your stance OR get a board suited to a narrow back-footed approach.... Try to ride something with a clean tear-drop template and you should feel the difference right away.