Are surfing lessons worth it?

[dfish]

oh and dude you don't want i five hour lesson, i was exhuasted after an hour...

YES! I just learned how to surf and caught my first real waves. I was in the same position, i figured surfing would be a cakewalk, i'm really athletic, grew up waterskiing and wakeboarding... i figured i could just pick up a board read a little and surf. I could have done that but i would be really frustrated.

I took lessons with mark from momentum surfboards at manhatten beach. I paid $150 for 3 lessons, 1x1:30hr and 2x45min. That includes board and wetsuit. Great guy and I picked it up fairly quickly. i didn't have to deal with any of that bs trying to catch some whitewater waves, he just took my out past the break and taught me how to catch real waves.

why are lessons helpfull?
-the ocean can somewhat intimatdating, a instuctor will show the right techniques to get past the whitewater and avoid gettting your ass handed to you.
-the ocean is a bit confusing, which wave should i catch? what should i look for? a instuctor will teach you what waves should your paddle for and why.
-Instant feedback! if your doing somthing wrong he'll let you know you can fix it right away instead of coming back here in day asking people why you can't catch a wave and get 30 diffrent aswners.

This go's for ANYTHING in life, you can do it yourself struggle though it, maybe learn a new skill but mostly just develop bad habits. OR just do things the right way. I think ether way you'll end up taking lessons sometime

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[Beachbum]

The internet and a book for like $10-$20 will teach you all the basics and save you a lot of money. Experience is what will really teach you how to surf and an instructor can't give you that.

[phillwilson]

Im onto my 6thish time in the water ever...and loving it.
could be wrong, but dont think i would feel as confident or as safe if I hadnt had the lessons
I did a sesh with someone who said they could surf "a bit" but hadnt had a lesson, I found it downright dangerous to be in the proximity of them, they knew how to paddle and pop up but had missed lots of saftey advice that I follow as it if was going out of fashion.

Phill

[LadyAsh]

Heh coincedence, I saw this thread and thought 'without surfing lessons, I don't think I would surfing now', clicked on it, and am posting directly underneath the person I had them with. Hi Phill!

Yeh, I very much enjoyed and appreciated the couple of surf lessons we had. Whilst I was by no means an expert afterwards, I had at least the ground knowledge & paddling etc. skills that otherwise would probably have taken ages to learn myself! Seb (our instructor) was dead nice and friendly, we were in a small group of varying abilities & fitness, but an informative and fun time was had by all.

If you're looking for lessons, do what we did.. look around at prices & pick the place that best suits you. Check to see how much rental for wetsuit and board is as well. If you get a good place, I say it's money extremely well spent!

Hope this helped.

[LadyAsh]

The internet and a book for like $10-$20 will teach you all the basics and save you a lot of money. Experience is what will really teach you how to surf and an instructor can't give you that.

I agree, but surfing lessons just give like.. a springboard into it. It's not like football or something where you can just run in to a group of people already playing and kick a ball around. You have to know basic things, and seeing as we really wanted to surf, but only had a week in Lanzarote, it seemed the best use of our time and money to get a few lessons.

It's also quite a hard activity to 'break' into, both equipment and knowledge-wise. I'm glad that Seb picked out our wetsuits and boards for us... meant that when I bought my own, I could base it on what an experienced surfer felt served me best. We also learnt about stuff like drifting, riptides and things..I know it seems really obvious now, but when you've never really done more than bodyboard, you just don't think about that sort of thing!

[Beachbum]

Heh I guess you make a point there but my friend's brother just told us to follow him and we had to learn everything the hard way .

[phillwilson]

Wow, interesting spread of opinions here,

suppose it goes to show how many ways there are to learn.

From my own experiance I was very pleased I took the 2 lessons I did. I learnt about safety and ettiquette which is all the more important when you are new and still trying to "fit in".

also for me, surfing is SOOOO linked to inner confidence. I think if I hadnt had a few lessons, every time I had a bad sesh I would be wondering if I was mis-interpreting what I head read on the net. once I had seen it in practice, I at least had that to fall back on so I could let my mind move on.

Phill

[LadyAsh]

Heh I guess you make a point there but my friend's brother just told us to follow him and we had to learn everything the hard way :lol: .

That sounds so much cooler though- I guess you learnt pretty fast, because friend's brothers are probably less patient than a surf instructor! Before I started, I only knew 2 people who surfed, and I assumed they were pretty good, so wouldn't want to endure a complete beginner like me...