Time spent surfing will not be time you consider wasted, so the first thing to do is go to the beach and either get some lessons or take the plunge and rent a board.

Standing up is the key
Lie on your stomach and chest, face up, focused straight ahead. Position your hands palm down by your shoulders, as if you were about to do a push up. Now’s the crucial bit that may need some practice. Swiftly get up off your stomach so that you’re in a crouching or sumo wrestler-like stance by pushing your upper body up while you sweep your feet in under you. You want to be balanced with your feet in the middle of your board.

Don’t look down at your board – it’ll make you lose your balance, so make sure you keep looking ahead. Keep low in your crouching stance position after you have come up, straightening up slowly to the point that you need to. But you’re always going to be in a crouched like sumo wrestler with your feet shoulder width apart and using your feet to grip the board.

Helpful hints and etiquette
You’ll pick up everything you need to know gradually the more you get out there but here are a couple of helpful hints to get you started.

Don’t ride your board all the way into the shallow so that it ends up skimming along the sand as this will damage your board. You want to be thinking about getting off your board once the water depth is shallower than a meter.

Don’t drop in. Dropping in on someone means stealing their wave, it’s not appreciated and can start nasty brawls so don’t do it. The first standing surfer closest to the wave that’s breaking has the right of way on the wave. Any others paddling out in an attempt to catch the wave must yield, holding back from the wave.

That’s surfing in a nutshell. Not only is it a blast, but it’ll keep you fit and toned.

The name motocross came from the combination of motorbike and cross-country that the sport consists of. While motocross spawned FMX the obvious difference between them is that FMX puts more focus on the daredevil tricks and stunts done while the bike is airborne as oppose to motocross, which is focused on racing.

Motocross races are held on an enclosed, marked and fenced off-road circuit where the rough features of the natural terrain like hills, cambers, banks, mixed in with man-made jumps make the circuits challenging. Racers tend to increase their engine capacity size as they progress in their speed and experience and fitness.

The bikes are specifically designed for racing with quick powerful motors and disc brakes, and knobbly tyres so they can race on surfaces ranging from sand to hard clay.

The first noted motocross event was held way back in 1924, in Surrey, Northern England. Back then they were more or less motorcycle trial events known as scrambles, on account of all the dirt that the rider was destined to be wearing at the end of a ride.

Back then the bikes were less than ideal to ride with off-road bikes hardly differing at all from the ones on-road racing until the 1930s when more advanced suspension sprung onto the scene to save the day.

Today the realm of motocross circulates around two huge championship events;
The Grand Prix (or Motocross World Championships) and the AMA Motorcycle Championships. Motocross des Nations or Motocross of Nations is also a big deal, usually held at the end of the year once both National and World Championships have finished.

On the more technical side, the classes of each Championship are as follows. MX1 = 450cc, MX2 = 250cc, and MX3 = open.
In the AMA there are two classes: 250cc and 450cc. Each round has two rides of 30 minute-plus-two-laps.
In the Motocross of Nations there are three moto (races) with two classes competing per moto. The location of the event changes from year to year. So far the US, Belgium and Great Britain have had the greatest success.

If the missus (or sensitive new age guy) is in your ear about the danger factor this is a good comeback to remember to help you get back on your bike, stress-free. As a group of athletes, tested against elite groups from track , football, basketball and soccer, motocross athletes tested to a higher overall fitness level than any other group. This test was done in 1979, and retested in 2002.

BMX is an acronym for bicycle motocross. That makes sense because motocross that was the source of inspiration for the young daredevil kids in Californian kids in the 70’s that started the phenomenon.

Coming a long way since then BMX is now a legitimate Olympic sport having debuted in 2008 Beijing Olympics. The inclusion into the Olympic realm has since swayed public attention of the sport with newcomers fast partaking in the sport.

BMX is both the bike and the sport and covers both racing and freestyle.

There are six domains of the freestyle BMX: dirt, flatland, park, vert, street and a newer discipline of big air. The latter is usually contested in a stadium using a large drop-in ramp. Apart from vert, these all imply the type of surface used for jumps and tricks. Vert BMX uses a ramp, such as a half pipe or quarter pipe to make large jumps called aerials.

BMX dirt racing is held on non-paved circuits of around 350 metres in length with man made obstacles like ramps, jumps and banked. Usually races are short and sweet but as each rider is obviously there competing against the other they’re geared up for a good amount of action.

Flatland BMX focuses on balance and smoothness of execution of complex tricks.

Park BMX is performed in a closed of area with multiple types of ramps and rails.

Street BMX sees the rider using readily available obstacles on the street, such as handrails, buildings, kerbs and banking, to pull stunts.

So, there’s a huge amount of scope for you to get into BMX, depending on your area of interest.