Shannon Ainslie
Knowledge + Assessment
Surf Guide
Find your level. Understand your weaknesses.
Get the right coaching.
What Level Surfer Are You?
Be honest with yourself. Knowing where you are is the first step to getting where you want to be. Select your level below.
White Waves
Green Waves
Intermediate
Advanced
Expert
Level 1
White Waves
Beginner
YOU AT THIS LEVEL
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White water or small green waves
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Needs help with wave selection
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Struggles with position in the water
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Slow to pop up
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Rides the wave straight to beach
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Loses speed quickly
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Not familiar with safety + surf etiquette
Recommended
In Water Coaching
You need someone in the water with you, guiding wave selection and correcting your positioning in real time. Video won't help much yet — you need physical direction.
Steps to Next Level
1. Master your pop until it’s automatic
2. Learn how to angle your take along the face of the wave
3. Understand basic right of way rules
4. Start catching unbroken green waves consistently
Level 3
Intermediate
Independent Surfer
YOU AT THIS LEVEL
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Independent surfer
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Able to perform basic turns
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Able to negotiate head- high waves
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Does turns on the shoulder
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Able to duck dive / turtle roll
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Comfortably at point / reef breaks
Recommended
Video Analysis + Water Coaching
This is where coaching has the biggest impact. You can surf — but you're making decision-making errors you can't see. Video analysis reveals where your turns lose power and why your wave selection holds you back.
Steps to Next Level
1. Move your turns from the shoulder to the pocket
2. Develop speed management through sections
3. Learn to read the wave two moves ahead
4. Work on flow with rail to rail transitions
Level 2
Green Waves
Transition
YOU AT THIS LEVEL
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A transition surfer
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Catching unbroken waves
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Surfboard controls eg turtle roll
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Learning surf etiquette
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Learning position, wave reading
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Timing of pop up
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Learning angle take off and speed
Recommended
Water Coaching
You're building fundamentals. In-water coaching helps you refine wave selection, positioning, and early turning mechanics. Video analysis can start to supplement sessions at this stage.
Steps to Next Level
1. Learn position in water to the wave
2. Reading the waves
3. Working on timing
4. Finding and keeping speed
Level 4
Advanced
High Performance
YOU AT THIS LEVEL
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Able to surf waves of consequence
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Able to barrel ride
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Performs advanced powerful turns
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Performs turns in critical sections
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Surfs with a lot of speed and flow
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Surfs with a lot of variety
Recommended
Video Coaching
At this level, your mistakes are subtle — weight distribution at the apex of a turn, entry angle into barrels, line choice through sections. Video coaching breaks these down frame by frame.
Steps to Next Level
1. Refine your speed approach into critical sections
2. Develop consistency in bigger, heavier waves
3. Add innovation and progressive maneuvers
4. Optimise your contest strategy and heat surfing
Level 5
Expert
Elite Performance
YOU AT THIS LEVEL
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Able to surf small and big waves well
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Generates speed in waves with no power
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Performs a large variety of turns
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Performs innovative turns- airs, laybacks
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Strong competitive surfer
Recommended
Video Coaching
Fine-tuning at this level is about marginal gains. A frame-by-frame breakdown of your best and worst waves reveals patterns you can't feel in real time. This is how pros stay sharp.
Steps to Next Level
1. Analyse heat strategy and priority decisions
2. Study wave- specific line choices at contest venues
3.Fine tune speed and power ratios in different waves
4. develop mental preparation routines
Progress
How do I improve my surfing faster?
"You can surf the same wave a thousand times, but if you're repeating the same mistakes, you're just reinforcing bad habits."
Most surfers think more time in the water automatically means faster progress. It doesn't. What accelerates improvement is focused practice — knowing exactly what you're working on before you paddle out.
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The biggest difference between surfers who plateau and surfers who keep progressing is feedback. You can surf the same wave a thousand times, but if you're repeating the same positioning errors or timing mistakes, you're just reinforcing bad habits.
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Film yourself. Watch where you are on the wave when you initiate turns. Are you too far ahead of the pocket? Too deep behind it? Are you looking down the line or at the lip? Most mistakes happen two or three seconds before the actual turn — in your setup, your line choice, your weight distribution on approach.
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Pick one thing per session. If you're working on bottom turns, don't think about cutbacks. Narrow your focus, get footage, review it, and adjust. That cycle — surf, review, adjust — is how coached athletes improve in every sport. Surfing is no different.
Choosing a coach
What should I look for in a surf coach?
"A lot of coaching is just encouragement — 'great wave,' 'try harder,' 'commit more.' That's not coaching. That's cheerleading."
A good surf coach should be able to watch you surf and tell you something you didn't already know. That sounds obvious, but it's rare. A lot of coaching is just encouragement — "great wave," "try harder," "commit more." That's not coaching. That's cheerleading.
Look for someone who can break down what's happening technically.
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Can they explain why your top turn lost speed? Can they point to the moment in your bottom turn where you lost the rail? Can they connect your wave selection to the outcome of the ride?
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Experience matters, but not just competitive experience. A coach needs to understand how to communicate movement patterns in a way that clicks for different surfers. Some surfers respond to visual cues, others to feel-based descriptions. A good coach adapts.
Ask them what they'd change about your surfing after watching one session.
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If they can't give you specifics, they're not watching closely enough. Real coaching is analytical. It's pattern recognition. It's someone who's seen thousands of waves and can spot what you're missing.
Coaching
Is surf coaching worth it for intermediate surfers?
"It's about understanding why your good waves are good and why your bad waves are bad."
