As the editor of a navigation website, people send me questions all the time about learning to navigate. I have compiled some frequently asked questions here for people in their 20s who want to learn to surf.

1) Could someone in their twenties learn as fast as a child?

It just depends on how agile you are. If you are agile, you will learn as fast as a child. If you are not agile, you will become agile, but that takes time. If you need to lose some fat to get lean, surfing will shed the fat for you and still make you lean. Paddling the waves and fighting against the current is hard work.

You have to be agile and quick to get on your surfboard (the act of changing from a lying position to standing on your surfboard). If you’re not nimble and fast when you start trying to surf, you’ll work so hard in the water just paddling that you’ll eventually become nimble and fast.

2) Is surfing something that anyone can learn to do?

Yes, even people who have less than 2 arms have learned to surf. The concepts are not difficult, but the physical work is difficult. You have to be persistent to be good at surfing. It is not easy to learn to paddle on a wave, and once you learn it, you should be able to get on your surfboard. Once you can do that, you need to spawn about 100 times before you can stay on the board for more than a fraction of a second. You have to tackle every step along the way.

3) Does putting your foot in the wrong position for a couple of seconds cause an accident?

Yes, that happens all the time. The cool thing is that takedowns are fun because you’re just landing on the water. People say they don’t surf because they’ll just fall off the board, but the thing is, that’s all anyone does. Everyone rides until they fall off or until the wave subsides. There is no reason to be scared or embarrassed about falling off your surfboard.

4) Should beginners be as scared of sharks as the movies are?

No, you are more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the beach than to be killed by a shark. You are also more likely to be killed by a falling coconut than by a shark. There are plenty of tips online to help you avoid shark encounters.

5) Does it make a difference what kind of board you use?

Yes. To learn at 20, you need to buy an old, used, cheap longboard that is around 9 feet long. You will find the best price buying an old surfboard from a surfer. The reason you want a big board while learning is that it will be much easier for you to stand on the board. The more surface area the board has, the better it will float and the less sensitive the board will be to all the slight movements of your body.