Surf CoachingAutomation Through Repetition 

In an earlier blog, we spoke about Australian surfer Sally Fitzgibbons using a wave pool to give her the most consistent conditions to practice some new manoeuvres, we’re now going to turn the focus onto our own coach, Oli Davis and his mission to improve his surfing.

It all started back in February, when some of the Surf Simply crew took a little trip across the border to Nicaragua. In between some fun little surfs, the team found that the hotel they were staying in had built a nifty concrete skate ramp, and even had a few old skateboards lying around. Harry and Oli decided this would be the perfect opportunity to, like Sally, get multiple attempts at adjusting some bad habits.

Oli in particular had never really had an opportunity to use a skateboard on a ramp before, but after a few tentative goes got fully stuck into his turns, and pretty soon both the boys began to feel their turns improving. Back out in the water, after several sessions on the ramp, Oli’s newly rotated shoulders had allowed him to tighten his cutbacks and helped improve the hit rate on his top turns. Mission Success.

Now, we have to state here that we are definitely not advocating barefoot skateboarding with no helmets (trust us, concrete hurts), but a little practice out of the water can really go a long way. Swimming when we can’t surf will help us catch more waves when we can, rolling around the block on a skateboard (with a helmet!) can really help your balance in the waves and a little stretching each day will make everything much easier when you hit the water!

In part 2 of this blog we’ll see how Oli likes a taste of his own medicine, when he gets a week of intensive video coaching back at Surf Simply HQ.