As an ocean swimmer there’s nothing more satisfying than swimming out through the waves like they weren’t even there and then body surfing gracefully all the way back to the beach.
This intermediate-level clinic focuses on the surf zone; developing a better understanding of waves, learning to adapt your wave negotiation techniques on the go, and making smarter navigation decisions. You will get personal realtime feedback on your technique, timing and decision-making as we train within the wave zone.
To finish, we’ll touch on some advanced skills and race strategy that will develop your speed, efficiency and competitive tactics.
“I highly recommend the Negotiating the surf clinic… within the 3-hours I had gained full confidence to throw myself into the ocean with safety, ease, and a much better understanding of negotiating the wave zone.”
– Felicia Jagoe
See all our 5-star reviews on Google, Facebook and Tripadvisor.
What you’ll learn
How to go beyond a basic beach assessment to see what others can’t
How to make smart navigation decisions in the moment
Navigating the shallow inshore zone by wading and dolphin-diving
How to get every little bit of assistance from the ocean as you can
Adjusting your swimming stroke to the wave-zone, choppy and open water
How to swim onto a wave and bodysurf it back to the beach
How to identify multiple types of waves, and the best techniques to negotiate each wave
Buoy turns, pack swimming and drafting
Tactical competitive decision-making
Pre-requisites
This clinic is for intermediate swimmers with a good level of fitness (speed is not a factor)
You have participated in OceanFit's Learn to ocean swim clinic
You can swim a minimum of 400m freestyle non-stop in a pool
You have participated in a 1km ocean swim event (preferred)
If you do not meet these pre-requisites, please do not register for this clinic.
Not sure if you’re at the right level? Contact us
$195
Capped at a max. 8 participants
Completing this clinic makes you eligible for ENERGY.
To take things to the next level, book in for a personalised Private lesson.
Upcoming clinics
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“Ocean swimming is fairly niche and you won’t find instruction on every beach as you will with surfing. The team at OceanFit know their stuff and run their clinics well.”
– Paul Cameron
“Ocean swimming is fairly niche and you won’t find instruction on every beach as you will with surfing. The team at OceanFit know their stuff and run their clinics well.”
– Leanne Connor
FAQ
In Negotiating The Surf we build on the ocean awareness session from the Learn To Ocean Swim clinic by focusing on how we can use our new knowledge of how the ocean works to swim smarter and new ocean swimming techniques are introduced.
The strength of this clinic is in the time allocated to practising your new techniques with your instructor close by to give immediate, personal feedback.
You’ll leave this clinic with a huge bank of techniques you can practice in your own time, in our ocean fitness classes or at your next ocean swim event.
The highlight of the clinic is putting all your new-found knowledge and skills together at the end in a mini ocean swim event out around the buoys and back.
You’ll be surprised at the level you can take your ocean swimming in such a short time.
We require you participate in the Learn To Ocean Swim clinic, before participating in this clinic, because when it comes to ocean awareness, it is often a case of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’.
In Learn To Ocean Swim we guarantee you will learn things you didn’t know previously, and we will bring everything you do know into a clearer picture of how to get the most out of your knowledge from an ocean swimmers point of view.
When it comes to the ocean swimming skills, your actual swimming skills will definitely help, but the focus is on learning techniques, and not doing lots of ocean swimming. So if you’re a great swimmer, we’d expect you to be able to pick up the techniques faster, and perform them better than others, but you still need to master the core techniques.
We are also very good at spotting great swimmers, and we will help you get even more out of your technique session by having you move onto advanced skills, or we’ll tweak them down to the last 1% of efficiency.
This is a technique-based clinic, and so speed isn’t important. You will need to be able to sustain whatever speed you swim at for the entire clinic to get the best out of it. We’ll bunch swimmers of similar speeds together for all the group drills.
The last clinic of the season is usually towards the end of February, although we do run clinics in March if the weather is nice and there is demand that meets the minimum numbers required.
We suggest if you’re looking to get your training in this season that you do the earliest clinic possible so you don’t miss out.
Due to the Negotiating The Surf clinic requiring the pre-requisite Learn To Ocean Swim clinic, these are scheduled approx once a month in November/December, January and February. Our advice is to not delay registering as late season clinics may not eventuate.
There is a lot of swimming in and out of the surf in this clinic, so we recommend wearing swim fins for those who may find this challenging. As an option, you can start without fins and then put them on if you’re feeling tired.
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