Walking on Water

I’ve realized I’m not a very good surf teacher. It’s one of those things which are just very difficult to explain how to do. The best way to learn to surf is to just do it, I reckon.

Whenever I try to teach someone, I always resort to the same corny demonstration on the beach, which I’m sure you’ve all seen before. I’ll try to show them how to paddle and pop up with the surfboard on dry sand; but the feeling is so different in the water that it’s a complete waste of time.

The other problem I have is that, I usually become overwhelmed by the urge to paddle out and catch waves for myself. What this means is that the learner usually ends up in the shore break having to fend for him or herself.

Today, I learnt that to be a good surf teacher you have to be very selfless. We took some virgin surfers to Muizenberg. Muizenberg is a spot in Cape Town, traditionally for beginners, as the waves are smaller and easier to learn on.

Back in my day, there were no such things as surf schools. We learnt completely by trial and error. I remember when I first started a bunch of us equally clueless guys, who had heard about surfing from someone’s older brother; just began hitting the beach for entire days with our surfboards, in hope that we would finally figure out how to do it.

One guy would learn how to paddle, another would learn how to catch a wave and somehow via osmosis everyone would learn how to surf. The peer-pressure in a way kind of helped. No one wanted to be that guy who couldn’t pick up the next thing. “Benny’s a kook, Benny’s a kook” I would remember being ridiculed, if I were the one who failed to progress.

Learning together was fun, but that first time you stand up properly and move across the wave is like no other experience in the world. It’s indescribable, pure nirvana, you feel as though you’ve not just walked, but run across the water.

Luckily, these days there are tons of surf schools around to help get you to that point a lot quicker. We were fortunate enough to have someone who ran a surf school to help us out earlier.

The trick is to physically lead the novice into the water and help push them onto a wave. That way they are able to experience what it is actually like to catch a wave and get the feeling of how to move in the water. A great tip for next time, should I need to show someone else how to surf.