Stand up paddle surfing and stand up paddle boarding (SUP)...
Are offshoots of surfing that originated in Hawaii. Unlike traditional
surfing where the rider sits until a wave comes, stand up paddle boarders
stand on their boards and use a paddle to propel themselves through the
water. The sport was documented in a 2013 report that identified it as the
outdoor sporting activity with the most first-time participants in the
United States that year. Variations include flat water paddling for outdoor
recreation, fitness, or sightseeing, racing on lakes, large rivers and canals,
surfing on ocean waves, paddling in river rapids (whitewater SUP),
Paddle board yoga and even fishing.
Stand up paddlers wear a variety of wet suits and other clothing,
depending on water and air temperature since most of their time is spent
standing on the board.
A related, traditional sport, paddleboarding, is done kneeling on a
board and paddling with the hands, similar to a butterfly swimming
stroke. The term "paddleboarding" is sometimes incorrectly used to refer
to stand up paddle surfing.
Historian and writer Steve West claimed that the contemporary notion
of stand up paddle boarding, if attributed to the Waikiki Beach Boys of
Oahu during the 1960s, considers that outrigger canoeing should be
recognised as the direct link between the idea of standing on a board and
propelling it with a canoe paddle, since the individual SUP skills (board
riding and paddling) already existed, used by people who had
traditionally grown up learning them.