https://surfmastery.com/barrel-mastery-academy

What if the reason you can’t come out of the barrel has nothing to do with courage or experience, and everything to do with your brain?

Many surfers believe that getting barreled is purely about skill, timing, or bravery. But if you’ve ever felt disoriented inside the tube, struggled to hold your line, or mysteriously fallen when the exit was right there, the real issue might be neurological. In this episode of the Surf Mastery Podcast, Michael Frampton reveals how vision, balance, and body awareness directly affect your ability to stay stable in the barrel, and why training your brain could transform your surfing.

• Discover why disorientation in the barrel is often a neurological challenge, not a lack of surfing ability.

• Learn practical tube riding techniques that help you stay balanced, compact, and focused on the exit.

• Understand how improving your vision, balance, and proprioception can elevate every aspect of your surfing.    

Press play to learn the surprising brain-based insights and practical tips that could finally help you ride out of the barrel. 

Transcript:

welcome back or welcome to the Surf Mastery Podcast, the podcast that helps you to become a better surfer in and out of the water. I'm your host, Michael Frampton, and today we are talking about tube riding, getting barreled, and specifically coming out of the barrel.

If you've ever struggled to come out of the barrel, then this one is for you. Tube riding. It looks like the easiest thing in surfing 'cause all you're doing is standing there. There's little movement in tube riding. However, it is the hardest thing in surfing.

It's also. The pinnacle of surfing, getting barreled. It scores the highest in competitive surfing and surfers dedicate their lives to traveling the world and getting barreled.

I struggled with getting barreled for years, specifically. I actually struggled with coming outta the barrel. Getting into the barrel. Uh, it's not that hard.

It is coming out. That's the hard part.

, And for years I could not figure out why until I had a simple realization.

And the realization that I had is that it was a neurological problem, not a lack of courage or experience. See, I was on holiday in New York and went to Ripley's, believe it or not. And as you exit the show, there's a giant spinning tube covered in LED lights and you walk through a bridge to go through it.

And after about two steps into this space, I was completely disorientated and felt like I was gonna fall over the edge of the bridge. I was immediately intensely motion sick, essentially in my brain. Basically wanted to go with the spinning tube. I had to close my eyes and, uh, feel my way back out, and I was seasick for quite some time after that.

At the time I was actually studying functional neurology as well as struggling with coming outta barrels. So I put two and two together, and I spent some time on improving my vision and my balance and my proprioception. , And two powerful things happened. Firstly, my tube writing became much, much better.

I was able to come out of the tube, you see, 'cause the barrel is very disorientating. And if your brain doesn't have the ability to trust its vestibular system or the balance system, when your eyes, when your vision is confused. Then you will fall in the barrel just like I wanted to fall with the spinning tube at Ripley's or not.

But when I improved my balance, my vision, my proprioceptive, my neurological inputs to the brain, when I improved those and my brain trusted them more, they became more accurate and faster. Not only was I able to come out of the barrel, everything got better, all of my surfing got better. I just felt more confident and comfortable in the water.

I actually also got stronger in the gym and I stopped getting seasick, so I was able to go on a boat trip.

And if it wasn't for all that neurological work that I put in, I wouldn't have been able to surf Cloudbreak. You need to go on a boat and if you are motion sick, when you get to a, a wave like that, you're not, probably not gonna paddle out. So I managed to get barreled at Cloudbreak. All because of some simple neurological training.

So if you are someone that struggles to come out of the barrel and you're not sure why, , this is most likely the reason. Improving your neurology will not only improve your tube riding,

but every single aspect of your surfing, the way you move your posture and even your health, there actually have been studies, about people improving their vestibular function or their balance system. They actually improve their mental health as well as a pub med study all about it.

I have just released a group coaching program coming up that will take you through all of this. You'll learn how to assess and improve your vision, balance, and body awareness. We'll go through some practical tips for tube writing as well. To find out more and to register, you can go to surf mastery.com and check out the link there on the homepage.

And of course, there will be a direct link to this program in the show notes. I'm more on that at the end, but for now, let's get into some, tube writing tips.

