u/ecomkindaguy

In the shortest way possible;
- Background: Long term commenter, been surfing on and off my whole life, ~15 years

A lot of you are too obsessed with sticking to your foam boards.
You should use your foam board (9ft) for starting out, getting a feel for taking off in a straight line in white water - mainly to avoid hurting yourself and others due to incompetence and poor board holding.

But you should pretty quickly be moving to a hard top, ideally an 8ft+ mini mal or a 9ft mal.

I have taught many friends who have never surfed, and started them off on a hard top. Most old school guys learnt on a hard top. Softtops have only been around since like 2000's.

Stop thinking it's this huge massive deal, learn a bit, then go get one.

Just my opinion.