Most things, you can teach yourself. This might help:
Practice standing up. On the board, without a wave, in the water, you should be able to put your hands on the rails and get to your feet for a few seconds. Your back foot should be near the tail, maybe a foot from the end, and your front foot should be just ahead of the middle of the board, assuming you're on a shortboard, which you probably are.
When you stand on the board, do not straighten ("lock") your knees. You lose control of the board this way. Keep them loose. Your upper body should impress a drill sergeant: chest up, back straight, etc, but not necessarily upright.
Pay attention to your line-up. Look at things on the beach and remember how they look. Use this to determine where you are and how far you are from the beach. The waves will break in a certain place depending on how the bottom of the ocean is shaped. This means that they will, mostly, break in a certain place, and if you know where you are, you can get to that place. It's a good place to be. There's nothing stupider than the guy who just sits where the crowd is; there's nothing more hilarious than watching a crowd of people who don't know how to line up drift back and forth like zombie ants.
The wind changes the wave. If the wind is blowing onshore, it pushes the wave to break earlier, and so a wave that seems to be only barely cresting may break. It may also show a 'white-cap' -- the appearance of a breaking wave, without the power. If you see a lot of whitecaps, it's probably too windy to surf; go out earlier in the morning. Conversely, if the wind is blowing offshore, the wave will rear up to what seems to be an impossibly precarious height before it breaks, usually unleashing a shower of spray behind it as it goes. These are the waves that get featured in magazine covers and movies. Offshore wind, as long as it isn't blowing way too hard, is good.
Waves come in sets. I'm not sure why. A few big waves will come, all in the span of a few minutes, and then there'll be a lull, where, if anything, small, infrequent waves will show up. Don't try to catch between-set waves. You'll get stuck inside and hit by the large ones.
Show respect for the other people in the water. Learn surf etiquette. Everyone wants to catch a wave. Priority is determined by the person who is highest on the shoulder: that is, if the wave breaks from north to south, the northernmost rider, if he can catch the wave, has priority. Never touch anyone's leash, for any reason, unless you like getting the shit beat out of you. Which reminds me...
Wear a leash. Your board costs several hundred dollars. You do not want to lose it. You cannot hang on to it in a fall. The wave weighs thirty thousand pounds. You weigh 200. The leash will also pull you to the surface of the water when you bail.
When you are paddling out, there are three ways to deal with an oncoming wave. First, you can just hit it. This is what most newbies do, because it seems obvious. It also fucking blows if the wave is bigger than four feet, or if there are a lot of them. Second, you can go underwater -- turtling. Either you ditch your board and swim down (and forward), or you roll over -- board and rider -- and hold onto your board from the underside; the second option is recommended. You probably want to practice holding your breath. Third, you can duck-dive. Paddle at the wave. About seven feet before it hits you, put your hands on the rails of the board and push down as hard as you can so the nose of the board drops underwater. Immediately before the wave hits you, let go as quickly as you can to fall into the water, under the wave, onto the board. This mitigates being hit by a wave to an amazing degree.
Source: grew up in Florida, surfed since I was four, moved to Atlanta and now my life is an endless torrent of waveless despair; so it goes.
