If you want to learn how to surf it goes a lot easier when you master it’s ‘slang’ or surf specific vocabulary. Like every other sport surfing has it’s own terms and you will learn a lot faster if you understand what your instructor or fellow surfers mean 🙂 So let’s start with a small dictionary explaining the most basic terms used in surfing:

Choppy

The ocean is messed up, chaotic, usually caused by the wind

Glassy

This is ultra-clean surf without a ripple that often looks like glass.

Flat

There are no waves, the ocean is flat.

Spot

A place where waves are breaking you can surf

Line up

The line up is the place just outside the breaking waves where surfers wait for their waves

Peak

The highest part of the wave, there where the wave starts to break

A left

A wave breaking from the right to the left (looking from the ocean to the shore)

A right

A wave breaking from the left to the right (looking from the ocean to the shore)

The wall

The part of the unbroken wave you can surf

Close out

A wave which is neither opening to the right nor to the left, it’s breaking everywhere at the same time.

Reef or reef break

Wave breaking over rocks or another hard surface

Beach break

Wave breaking over sandy underground

Wind off shore

the wind blowing from the beach direction ocean.

Wind on shore

the wind blowing from the ocean direction beach.

Party wave

A wave surfed by several people at once.

Goofy

Surfing with the right foot in front.
Regular

Surfing with the left foot in front.

Take off

The moment when you put the feet on the board after paddling.

Wipe out

an unexpected fall off a surfboard while surfing a wave

Shaper

A person who makes boards, usually by hand.

Local

a surfer who is from the area

Wax

a paraffin-based product which is applied to the surfboard deck to increase traction and reduce slippery

Up to here we have some vocabulary for beginners, over the next articles we will focus on more advanced terms. In our surf school in Fuerteventura we use a step by step teaching method, that will learn you to surf in your own rythm little by little, so there is no use in overloading you with information here.

It’s all about having lots of fun when learning to surf!