Quick answer: Most stuck pop-ups come down to five fixable habits: a two-stage push-up instead of one motion, eyes locked on the board, hands placed too low or too wide, weight landing too far back, and a hesitant, multi-step rise instead of a single explosive movement. Each one shows up clearly on video and has a specific drill to fix it.
The pop-up is the single most repeated movement in surfing, and it's also the one surfers practice the least correctly. You do it dozens of times a session, which means a small flaw compounds fast. Get it wrong and you're playing catch-up for the rest of the ride: late to your feet, off balance, or already leaning the wrong way before the wave has done anything.
The good news is that pop-up mistakes are easy to spot on video, and each one has a clear fix. Here are the five that show up most often, what they look like on a clip, and the drill to correct each one.
Mistake 1: The Two-Stage Push-Up
What it looks like on video: You push up to your knees first, pause (even briefly), then step your feet forward separately. Instead of one fluid motion, there are two distinct stages with a visible break between them.
This is the most common pop-up flaw, and it's usually a strength or sequencing issue rather than a timing issue. Your arms push the top half of your body up before your legs are ready to follow, so you end up finishing the pop-up as two separate movements stitched together.
The fix - single-motion pop-up drill:
- Lie flat on a yoga mat or towel, hands by your chest, not your stomach or shoulders.
- In one continuous motion, push your upper body up while simultaneously driving your feet forward and under you.
- Land in your stance with knees already bent, not with straight legs that you then bend afterward.
- Do 10 slow reps, freezing at the top of each one to check your position before resetting.
Slow and correct beats fast and sloppy. Speed comes later, once the motion is grooved.
Mistake 2: Eyes Locked on the Board
What it looks like on video: Your chin is down, eyes on your feet or the deck of the board, through the entire pop-up and into your first second of standing.
Where your eyes go, your body follows. If you're looking down, your chest and shoulders drop with your gaze, which throws your weight forward and makes it much harder to find a balanced stance.
The fix - eyes-up drill:
Practice your pop-up on land while picking a fixed point at eye level, roughly where you want the wave to take you, and keep your eyes on it the entire time you pop up. Resist the urge to check your foot placement visually. Your feet will find the board through repetition, not by watching them.
Mistake 3: Weight Landing Too Far Back
What it looks like on video: You land with your back foot planted but your front foot too far back toward the middle of the board, or your hips sitting behind your feet instead of stacked over them. The board's nose lifts slightly, or you're visibly leaning back to stay balanced.
This usually comes from pushing off with the arms too hard relative to the legs, which throws the hips backward as a counterbalance.
The fix - front-foot placement drill:
Mark your ideal front-foot position with a strip of tape on your board or mat, roughly under where your chest was when you were paddling. Do slow pop-ups aiming to land your front foot exactly on the mark every time. Check on video that your hips finish stacked over your feet, not trailing behind them.
Mistake 4: Hands Placed Too Low or Too Wide
What it looks like on video: Your hands land on the rails, near your stomach, or spread wide of your shoulders instead of close together near your chest.
Hand position determines how efficiently your arms can drive the pop-up. Hands too low force you to push through a longer range of motion, which slows everything down and often causes the two-stage push-up from mistake one.
The fix - hand-placement drill:
Lie down and place your hands flat on the mat directly under your chest, roughly shoulder-width apart, fingers pointing forward. Pop up from this position ten times, checking each time that your hands haven't drifted toward your stomach or out to the rails. This one adjustment often fixes mistake one as a side effect, since correct hand placement naturally shortens the push-up into a single motion.
Mistake 5: A Hesitant, Multi-Step Rise
What it looks like on video: There's a visible pause or stutter somewhere in the pop-up, even if it's not a full two-stage break. You can see the surfer thinking through the movement instead of executing it in one committed burst.
Hesitation usually comes from uncertainty about foot placement or balance, which is often a confidence problem more than a mechanics problem. The body slows down to "check" itself mid-movement.
The fix - commitment drill:
Once your mechanics are correct on land (hands, feet, single motion), start timing yourself. Aim for a pop-up you can complete in under a second, counted from hands touching the board to being fully stood up. Speed forces commitment. You can't hesitate and hit a fast time at the same time. Film several reps and compare the smooth ones to the hesitant ones to see the difference on video.
How to Practice with Video Feedback
The reason these five mistakes are worth naming individually is that they each look distinct on video, but they often get lumped together as "my pop-up is slow." That vague diagnosis doesn't tell you what to actually change. Filming yourself, running through this list, and identifying which specific mistake (or combination) you're making turns a vague problem into a concrete drill.
Do this after every session or land-practice set: film a few pop-ups, watch them back in slow motion, and match what you see against the five mistakes above. Pick the one that's most obvious in your footage and drill that one thing before your next session. Trying to fix all five at once usually means fixing none of them.
If you'd rather not diagnose it yourself, upload a clip to Glydeo and it will identify which of these (or another issue entirely) is the most impactful thing to fix in your pop-up, along with a drill and an explanation of why it's happening. It's a fast way to confirm your own read on the footage or catch something you missed.
Analyze Your Own Clip
Your next pop-up is only a few seconds away from being filmed and fixed. Grab a friend or a tripod, get a side-angle clip of your next few waves, and run it against the five mistakes above. For a second opinion built specifically for surfers, Glydeo will break down your pop-up frame by frame and tell you exactly what to work on next.