Not every watersport is ideal for beginners. With some, it’s necessary to choose different stances or easier courses to avoid wiping out whereas others are perfect for newbies. Here are 4 awesome watersports for total beginners who are eager to learn.
1. Get Lessons for Beginner Surfing
While surfing can be a difficult activity, there are still plenty of beginners. The trick is to only plan to surf on the easy waves with a small number of white caps to not get overwhelmed. Take some beginner surfing lessons. You can probably borrow a surfboard for these lessons, or they’ll have one ready for you. Most lessons will begin on the beach with some basic safety tips, then move onto balancing on the board. Then they’ll show how to get up out of the water onto the surfboard and gradually get to your feet.
After you learn the movements involved with surfing basics, they’ll then get you into the water as a new surfer. It will require practice to become proficient, so expect to get wet repeatedly until you improve sufficiently to ride some waves and feel successful. Then you can get a better surfboard.
2. Go Kayaking
There are many ways to get on the water, but perhaps the most enduring is kayaking. It is perhaps the best way to explore lakes. Being able to paddle along, sit in comfort and take in everything around you is wonderful. Many of the lakes in the U.S. are expansive and worth exploring.
Trips can be taken with friends or you can take organized trips to bring people together who share a passion for kayaking on the lakes. When you get into doing this regularly, you may wish to head down to Minnesota. It has more lakes than any other state, so you’ll be spoiled for choice either when paddling solo or as part of a group of buddies. Camp out and make it a trip to remember.
3. Knee Boarding
Knee boarding is said to be much easier to pick up than waterskiing and even wakeboarding. Instead of trying to stand up on a board and be towed by a speedboat, you can kneel on the board and be towed more slowly. For people who suffer from poor balance and don’t feel confident to stand up on a board, then knee boarding is a good alternative to try out. Also, it’s possible to begin with this watersport, gravitate to wakeboarding, and then finally up to waterskiing when competent enough to give those a go too.
4. Try Standup Paddle Boarding
Standup paddle boarding has taken on a life of its own as a way to get on the water without being proficient at it. Instead of trying to learn how to surf, paddle boarders climb on their board and move gently through the water. First, being on their knees and paddling is an easier way to balance until they get comfortable at it. Then climbing up to stand up completely is the next difficulty level. Either approach is acceptable.
The ‘SUP’ community is full of beginners who felt that getting on the water was important but were a bit tentative about how to go about it. So, you’ll be in good company here. There’s also no need for advanced lessons because it’s simple enough that watching a couple of YouTube video lessons will suffice. There are many inflatable standup paddle boards you can find online and enjoy anytime you want.
5. Underwater Scooter
Perhaps you also would like to try out an underwater scooter which makes the experience much easier and memorable. An underwater scooter is lightweight, portable and in most, has an attached GoPro so you can capture your dive!
Watersports are only fun when you’re enjoying yourself. So, it’s best to begin with the basic ones and move up to the more difficult watersports later. Otherwise, you risk trying something way too difficult and giving up completely. And that would be a real shame.
