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After over a decade of coaching and nearly 15,000 students I have never seen anyone surf like this during their first lesson out the back. It was an unbelievable performance from Abbie, one of the guests this week at the Surf Simply coaching resort in Nosara. If anyone in the world has ever surfed better than this, the first time they paddled out into unbroken waves, then we definitely want to hear about it.

On Sunday Abbie was working with Luke, one of the Surf Simply coaches, just getting to grips with controlling the board in the white water.

This morning (four days later) she paddled out the back with Sam. The swell wasn’t particularly small either.

Sam gave Abbie a bit of a push to get her into her first wave…

and it all turned out rather well.

She seemed to build a bit of confidence and spun round and paddled into this over head bomb all by herself.

She made the drop with a cheeky grin as the wave exploded behind her.

After that she simply didn’t hold back and charged into wave after wave until we all lost count. This photo is amazing as it shows Abbie’s absolute commitment on the take off.

So what made Abbie such a stand out surfer? And what can the rest of us learn from her? It was really three things.

1) She was a competitive swimmer. You don’t have to be able to swim at all to have a lot of fun surfing in the white water but once you start paddling out the back, spending a few months in the pool (free style, not breast stoke) before a surf trip means you’re going to get out faster and catch more waves.

2) She had got her stance pretty solid. When she was practising in the white water Abbie wasn’t just trying to stand up she was trying to get in the a functional stance and do it often enough that it became instinctive. (Check out the Surf Simply Podcast for more on the functional stance).

3) Finally, and this is huge, she was completely committed on every wave she tried to catch. She didn’t waste time and energy worrying about what might go wrong instead she focused on trying to remember all the things she knew she needed to do in order to make the drop.

Hats off to you Abbie, that session was truly inspiring.

(This blog was sponsored by Surfing Nosara. The Nosara real estate experts.)