Simple…immersion!

Immersing yourself into a one or two day surf camp provides students so much more than a group surf lesson can. Spending an eight hour day in our Day Surf Camps, or two 8-hour days in our Surf Weekenders, allows women to connect and create new “surf sisterships”, become empowered with shared surf wisdom, skills, expertise, and common sense advice from our all women coaching team and ultimately transforms the challenging entry level steps necessary to learn the art of surfing.

You’ll learn with women who share your passion to surf and may be total beginners, have tried surfing a little on their own or in a “Waikiki style” surf lesson, or just need some really exceptional insights and instruction to take their surfing to the next level.

We choose the very best beach location for every camp we offer. Monitoring the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) reports prior to the camp and right up till the evening before benefits our students to have the most teachable learning environment. Sharing with students, at the start of each camp, the six ingredients that comprise the “recipe for a perfect wave” helps them to understand when and where to go on their next surf mission. Critically being able to judge what are safe and progressive surf sessions for them versus them heading out into unknown changing ocean conditions unaware is literally “life saving”. Only Seaside and Cannon Beach have Lifeguards on their beaches in the summer months, so having students able to begin understanding and reading the conditions prior to suiting up is the only smart way to approach it.

Our all women coaching team is comprised of five local NW coastal women whose shared years of NW surfing experience and world surf travel covers more than 10 decades. Their love of surfing is matched by their love of teaching! All of them in their regular day jobs are teachers; from school educators, to speech pathology, to snowboard coaching, to lifeguarding and teaching yoga and mindfulness. All have strong surfing skills and inside knowledge from organically learning to surf on their own, years before surf instruction was being offered. Student’s personal surf questions are welcome during our camps. There is no such thing as a dumb question when you’re learning a challenging new sport like surfing.

The layering of learning we do of the 12 essential surfing skills is a proven methodology that works. It’s unique to our surfing program. We begin with a beach yoga session that serves to do three important things; first is to prepare students mentally and physically for the day’s instruction, second are to create trust and confidence in their head coach, and third is to relieve any stress or tensions they are experiencing prior to learning the 12 skills in the beach practice. The yoga session is followed by an hour plus on the beach dialing in the skills. We want every student to have the understanding of these skills so that when they enter the waves with their coaches, they can then successfully re-layer the skills the same way they learned them earlier.

Safety is a priority in our camps. We have provided “state of the art” Gath surf helmets to all of our students and coaching staff since our inception in 2005. We’re one of the rare surf programs that value the protection these lightweight helmets offer. With the current awareness of concussion and brain injury research developing, and the high likelihood for beginner surfers to have their board strike them, we take the extra measures to teach the “cover up”, how to bail off your board in the shallow or deep water safely, the etiquette necessary around other surfers to avoid collisions and an understanding of how the currents move in the ocean creating exiting riptides, which students are taught how to identify and exit from.

Our Surftech, Global Surf and Froth quiver of surfboards, range from 6’ to 10’ in length, and all are softop material. This range of board sizes allows us to put each student on the optimal length to learn on for their level. They are also much safer than epoxy or fiberglass versions. The dimensions of our quiver provide both stability and float in the longboards and offer more performance shapes too. We transport all the boards in our trailer during our camps, so vehicle transport by students is never an issue.

The open, supportive and generous way we teach and hold space for our students in each camp experience creates a deep sense of connection between the students and coaches. From enjoying hot tea together with the forecast discussion, to the beach yoga, to the circle of learning on the beach with the skills, to eating a delicious catered organic lunch together, to the photos taken , and the sweet waves caught, with cheers from peers and coaches alike, students are nurtured and immersed in this new life adventure.

We hope to continue to share this mission and vision for an expanded growing women’s surfing community here in the Pacific NW with you this summer!  See you in the water!