Technique breakdowns · Surf travel · The kaizen life
The bottom turn is the foundation of every powerful manoeuvre. Get it wrong and nothing else works. Get it right and the wave opens up entirely.
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The right wave at the right time accelerates progression faster than any coach. These five spots are perfect for intermediates ready to push their limits.
Technical ability only takes you so far. When the heat clock is running or the waves are bigger than expected, your mental game determines the outcome.
Most surfers paddle harder when they should be paddling smarter. The secret to catching more waves is mechanics, not effort.
After coaching over 1,200 surfers, we've identified the real patterns that separate those who progress from those who plateau.
Not the tourist guide. The actual guide for surfers who want to get the most out of Bali's incredible variety of breaks — without getting in over their heads.
Wave pool coaching in the UK has quietly become one of the fastest ways to accelerate your surfing — but most surfers don't know how to structure their session to get the real results. Unlike beach coaching, every wave is predictable: same size, same shape, same opportunity to practice the same movement. Here's exactly how RSJ structures wave pool coaching sessions to create measurable improvement in a single day.
Video analysis in surf coaching reveals technical errors that are completely invisible in real time — including problems your eyes literally cannot detect at full speed. The difference between seeing your surfing and feeling it is the difference between evidence and assumption, and most intermediate surfers are operating on assumption. This is what video analysis actually shows coaches, and why RSJ makes it non-negotiable in every programme.
The right wave teaches more in a session than years at the wrong break — and finding quality surf spots in the UK means knowing which breaks produce the conditions that actually force your surfing to improve. From Thurso's reeling right-handers to Freshwater West's powerful beach break, the UK has world-class waves if you know where to look. This is the honest guide for intermediate and advanced surfers who want to surf smarter on their home turf.
Entering your first surf competition without a preparation plan is a guaranteed way to underperform — and most first-time competitors make the same five mistakes before their heat even starts. A proper competition preparation programme covers heat strategy, wave selection, mental readiness, and the physical routine that has you performing on cue when it counts. Here is RSJ's complete coach's checklist for preparing for your first surf competition.
Remote surf coaching sounds like a compromise — your coach is somewhere else, the feedback is delayed, and the ocean doesn't care about your inbox. But the real question isn't whether it matches in-person coaching on every dimension; it's whether remote surf coaching produces measurable improvement in your surfing. The honest answer from RSJ, having coached over 1,200 surfers in both formats, is yes — and here's exactly how and why.
Choosing the right youth surf coaching programme isn't as straightforward as finding the nearest surf school with a junior option — and the difference between a programme that builds a lifelong relationship with the ocean and one that puts your child off surfing entirely comes down to a handful of specific, easy-to-check criteria. This is a parent's complete guide to youth surf coaching in the UK: what to look for, what to avoid, and what genuinely good looks like.
Kaizen — the Japanese concept of continuous improvement through small, relentless changes — was developed for manufacturing, not surfing. RSJ's founders applied it to surf coaching anyway, and it changed what the methodology could achieve for intermediate and advanced surfers. This is the philosophy behind every RSJ programme, and why applying Kaizen to surfing produces results that bigger, bolder approaches to coaching consistently fail to deliver.