Surf school is cool this summer

MANILA, Philippines - What to do this summer to enjoy the active, fun, and healthy activities it offers? There are just so many possibilities/choices especially now that Filipinos are becoming more and more the outdoors type interested in new sports not so popular until just this decade: surfing, camping, mountain climbing, trekking, zip-line riding, skateboarding, wakeboarding and even spelunking or cave exploring, to mention the new ones that, along with the traditional family beach activities, seem to be among the top choices.

From many indications, however, surfing or riding boards on the surface of waves, seems to be the most popular activity for both young and old this summer. And for good reason, too, if you take into account that surfing beaches in La Union, Quezon, Zambales, Bataan, Aurora, Surigao, Catanduanes, Sorsogon, Samar, to mention the leading provinces with surfing sites, are teeming with board riders not just on weekends but also on just about every day of the week.

One important indication of the steadily growing popularity of surfing is the number of people who enroll in surfing schools to learn the sport. The top surfing school in the country, Philippine Surfing Academy (PSA), produced more than 3,000 new surfers in its very first year of operations alone and keeps them coming every year. PSA is owned by Paolo Soler, the first Filipino surf instructor internationally accredited and certified as such by the Academy of Surfing Instructors in Australia. But while this distinction helps PSA draw the greatest number of students, dozens of other instructors may be drawing even more students all together.

Surfing is one of the most exciting, healthiest, and fun sports. It is also one of the easiest to learn and the least expensive to participate in. One can go surfing without owning any equipment, as these are available for low rentals in surfing sites, which also provide simple accommodations at almost incredibly low rates. These are only a few of the reasons that surfing is expanding so fast, according to Soler.

Soler, one of the best-known local surfers, is so engrossed in the sport he has introduced a unique mode of training his students. He first teaches them surfing basics in a wave pool. He was one of the first to use this technique that is now also being used in several other countries but only by PSA locally. PSA holds its wave pool lessons at the Club Manila East’s humongous wave pools that produce mechanized waves perfect for training students in the fastest, safest, easiest, and surest way of learning surfing basics.

His latest marketing program, which he calls Grom Surf Camp, involves training youngsters from as young, believe it or not, as five years old to a more believable 13 years old (the ages when surfers are referred to as grommets) and suggests that parents “get their kids to have good, clean fun and be stronger, healthier, and happier by undergoing just three days of training in the wake pools, followed by a day’s ‘graduation’ surf trip in the real ocean.”

He has tested this program and has trained surfers as young as four years old, explaining that “after only the first day, all of these young people can already stand and ride the surf on a surfboard. Thus, after the three-day wave pool lessons, they are ready to surf in the actual ocean.”

Of significant importance is that surfing in the Philippines is developing an international reputation that has inspired the Department of Tourism to mark it as one of the prime niches it will market to foreigners. This should be easy to do considering that CNN’s ccngo.com section has named Cloud 9, a monstrous wave in Siargao Island, as the eighth among the 50 most exciting surfing destinations in the world.

Soler also has a skill, technique, and power-enhancement program for beginner to intermediate surfers to attain higher skill levels called Surfcuit, which consists of four hours of intense surf training daily, utilizing the latest innovation of wave pool surfing education. The program involves yoga, poi, swimming, paddle drills, and progressive focus lectures on surfing fundamentals. After a total of six sessions spread out over three months, Soler guarantees Surfcuit will produce results needed by lower skill surfers to surf better, smarter, and stronger, and graduate to higher surfing levels.

For PSA’s surf lesson details, call or text 09178946767, e-mail: philippinesurfingacademy@gmail.com or visit www.facebook.com/philippinesurfingacademy.