South African Bodyboarding Association

Tactical Thoughts

“The inconsistent nature of the ocean and the relentless time pressure means that you must be constantly reassessing your strategic approach to the heat in order to maximize your wave catching potential.”

The first thing that should enter your mind when a heat starts or even after you’ve just finished a wave is where is the best take off point and am I in it? If you have studied the contest venue or even just ridden there a couple of times you should be able to gauge what the best waves at that break look like. Now all you have to do is make sure you are in the correct position to get them.
Next you must understand what is going on in the heat and there are three questions that Dr. Martin suggests that you ask yourself. Firstly, you should ask yourself “What have I got?”


“This question relates to the wave scores that you have up until that point during the heat. Your scores will subsequently impact on your strategy for the next wave. For example, if you only have one high scoring wave, then it is important that you return to the primary wave location as quickly as possible to get a second wave in order to go through to the next round.”


If you have two high scoring waves already you might want to push other competitors deeper or put some sort of pressure on them in order to limit their wave scoring potentials. Alternatively, you can seek to improve your lowest score. This also works if you only two low scoring waves in a heat and should be repeated until you are either happy with your heat score (don’t think this has ever happened to me personally), or until you run out of time. Which brings us to the next important question – “How long is there to go?”

Wearing a watch and noting flag changes during a heat can ease your nerves if your heat strategy is going as you had planned. However, if you’re out of sync with your strategy you may be inclined to panic and not use your time wisely. That’s why it is very important to have a ‘Plan B’ and ‘Plan C’ ready when things aren’t going your way. For instance, if you need scores and are running out of time you may want to make your waves shorter and “Go Big”, but as I’ve said in a previous post the most important thing is that you have two scoring waves. Also, “checking the amount of time remaining throughout the heat allows you to change locations, pressure or shut down other [riders] accordingly.”

“What do I need to do now?” this is the next question you should be constantly asking yourself during a heat. And it will be based on the answers from the previous two. If you have only got one scoring ride and are running out of time in the heat it might be better to find the position that will allow to catch another scoring ride quickly. “The process of reviewing your scores, the time remaining and then determining your subsequent strategy should happen while you are paddling back out and waiting in the take off zone”

In the next post we will cover Dr Martin’s “Positive Self-Talk” and his take on “Mental Practice or Virtual Surfing”













(Dr Mike Martin is widely acknowledged as the leading expert in surf psychology. He is author of Six Steps to Surfing Success: How to Create Heat Winning Strategies, and Head Honcho at www.SurfSuccess.com, this post was written after studying one of his papers, “Heat Winning Secrets” How to Consistently Win Heats by Fine Tuning Your Thinking.)