So this one time, at surf camp….

A little while back – okay it was November and okay I am slack – I headed up to Casuarina Beach, just south of the Gold Coast, to attend a weekend surf camp run by Surfing Australia’s High Performance Centre. (That would be me on the left).

The HPC runs camps for elite and intermediate surfers, and they use the same approach for both. The camp I attended was girls only, and there were 4 of us – hi Jess, Ari and Tanya! Our coach was Gary Cruikshank, who has coached professionally for over 8 years and spent 7 years surfing professionally. If I had to talk to people continuously for 2 days straight I’d poke my eyes out with a stick, but Gary is a committed coach who really puts in the effort to make sure you get the most out of the experience.

So what happened? Each day we surfed for 2 hours in the morning and again in the afternoon, taking breaks to talk with Gary about how we were going. Gary filmed the lot. After each session it was back to the Centre to analyse the footage.

The HPC use the Siliconcoach program to help with their video analysis. Footage can be slowed down, paused, drawn over and – best of all – synced up with other footage of better surfers doing what you should have done in that situation.

So for example, some frames from my stuff:

We also spent time every day carveboarding. These things are brilliant.

Finally, after the camp you’re provided with a DVD of all your footage and also a Siliconcoach session of synced footage with Gary talking through what it is you need to work on next. Great reinforcement.

So in summary? Look, this is a surf-centric post. I figure if you’ve made it to here, you’re probably a surfer and you’re wondering if it was worth it. It was. It really was. Definitely something I’ll be doing again.