If you’re new at surfing, it is highly recommended you hire a surfing instructor before you start. If you think you can learn on your own, you are very wrong, and about to be very hurt. Surf instructors are there for a very good reason, multiple reasons in fact. With that said, if you are considering hiring a surf instructor in Charleston SC, here are the main benefits of hiring one to teach you how to surf.
#1. Safety
Above all else, hiring a surf instructor to teach you how to surf is a safety measure. Surfing is an extreme sport, make no mistake. It is challenging, exhausting, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, very dangerous. Having an instructor out there on the waves with you is for your own safety, as well as making for good, hands on training. While you’re not necessarily in danger of drowning, because of lifeguards and the like, you can still get seriously injured and disoriented if you try to catch a wave that’s far too large for you. Mother nature really doesn’t care all that much about your lack of experience, for she will pound you into submission with the ocean waves all the same. So be sure to go out there with an instructor your first time out.
#2. Best experience
If you’re new at surfing, you probably don’t know all that much about when the best time is to surf in your area. Luckily, your surf instructor can help you with that. They know exactly when the best time is, not only to surf, but when to surf for a novice. What time of day are the waves at their calmest, yet still producing surf-able waves. For this, it’s important that you find a local surf instructor to teach you, so that you can find someone with intimate knowledge of their home break, and at what time the waves start coming up.
#3. Preparation
You can’t just go out to surf in normal swimwear, there’s a whole process to getting ready to go surfing. There’s special gear, preparing your board, a certain level of equipment etc. all meant to help you have the best, safest experience surfing possible. Your instructor is there to walk you through all necessary preparation, including how to tie and attach the leash, applying wax to your board, and many other required lessons of riding your board.
For those new to surfing, surf instructors are a required part of learning. Surfing is not a self-taught skill, it needs training and cooperation with a teacher in order to properly internalize all lessons.
