Surfing is definitely harder for a couple reasons.

One, waves are liquid, and snow is solid. If you are snowboarding, you have a nice, solid surface to balance on. If you fall down, you can get right back up from where you were and keep going.

With surfing, you have to "catch" the right part of a wave, so that the force of the wave can propel you forward. If you don't do this exactly right, you bob up and down in the water.

Also, in snowboarding, the surface (snow-covered hill) is not moving, but you are. In surfing, you are moving and the surface (the wave) is also moving. Therefore, surfing requires a *lot* more balance when you are riding a wave.

I've tried to bodyboard, and done a little bit of snowboarding, and even though I only got a few feet with the snowboard, I wasn't even able to catch a wave right during the hour or two I was at the beach.
Source(s):
Personal experience, basic understanding of physics

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