Surf Coaching in Tamarin

We moved to Mauritius about six months ago. Life here has been great for the kids.

I started teaching Noah to kitesurf the week we arrived in September. To be honest, David Chan Chu did the first few lessons — then I took over. I bought a walkie talkie set and we went out almost every day. By November we did our first downwinder together. Four hours, fifty kilometres. He was eight.

In December there was a kids camp, also with David, and something clicked. Not just for Noah — for all the kids. They pushed each other. They inspired each other. They progressed faster in a week together than Noah had in two months with me alone. That part stuck with me.

Some context on me: I’m a certified volleyball instructor, certified ski and snowboard instructor. I coached volleyball for over ten years and taught ski and snowboard for another ten. Always with kids. I stopped about a decade ago — life, work, other things took over. But the instinct never left. You watch kids train and you immediately see what’s structured and what’s not.

And when I looked at what’s available for surf coaching here in Mauritius, the answer was: not much.

You can buy a one-on-one lesson for 80 euros. A kid shows up, gets a foam board, catches some whitewater, goes home. And that’s it. They’re alone. No other kids around. Nobody to push them, nobody to watch and think “if she can do it, I can do it.” No group energy. Just a kid and an instructor, session after session, same thing every time.

I wanted to turn that around. And surfing made sense as the place to start — especially with Lara. She’s six. She’s been doing weekly lessons with David and she can now stand up on the board and ride on her own. That was a huge moment. But beyond the milestone, surfing is something we can genuinely enjoy together as a family. Kitesurfing is harder to share with a six-year-old. Surfing, we can all be in the water at the same time.

Both kids are so happy to be doing this with me. Noah talks about it constantly. Lara beams when she paddles out. They’re proud that their dad is the one running it. That alone makes the whole thing worth it.

Getting the foundation right first

The instinct was to get a pro coach in immediately. But that’s backwards. I’ve seen this pattern in every sport I’ve coached: if you bring in high-level instruction before the kids have the physical base, they can’t execute what they’re being taught. The technique is there in theory but the body can’t do it. They get frustrated. The coach gets frustrated. Nobody progresses.

So the plan — and I talked about this with Thomas Barau, another local like David and very supportive of what we’re doing, who’ll probably come in with David once the foundation is solid — is to get the kids super fit first. Able to paddle properly. Able to do a solid, explosive pop-up. Strong enough that an hour in the water doesn’t destroy them.

That’s where we are now. Almost the entire two-hour session is strength and mobility work. Running, squats, dry pop-ups, dry paddling. We spend a lot of time correcting posture and building habits that won’t hurt them over time. We do maybe fifteen minutes of actual surfing at the end, and even then most of the parents jump in and push their own kids into waves.

It doesn’t look like surf coaching yet. It looks like a fitness class on the beach with some surfing at the end. That’s exactly what it should be at this stage.

The other parents are into it. A couple of them train alongside the kids. Nobody feels like they need outside help with the base work — it’s stuff any motivated parent can run. The pro coaching comes later, once the kids have the strength to actually use it.

The group

Twice a week. Tamarin Bay. Rain or shine.

Noah, Lara, Taylor, Emy, Teo, and Ali. Ages 6 to 9. Small enough that everyone gets attention. Big enough that the group dynamic works — because that’s the thing I learned in December. Kids don’t get better alone. They get better when they see another kid nail something and think “I want to do that too.”

Before the first session, we set the ground rules together:

1. We arrive together, greet the coaches, and listen for the start.
2. We stay with the group on the sand and in the water.
3. We wait for coach instructions before entering the water.
4. We speak with respect and save feedback for the debrief.
5. We take care of our boards, the beach, and each other.
6. We finish properly: boards back, beach tidy, goodbye said.

The session

The structure stays the same every time. On purpose. Kids do better when they know what comes next.

1. Welcome, rules, and today’s plan — 5 min
2. Theola’s playful opener — 10 min
3. Warmup and stretch — 10 min
4. Theory on the sand — 10 min
5. Water block with one focus — 20 to 60 min
6. Debrief and goodbye — 5 min

The sand part is fixed. Same rhythm every session. The water block flexes with conditions — some days you get an hour of clean waves, some days you get twenty minutes of choppy mess and that’s fine. Theola’s opener changes, the warmup drills shift, the theory topic moves forward. The water block stays locked on one thing. One focus per session. Not three. One.

Right now, honestly, the water block is short and the land block is long. That ratio will flip over time as the kids get stronger. But the frame stays the same. Keep the frame rigid. Let the content inside it breathe.

That’s the whole trick. It’s the same thing I did for volleyball for a decade. The sport is different. The principle is identical.

The tool

I built an interactive session planner for this. You can regenerate sessions, print them, take them to the beach. It’s not a curriculum system. It’s a sheet of paper with a plan on it that a coach can glance at between sets.

The exercises

This is our growing collection of land-based exercises — strength, mobility, balance, coordination, cardio. Each one is tagged so you can filter by what you need for a session. The session planner above pulls from this collection and extends it as needed.