Learn to surf without being a public menace

Learning to surf – and this is an integral part of the teaching at Ki Surf School– means being able to surf without posing a danger to the public, to others and to yourself.

It’s amazing, to say the least, how experienced surfers with the technical know-how to surf well can still cause accidents with other surfers. In the midst of the multitude, they behave as if they were alone in the vast ocean, and it’s in this way that shoddy stars manage to send people to hospital.

However, there are a whole range of rules, some of which are simply common sense, for safe surfing. These rules are set out in an educational booklet created by the Eco-Safe Surfing collective, made up of surf school managers who are themselves surf teachers.

Basic rules for safe surfing

Here are some of the rules:

• I bypass the surf zone and head out to sea.
• When I win the line-up, I give priority to the surfers already waiting.
• I say hello, I breathe, I relax.
• I hold my board when someone is near.
• I respect the priority of whoever starts closest to the peak.
• When a surfer further out starts, I try to move out of the way so as not to get in the way.
• I share the waves with others and avoid perpetually coveting priority.
• I do this by remembering that I myself was a beginner.
• I refrain from catching a wave if I can’t avoid surfers in the surf.
• I show respect, kindness and common sense.

Dangerous behavior

Collectively, the pincer strategy consists of surrounding one or more surfers and sandwiching them in order to charge at them or steal all their waves. This strategy is also practiced by fellow surf instructors.

For example, I’m teaching a lesson on a deserted sandbank when two instructors with 8 students each arrive on the beach. One group moves to my left, the other to my right, and within 5 minutes they’ve joined up to invade my group’s practice area.

The 16 students from the big surf school then charged at my own students, forcing me either to move to another spot when I was there first, or to annoy my colleagues into respecting my space.

Another dangerous practice, encountered not only by free surfers but also by some surf instructors. When there’s no one on the sandbar, there’s nothing to worry about. On the other hand, when other surf schools or surfers are present, drifting with your group along the entire length of the sandbar, from north to south, and letting your students pass all the groups in their path, bothers other users of the spot and increases the risk of accidents.

At Ki Surf School, we emphasize current management and the need to return frequently to the landmark in order to surf the interesting wave we’ve identified. There are strategies for avoiding the current and returning without getting tired.

This is what teaching is all about, making surfers autonomous and responsible.