Here are some of our teaching videos about SUP, which hopefully you will find useful. Click here to view just the SUP COACH SHARES youtube shorts vids.
The longer-form videos were made in conjunction with American magazine supboardguide.com. There are also many written articles from us on their blog pages.
Use the filter controls below to choose which categories of video you would like to see.
how straight should your bottom arm be when stand up paddleboarding?
How much should you be bending your bottom arm during the power phase of the SUP stroke? It’s very easy to get this wrong, and instantly transfer the workload from the big, capable muscles that you should be using, to much smaller muscles far less suited for the constant workload required for stand up paddleboarding. Note, if you're sprinting, or cranking for maximum power like when you're trying to catch a wave while SUP surfing, then the efficiency goal goes out of the window, and every possible bit of power that can be extracted from the body can and should be used. So you will see top paddlers bending their bottom arms, for this reason. Nevertheless, for sustained paddling, particularly in a more recreational context, for non-elite paddlers, bending that bottom arm should be avoided as much as possible, to avoid bringing those small upper arm muscles into play.
How to paddle faster
Paddling faster isn’t just for racers; every paddler benefits from being able to step it up a bit when they need to. So is it something you need to learn how to do, or is it something that you just do? It seems kind of intuitive - you just, well, paddle faster, right? But what does that look like in practice? For most people, trying to ‘paddle faster’ actually tends to end up as ‘paddling a whole lot more inefficiently, with a bunch of splashing and loads of effort’, with only a very slight change in speed achieved. Or it manifests as a crazy high-tempo paddling style with a huge number of inefficient short little strokes per minute, which very quickly has your heart-rate at red-lining levels, and is utterly unsustainable for anything other than short bursts. So how do you go faster, in a sustainable, efficient fashion? In this video, we’ll go through the various factors one by one and help you understand what’s going on, so that you can go out and experiment for yourself on what works best for you. Because that’s the first important point right there, and one we’re constantly banging on about - there is no one right way to paddle. The best approach for you to go faster may be totally different to the best approach for your mate.
Most Common Beginner Mistakes
If you’re teaching yourself to paddleboard, you’re very likely to end up making a few mistakes. There are some traps and pitfalls that are so easy to fall into, and we see them on the water every time we go paddling. While many of the mistakes shown here may not seem particularly serious, they do make it harder to paddle and also do have safety implications, because they reduce your paddling efficiency. You’re doing more work for less reward, or in some cases simply not able to paddle with any speed or power. Which can be dangerous if you need to get back to the shore in a hurry, perhaps because the weather has changed or some other problem has arisen. In this video, Bill runs through some of the most common mistakes he encounters in his 15+ years of coaching. Watch this vid before you start paddleboarding and you’ll save yourself a whole lot of hassle. If you’re recently new to the sport then check it out and make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes.
Quick guide to board measurements
Length, width, volume, thickness, max weight - what is the actual relevance of these numbers, which ones matter and how do they compare? Here's a quick summary of what it all means.
which way round does your paddle go?
Which way round should your stand up paddleboard paddle be facing? There's only one right answer to this, as we explain in this video.
What factors determine the lifespan of an inflatable stand up paddleboard?
There are four main factors that determine the life of an inflatable stand up paddleboard. Understanding these factors and taking the appropriate actions to mitigate their effects can greatly increase the life of your inflatable board.
Turning techniques
Turning is a surprisingly under-rated skill in stand-up paddleboarding. Many people make the mistake of assuming that better turning means needing to walk to the back of the board and sink the tail, so they never learn how to turn their board hard and fast by just using their paddle. In this video, our coach Bill Dawes takes you through the full progression of paddle-powered turns, so that wherever you may be on the turning spectrum you can find out how to raise your game to the next level. If you’d like to be able to spin your board through 180 degrees at high speed with just one paddle movement, then this is the video for you.
The 4 golden rules of SUP Safety Equipment
Having the right safety equipment is very important, but there is a lot more to it than just buying some gear and hoping for the best. Bill Dawes has been National Safety Officer for New Zealand stand up paddleboarding for many years, during which time he has been researching the subject in huge depth, to gain the fullest possible picture of what goes wrong, how it goes wrong, why it goes wrong, and what knowledge do paddlers actually need to ensure that it doesn’t go wrong. During this process he’s learned a whole lot about how paddlers actually interact with their safety equipment, and come to realise that there are four golden rules that apply to any item of safety equipment. In this video he explains how to apply those golden rules to your SUP safety equipment - and you’re almost certainly going to find that you’re breaking several of them!