on my beach break the first saummer I had a lot of problems doing just this. The time between the wave is being too flat to the point when it becomes too steep was extremely fast. If the wave is not steep enough it didn’t matter how hard was I paddling. In case the wave was too steep, it was eating me alive. Quite often I was founding myself in the position hanging over the lip, like this one:
http://picasaweb.google.com/andrew.lapides/Mexico_sup#5295489096541813890

Mind you this picture (and sequence to follow) is from Mexico over the gentle point break. At home at Vancouver Island it was quite different – the wave a bit bigger, say 2 feet taller, and my first board was one and a half foot longer. It was simply scary. From this position I pearled so many times in the short and narrow pocket of the wave.

What helped me? 1. Shorter board, that fits into pocket
2. I learned to start turning immediately, with no delay (as on the sequence basically).

but it was a challenge – basically I was learning how to takeoof and how to set a bottom turn at the same time.

otherwise your article is very-very nice.