How to Turn on a Surfboard for Beginners
Once you’ve learned to stand up and stay upright on a surfboard, your next step is to learn how to turn so you can ride along the wave, instead of straight toward the shore.

Once you’ve learned to stand up and stay upright on a surfboard, your next step is to learn how to turn so you can ride along the wave, instead of straight toward the shore.
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Once you’ve learned to stand up and stay upright on a surfboard, your next step is to learn how to turn on a surfboard so you can ride along the wave, instead of straight toward the shore. All accomplished surfers remember the first moment they got the hang of this turn, and now we’re going to get you to that moment too.
“Going down the line” is the technical term for riding along the face of the wave, not simply to the shore, staying just a little in front of the white water. This is where you want to practice – in the white water (closer to the beach) where it doesn’t matter which direction you ride, so you can get to grips with going down the line before you move further out and have to read the wave and get in the right position.
So how do you learn to turn on a surfboard and go down the line?
Once you’ve mastered this on the white water, you can graduate to out the back. Here, you’ll need to learn how to read waves to figure out what direction you need to go, then practice the steps you learned on the white water – you’ll soon have turning mastered!
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