UncategorizedHow to Duckdive a Longboard 

Aged 25 I was living in Cornwall, England, and managing a surf school. It was the kind of surf school that, during the course of a busy day, could have up to 100 people go out in the water. A lot of what I did was on computers, or using telephones, and was all driven by numbers. It wasn’t what I had signed up for and at this point I came across Surf Simply.

Some of you may, or may not, know this but in order to apply for a coaching position at Surf Simply the first stage is to submit a video tutorial. They urge you to do something outside the world of surfing for your video but I couldn’t resist the urge to pay to my strengths. I created a tutorial, put it on youtube, and got the job.

By posting my application using youtube I inadvertently put myself out to the world. I thought nothing of it at the time or for some time after until one day Michael, a guest at Surf Simply, told me he’d seen it and wanted to give it a go. I went back and dug up my password and sure enough the video was still there but I was astounded to see that thousands of people had viewed it.

I rewatched it and, of course, cringed. More importantly I felt I had more to share. I had changed some of my techniques. I’d increased efficiency. I’d managed to stop snapping boards (touch wood).

These things combined with the fact that people had commented and left questions that I wanted to answer inspired me to put together the second video.