This is where coaching has the most impact. Beginners need to learn fundamentals — popping up, trimming, basic wave selection. Advanced surfers are fine-tuning. But intermediate surfers are often stuck in a frustrating gap: they can surf, but they can't figure out why some sessions feel great and others feel terrible.
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The problem is usually not fitness or wave count. It's decision-making. Where you sit in the lineup, which waves you choose, where you take off, and what you do in the first two seconds on the wave — these decisions shape your entire ride.
An intermediate surfer might blame a bad session on "the waves were weird today." A coach watching footage of that session will see that you were sitting 10 metres too far inside, taking off behind the peak, and rushing your bottom turn because you were already in a bad position.
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Coaching at this level isn't about learning new tricks. It's about understanding why your good waves are good and why your bad waves are bad. Once you see the patterns, improvement becomes deliberate instead of random.
Progress
"You'll be surprised how often your 'bad wave days' were actually 'bad positioning days.'"
"You can surf the same wave a thousand times, but if you're repeating the same mistakes, you're just reinforcing bad habits."
This is one of the most common frustrations in surfing, and the answer almost never has anything to do with the waves themselves.
Inconsistency usually comes from inconsistent decision-making. On your good days, you're probably sitting in the right spot, reading sets early, taking off in the pocket, and giving yourself room to set up your turns.
On your bad days, you're likely too deep, too wide, paddling for the wrong waves, or taking off late and spending the whole ride reacting instead of flowing.
There's also a mental component. When your first few waves go well, you relax and your timing improves. When your first few waves go badly, you tighten up, rush, and the session spirals.
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The fix is to treat your first three waves as warm-up — don't judge the session by them. Focus on positioning and wave selection before worrying about performance. If you're in the right spot on the wave, your surfing will feel better automatically.
Video review is the fastest way to spot this pattern. You'll be surprised how often your "bad wave days" were actually "bad positioning days."
J-Bay
Why is coaching in Jeffreys Bay so good?
"There's something about surfing world-class waves with a coach on the beach that compresses months of progress into days."
There’s a reason surfers travel from around the world to train at Jeffreys Bay — and it’s not just the wave.
Supertubes is one of the longest, cleanest right-hand point breaks on the planet. Instead of two or three turns, you get eight or ten on a single ride — repeated practice in real conditions that’s hard to find anywhere else.
The real value of coaching here is clarity. On a proper wave your positioning, speed, and decisions become obvious. You’re not hiding mistakes in small surf — you’re learning to read and react to a wave that actually challenges you.
In-person coaching adds what video can’t: real-time feedback. Sets are read together, positioning is adjusted, and corrections happen between waves while the session is still fresh. Surf, adjust, repeat — progress accelerates quickly.
Jeffreys Bay keeps things simple: check the point, walk to the water, surf. For locals it’s home with purpose; for visitors it’s a world-class trip where you leave surfing better than you arrived.
J-Bay compresses months of improvement into days.
Frequency
How often should I surf to actually progress?
"Three focused sessions a week with clear goals will beat seven sessions of aimless free-surfing."
There's no magic number, but frequency alone doesn't determine progress. Three focused sessions a week with clear goals will beat seven sessions of aimless free-surfing.
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That said, consistency matters. Surfing once a month means you're relearning muscle memory every time you paddle out. Your body needs repetition to automate movement patterns — bottom turns, pumping, reading the lip. If you can surf three to four times a week, your body retains those patterns between sessions.
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For surfers who can't get in the water often — maybe you live inland or conditions are inconsistent — video analysis becomes essential. Watching your footage between sessions keeps your awareness sharp. You can identify what to work on next so that when you do get waves, you're not wasting time figuring out what to focus on.
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Skateboards and balance boards help maintain the physical patterns, but nothing replaces reading real waves. If you're limited on water time, make each session count: set a goal before you paddle out, film when possible, and review honestly afterwards.
Levels
What's the difference between a surf school and
performance coaching?
"It's not about learning to surf — it's about learning to surf better."
A surf school teaches you how to stand up and ride whitewater. Performance coaching teaches you how to read a wave, position yourself for critical sections, and make technical adjustments that change the outcome of your rides.
The difference is like learning to drive versus learning to race. Both involve the same vehicle, but the approach, the feedback, and the expectations are completely different.
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In performance coaching, we're looking at frame-by-frame footage of your turns. We're analysing your eye line, your shoulder rotation, your weight transfer, your timing relative to the wave's energy. We're asking why you bogged a rail on that cutback — was it your back foot position, your speed on entry, or your line choice?
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Surf schools are necessary and valuable for beginners. But if you can already paddle out, catch waves, and ride down the line, you've graduated from that level. What you need now is someone who can see the difference between a functional turn and an efficient one, and show you how to close that gap.
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That's what coaching is. It's not about learning to surf — it's about learning to surf better.
Progress
Can video analysis really improve my surfing?
"What you think you're doing on a wave and what you're actually doing are often very different."
Yes — and it's one of the most underused tools in surfing. Every other sport at every level uses video. Tennis players review match footage. Golfers analyse their swing frame by frame. Surfers, for some reason, resist it.
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The problem is that what you think you're doing on a wave and what you're actually doing are often very different. You think you're compressing into your bottom turn, but the footage shows you standing tall with a straight back leg. You think you're driving off your fins, but you're actually skimming flat across the face.
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Video doesn't lie. And when a coach breaks it down for you — pausing at the moment your turn started to lose power, drawing the line you took versus the line you should have taken — the correction becomes obvious.
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One important detail: the footage doesn't need to be cinematic. A phone propped on the beach or a friend filming from the shoulder is enough. What matters is the angle and consistency. Film from the side or slightly behind, and try to capture full waves from takeoff to kickout. That gives a coach everything they need to help you.
