When should I pull out (not catch a wave)?

Question: When should I pull out (not catch a wave)?

Answer: When Not to Catch a Wave There is a critical moment when you should not catch a wave. Generally this is when a wave has formed into a C and is throwing water forward at high speed. If you catch the wave at this point, you'll be treated to a new experience: Going Over the Falls. There are three main flavors to going over the falls. First, you can catch a wave too late, just as it is pitching over, and fall with it into the abyss. Just you and several hundred tons of water falling in a graceful arch to the sea bed. It's a very jarring experience. Because once you hit, then the whole wave dog-piles onto you. You'll likely do a little tumbling and rolling under the water. Maybe a flip or two. The second flavor of going over the falls happens when you fall in front of an arching wave. You hit the bottom, or bowl, just as the wave is throwing a lot of water up. Of course, you take the up elevator too, then are thrown forward to continue the normal over the falls crash and bubble experience. The last time this happened to me, I was literally upside down in fetal position as the wave spit me out in a cannonball toward the bottom. You have a lot of time to think over your mistake. The last over the falls flavor happens to "he who hesitates." Bigger waves stand up and crash over in roughly the same spot. Sometimes waves just form a mushy slush of moving white water, other times they pick up and drop sledge-hammering tons of water in a hard curtain drop. X marks the spot. Say hey, do you want to be on X-marks-the-spot when the curtain drops? No you don't. This is the voice of experience talking. When practicing as a beginner, stay safely inside where the waves break or paddle all the way out beyond where they break, don't dally in between.