Tip number one. This is the obvious one. You've gotta find barreling waves. So you've gotta specifically travel to waves that are known for barrels. Now that might just be a local beach break. , And then within that beach break you need to be selecting the waves that do barrel. Or going outta your way to go to a reef break that is known to barrel.

So yeah, you gotta find them. Tip number two. You have to feel comfortable with pulling in and falling and pulling into closeouts. You gotta get comfortable with failure in the barrel. That is key. .

Just like anything, the more times we fail, the closer we are to success.

If you want to learn to drop in on a vert ramp, you have to first learn to knee, slide and to fall. And if you happen to watch the recent stab in the dark with Kelly Slater, there was a candid look at some of Kelly Slater's surfing and you'd be surprised how many times that he pulls into closeout barrels.

'cause if you don't pull in and try, you never know if you're gonna make it. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of failure, so you cannot be afraid to fail.

Side note, improving your neurology and especially your body awareness actually will make you safer in the barrel to be ready for what happens, uh, when things go wrong. Tip number three, which segues from there is your true riding stance. So if you've got any kind of poo man stance where your head is forward of the inside rail or your butt is sticking out further than your outside rail, you're gonna get clipped.

Yeah. Your butt is gonna get hit by the lip. And in reality, the barrels that you're gonna be going for are going to be small barrels. And the more you can compact yourself into a good tube riding position and keep your entire body over top of your board and centered, and a good functional tube writing stance with your hands in the right place, ready for the board to slip under you.

Your hands are there to stop it hitting your face. It just happens to be the right, uh, position to be in the barrel as well. Kind of like a tucked in fighting stance of sorts. Nice and compact. Nice and safe, compact and fitting in the barrel. So we need to have very good and accurate body awareness and strength in that position of a good tube writing stance.

I. I recommend practicing in front of a mirror,

and of course, we will go into a lot of detail on this during the course. Tip number four, keep your eyes on the exit. We have a tendency to look up at the lip in the barrel. We can get kind of hypnotized and distracted, and of course we tend to go where we are looking.

So if you are looking up at the curling lip, your board will drift and you will fall.

So keep your eyes focused on the exit. Tip number five. Do not solely rely on your visual field. Instead, we're gonna bring some focus into how it feels. How does your board feel under your feet? How does your body feel in that position? Am I balanced?

If your vision is wiped out by a chandelier inside the barrel, will you be able to hold your position and your balance? Your visual field is the first thing to get confused inside the barrel. 'cause the barrel is a very disorientating place to be. So we need to rely on your feel and body awareness.

So not only working on your tube riding stance in the mirror, but trying to hold it while you close your eyes. Open them again. See how much of that stance that you have maintained. Again, more on this in the course.

Tip number six, listen to the wall. You know when you're trying to listen to someone in another room and you sort of creep up to the door and you move your whole body really close to the door and you slowly just lean your ear in towards the door to almost touch it.

Trying not to make a sound. We kind of move our entire body closer and closer, almost touching the wall. Fingertips are just touching ears, just touching. We can do something similar in the barrel. Just lean in to listen to the wall. We kind of lean in. With our whole body, we wanna get nice and close to the wall of the wave.

That's a reference point. We can even reach out and touch it to slow down. But we know if we're in a good body position, our butt's not sticking out on the outside rail, and a lot of us is nice and close to the wall. We are less likely to get clipped by what we can't see behind us. So leaning in and listening to the wall, that was a tip that helped me a lot as well.

So I hope some of those tips help, and I hope to see you on the course. Again, go to surf mastery.com, or there is a direct link to find out more about the course and to book. It starts up in a couple of weeks,

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Thanks for tuning into the Surf Mastery Podcast and until next time, keep surfing.

The Surf Mastery Podcast: 

For the passionate surfer - whether you're a weekend warrior, a surf dad, or an older surfer - this podcast is all about better surfing and deeper stoke. With expert surf coaching, surf training, and surfing tips, we’ll help you catch more waves, refine your paddling technique, and perfect your pop up on a surfboard. From surf workouts to handling wipeouts, chasing bigger waves, and mastering surf technique, we’re here to make sure you not only improve but truly enjoy surfing more - so you can get more out of every session and become a wiser surfer. Go from Beginner or intermediate Surfer to advanced