Shortcut to Longboarding – A Review

by Chris
(Pacifica, CA)

Introduction

I have seen the Shortcut to Longboarding around for a while now and finally took the plunge and bought it. The book is written by Lee Ryan, a pro longboard surfer and surfing coach, who competitively surfed on the ASP World Tour for 10 years. This tutorial has excellent material for beginning longboard surfers as well as offer some valuable tips for more experienced longboarders.

Longboard Characteristics and Selection

The first part Shortcut to Longboarding focuses on detailed analysis of longboard characteristics and the affect they have on performance. Outline, nose/tail shape, rocker, rails (this part included an interesting experiment you can do with in the kitchen explaining water flow), foil, and bottom contours. This section has great pics and diagrams so you can really see what he's talking about.

With longboard characteristics in mind the next section takes you through choosing a longboard. Lee goes over the considerations you should consider such as ability, size/weight, type of waves, riding style, and last but not least...cost. This is followed up with a short description of the ankle vs calf leash and which one you should choose.

Shortcut to Longboarding then launches into a deep description of a topic that is usually glossed over too quickly in most other tutorials.....FINS! Full consideration for fin design, setup, and position are given here. All with great pics to help fully explain the material. Fins usually seem like they are explained almost as an afterthought or secondary to board selection when in fact they are integral to board performance and selection. Best material I have seen to date on fins. Interesting tip here is the use of the “wonderbolt”.

Longboard Surfing Basics

Lee then dives into the basics of longboarding. It starts with an introduction to paddling technique and then goes into more advanced paddling like the S-Stroke, which I had no idea was invented by Mark Spitz. Techniques for paddling through the surf are discussed next including the push up, punch through, turtle roll, and the duck dive. Good tips here on how NOT to turtle roll. Well written but this particular section could use a few more pics.

Ocean basics are covered as well, such as dangers, conditions to look for, escaping from rip tides, that sort of thing.

Detailed explanations of wave positioning and the take off are covered here. Beginner pop-ups as well as more advanced flick jumps are covered before getting into the basics of turning.

Advanced Maneuvers

Cross stepping and noseriding are of course covered here as well.....this is longboarding after all. Some of this material is covered in some additional mini-ebooks that I think should be in the main eBook itself, but it is all in the same folder so it's not like it's hard to find. Some good tips here on choosing a noseriding board, which is described as being 50% of the battle of noseriding, the other 50% being skill and wave shape.

From here other maneuvers are covered like the drop knee cutback, re-entry, fin first take off, helicopters, layback snaps, barrels, big wave riding, aerials, and a brief discussion of the traditional vs progressive longboard movement. After this there are some tips for performing tricks that most of us have never tried or even seen, like hanging heels, hanging ten hands, and a few others that if you can perform you definitely won't need this tuturial.

Other Material

Surfing etiquette is well explained with diagrams showing things like who's dropping in on whom. This is followed by some tips and exercises to stay fit. If your looking for very comprehensive material on physical fitness for surfing then I would try Total Surfing Fitness. There is also a comprehensive glossary on all the terms used in longboarding.

Conclusion

Beginning longboarders are definitely the ones who will benefit the most from Shortcut to Longboarding. Even those that have been longboarding for a while can get tips for expanding their knowledge and technique and even advanced longboarders can gleam something from this. I would not recommend this (or anything else) as a substitute for a lesson, but as complementing a lesson(s). If you have never taken a lesson but plan on taking one I would buy this and go over the material before you even show up for the lesson, it will help you take in what you are learning and reinforce it later on. This being an eBook you can download it and put on several devices for reference. I even have it on my Blackberry Storm so I can scan it before I hit the water when I want to go over some more advanced techniques. In short this book is everything I would want to explain to somebody about longboarding and then some.