Times are changing when it comes to surfing and coaching. The sport of surfing is growing, and while the die-hard hippies will still talk about the good old days when Uluwatu was uncrowded and when they used to sleep in the dunes at Supertubes in Jeffreys Bay and surf it on their own we can’t undo the popularity and growth in surfing. I learned to surf when back in 1992 when I was 8 years old, but the experience of ‘learning to surf’ was very different then to what it is now.
My parents enjoyed the sea and used to go and swim on weekends and take bodyboards down to ride waves on, I copied the surfers and started standing up on the bodyboard. After doing that for a while my parents figured that an old “Hotline” twinfin with a rainbow leash would be a good 8th birthday present, and that was it. No surf lessons, no surf coach, no surf buddies just a board and living 2 km’s from Muizenberg beach and a whole lot of froth! The first time I got coached was when I was 17 and competing, very different to today.
Now let’s be clear, there are different types of surf coaching which is usually separated by either “beginner lesssons” or “pro surfers”, but what about everyone in between? If you look at other individual sports people use coaches; take golf for example.