An Attempt At Surfing Maneuvers

*This list was made with short boarding in mind.

Fundamental To Advanced?

The goal was to try and arrange the maneuvers from fundamental to advanced. Like hey, you’d probably want to learn to do a snap pretty well before you advanced to sticking a tail waft….

With that mindset, there’d be questions like “is a 360 a fundamental maneuver?” And what about speed generation techniques besides pumping?

That’s all up for debate – but for now this list will do the trick.

Manuvers	Variations >
Drops	Early / Late Takeoffs	Knifing In	Air Drops	Out w/ the Lip
Bottom Turns	Lateral	Mid-Face	Vertical	Broken Rythm
Fades	Fading the Takeoff	Pre/Post Move	Tube (Setup)
Stalling	Tail Stomp	Lean Back	Tube Stall	Stillness
Pumping	The 'H' Hop	Tic - Tac	Rail in
Setup Turns	Light (Steering)	Power / Arcs	To Combo	Tube Setup
Floaters	Lip Lines	Rock n Roll	Floater 360's	Power (On Top)	Variations...
Carves	Setup Carves	Arcs	Power Carves	Bruce	Andy
Tube Rides		(Too Complex	For This Table)
Snaps	Standard Reo's	Layback	Fins Free	Vert Reverse	Wafts
Cutbacks	Power Slides	Wraps	Shopping Cart	Roundhouse	Clayback
Stabs	Windshield Wiper	Power Stabs	To Rock n Roll
Climbs	Foam Climbs	Climb to Snap	Climbs to variation
Lip Slides	Foam / Barrel	Section	Pocket	Out w/ Lip to Flats
Reverses	Cheese Wiz	Vertical	Fins Free	Club Sandwich
360's	Flat 360's	Vertical	Carving / Slater	Inwards / BS
Airs	Stock	180	Reverse & Full 3's	Oops	540's
Air Grabs	Double	Indy	Slob(FS) Mute(BS)	Lien	Stalefish
Air Flips	Kerrupt	Gorkin	Rodeo	Spindle & 540	BackFlip
Air Board Tricks	Superman	Shuvit	Varials	Passion Pop	Big Spin

Double The Fun

While it’s easy to list ‘Frontside(FS) & Backside(BS) Snap’ together as ‘Snaps’, they are two different moves.

Maximizing The Conditions

While checking the waves, a surfer can (should!?) take mental note of what maneuvers are possible for that session and mentally run through the key fundamental techniques to successfully perform those maneuvers.

Going Deeper Into The Playbook

Variety and unpredictability is an advantage in war, sport, and especially surfing. While it’s important to spend a significant amount of time to develop major maneuvers, being able to make spontaneous decisions/reactions to transform a standard maneuver into a variation can keep your performances feeling fresh.

Show Stoppers

To take that to another level, you could have a move up your sleeve that is a ‘show stopper’ for that session/conditions. Take note of the variety of maneuvers being performed that day and consciously select a move deeper in your playbook that nobody else is performing to standout.

So the next time you feel like you can do no wrong, push your levels up a notch. Some of the best moves a surfer learns happens from experimentation.

As Martin Potter says:

“With Speed, Anything’s Possible“

While this list is by no means complete, here’s over 100 moves and variations to consider when you get the opportunity to go ‘deeper into your playbook’.

What’s your favorite maneuver?