© 2017 Author(s). The magnetizations of the YBCO film with ac travelling magnetic waves of relatively short wavelengths were studied. The results have verified that the reported “intermediate value” of the superconducting current density [Wang et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 104(3), 032602 (2014)] was caused by the existence of multiple transition regions in the sample: the magnetic poles induce ±JC in the pole regions, which produces two transition regions within each wavelength λ ( +JC→−JC→+JC, and vice versa, while the symbol → indicates the transition region). The current densities in the transition region are with intermediate values, which are smaller than the critical value. In case of relatively short wavelength, there are multiple transition regions, which occupy a large fraction of the YBCO sample with intermediate current values. Moreover, the wavelike current distributions might help explain the flux transportation and dc output voltage in HTS flux pump.