Riding a ShortSUP is actually doable by everybody of all weight and ages, with these advises:
- Firstly you must position your front foot on the rail ahead of the pad, and your back foot as far back as possible on the opposing rail, all your weight should be on your front leg and both feet must face forward, especially the back foot.
- All your weight should be on the front foot. this is key, a bit like a fencing position: rear foot far back, but all your weight on the front foot.
- Lean your torso forward, the goal is to play with your balance by raising and lowering your torso without standing up straight. When you stand up straight you put weight on your back leg and will stall and sink the board this is why you must stay in a forward leaning position at all times. Having a very short stiff paddle (your height or shorter) is of the essence.
- During the paddle stroke you’ll have to dig the paddle in as far ahead as possible at 45 degrees, pull back gently towards the rail, and progressively increase power as the blade goes along the rail (see diagram below)
- This technique is essential when using a short SUP, varying the power in order to avoid going in circles means you can’t put as much juice into it as your conventional SUP, this is the reason ShortSUPs have a slow paddle speed on the flat: you cannot apply power as on a longer SUP.
- Once you are used to using this movement, you will be able to play with the 3D equilibrium that makes the short SUP experience, changing the angle of the board not only sideways but also forwards/backwards.
- Find the correct angle of attack of the board into the water according to your chosen board’s rockerline, and you will soon start moving and the row effect will diminish, after this the main challenge is to keep the correct angle of the board in check.
- When catching waves, you do not switch sides with the paddle as this will hinder your 3D balance on the board. when going for a wave you are facing straight out to sea, and you take off in 5 paddle strokes: 3 to turn around, 2 to get on the wave. If you have turned too much and you need to compensate by paddling on the other side you don’t switch the paddle round, but rather do a small stroke on the opposing side without changing hands.
- When going for a wave on a short SUP the goal is not to get speed paddling into it, but simply to help pop the board out of the water when the wave lifts you to take off, the nose will sometimes pop or pearl under briefly but stay with it and it will pop out again once you’re shooting down the face.
- You need to put as much weight forward as possible to make the board drop in the wave face and accelerate, but not at the start of the paddling strokes.
The only other words of wisdom would be short SUP’s turn off the rail like a surfboard not off the tail like conventional larger SUP’s
In the 2011 range, The "Wombats" (Faking & Mutant) and the "Eggs" (OD & Shake)
can still somewhat be used with the standard SUP technique, especially for
lighter riders, but they work much better with this technique, and the same
can be said for the 7'7" Nanogene in the former range.
(translated from my post on http://www.gongsup.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1567, with many thanks to of Marc at supgower http://www.supgower.com/2010/11/ )