[.ca] Longboarder's Start-Up: A Guide to Longboard Surfing (ISBN 1884654061)

Some useful parts, but much less than it could be:
As a longboarder, I found this book quite disappointing, and at times even insulting. Mr. Werner treats longboarding as an inferior form of surfing that only people unable to shortboard would bother with. He seems to feel that all longboarders secretly wish to be shortboarders, and he spends a lot of time discussing the ways in which one can do shortboard maneuvers on Bill Stewart's modified longboards. The interviews with Bill Stewart are the worst part of the book. To listen to Mr. Stewart one would think that he invented the longboard, rather than just an interesting variant. This book does have a number of useful tips and photographs, and is worth looking over at the library. However, it is critically flawed by the author's failure to present longboarding is an art form in its own right, rather than just the next best thing to shortboarding. Many supurb surfers prefer longboards, and feel as I do that classic longboard surfing has a lot more artistic and spiritual potential than does most shortboard surfing. Watching a great longboarder hang ten sends chills down my spine; I've never seen a shortboard maneuver that could compare. If you are stoked on longboard surfing, I highly recommend watching videos of Joel Tudor and classic surf movies like *The Endless Summer* and *Big Wednesday*.

Overall, a very good book for novices.:
After reading the others reviews, I was a little hesitant to order the book so I found the book at a local store and flipped through it. I liked it and bought it. I've been surfing for about 9 months and was looking for guidance learning to cross-step and ride the nose. I'd tried to search the web but all I found was information on longboard skateboards. Although it's simliar, there are some big differences, so I ended up buying the book. The book gave me the instruction I was looking for regarding how to position my board in the wave and my feet on the board during cross-stepping and nose-riding. It also gave me some good points on surfing waves in general and turning. I found the more advanced tricks a little harder to understand but I think I have the concepts down and am looking forward to trying them out. I think some of the other reviewers were a little hard on the book for its "lingo." Like any specialty, surfing has its own vocabulary and in order to describe it succinctly you might need to learn a few new words, so be it. Overall, I think this is a very good book for a novice.

Only surfing book worth rereading...:
...there is some significant information in this book that doesn't show up in other fluffy beginner's books. For example, I'm new to surfing (been out about 8 times), and I've reached the point where I'll get killed if I continue doing push-ups through waves of any reasonable size. I keep coming back to this book because this is one of the few beginner's manuals in my stash which tells you about "Scoot 'n Shoot" and "Slice 'n Duck" to deal with paddling out through larger and larger waves. The book is essentially split into a beginner's section (on how to catch waves, paddling out, being in trim, etc...) and then an intermediate/advanced section on cross-stepping, turning, cutting back, noseriding, etc... I mean it's really wonderful to have a book that shows me what I can look forward to, even though I don't expect to be doing 360's or floaters anytime soon. I've yet to find a book this comprehensive on longboarding - I dare say that if I were stuck on an island in the South Pacific with nothing but my stick and one book, this one would be it. If you can overlook the shortcomings of this book, I'm sure you'll get something out of it. I continue to get hints out of the book after every reread... ...advice in the book begin to make a lot more sense after some experience. Oh yeah - the lingo in the book makes it a little difficult for the first time read, but with the glossary in the back, it's not that bad. In fact, wouldn't you rather learn what "digging a rail" really means so you can communicate with your fellow surfers in their language?

OK... But:
This book was really only of moderate usefullness. I got better information at my local surf shop.

Hope you already know how to surf...:
This book is written by a shortboard surfer who has taken up longboarding. It is written from that perspective. This is not a good book for beginners. I am a longboarder with 2 seasons of limited experience. From this book, I gained a knowledge longboard design and how to choose one to suit my needs. I also gained info on techniques to get past the breakers. I didn't get much else. I was looking for a good explanation and diagrams of etiquete, good starting techniques. I found brief explanations, again, written from a surfer-to-surfer perspective. I found more detailed info free while surfing the web. I also agree with another review that the language of the book is surfer lingo (dude) and seems out of place for an instructional book. I'm selling it back. I'll look for a good instructional video.