Costa Rica accredited by the ISA with Coach and Instructor programs

By Alan Atkins – ISA VP

The first edition of the ISA’s new look Coach and Instructor Program was conducted in Costa Rica in August.  It was a great package, with 4 courses being conducted by the ISA’s Official Presenter Marcos Conde of CBS –Brazilian Surfing Confederation-. 

In total we ran three courses for Level ONE and one course for Level TWO coach accreditation.  25 Instructors at Level 1 and four Instructors at Level 2 were accredited during the courses on the Pacific Coast.

With the support of the Costa Rica Surfing Federation, the package was conducted in the third week of August of 2007.

The first course was in Jaco Beach, at the “Rincon” of the JASS Surf Shop. The city is located in the central part of the Pacific Coast, the epicenter of surfing in Costa Rica. There are a lot of surfing schools here and the most important of them sent an instructor and we had eight people attending the first course. The course was done in two days with sessions in the morning, afternoon and evening to fit into their working schedule. On the second day we did the practical session in Jaco Beach. 

We had very good results because the coaches had the opportunity to implement the new information into their work during the afternoon and feel the results, then giving Marcos good feedback and very good debate about the best tide to teach in Jaco. 

The second course was the level 2 with lower numbers as it was specialized work. We had 4 instructors, 3 from the area and one from Puerto Rico. We worked 3 days with Friday all day and Saturday and Sunday in afternoon and evening sessions                       

The course was very good because of the high level of those coaches in attendance, most of them professionals and very talented surfers. We also had the opportunity of having the beach session during the Triple Corona, a professional contest where they competed, did practical video and venue analysis in a real situation.

Pacific North Coast
The third course was in Witch’s Rock Surf Camp, Tamarindo, in the north pacific coast. The city is more international and has less surfing schools than Jaco, but offers good conditions for teaching and has many different tourist’s traveling through. We had 13 coaches, 11 from the same surfing school, the Witch’s Rock Surf Camp and 2 from other surfing schools in Argentina and Puerto Rico.

The course was run in two days with morning, afternoon and evening sessions. The practical lesson at Tamarindo Beach was run with an Austrian beginner and was very productive because Marcos taught first with a 9 0 but thin and narrow board, and then  later with a bigger, thick and wide board and the result was very good.

 Pacific Central, South Coast.
The fourth course was in Quepos, at the Mono Azul Hotel, in Manuel Antonio Beach, which is a big international tourist destination and has perfect conditions for beginners.

We had four instructors from Manuel Antonio Surfing School and it was more like private instruction with practical consulting at the beach. In the end it was very productive and we will look at it as a future model for licensed surfschool training programs.

In summary:  The ISA’s Costa Rica Program brought the experience of professional development in coaching practices to an enthusiastic group of coaches and surfschools.  We are sure their clients will feel the immediate benefits and that the elite surfers working with the level 2 coaches will also benefit from their new experience.

The ISA would like to thank the Costa Rica Surfing Federation and the course convener Diego Naranjo for all their work and hosting of Marcos Conde.  Also special thanks to Colin Briers, Marketing Director at Witch's Rock Surf Camp for all his help.

We are looking to bring the ISA program to a beach near you soon.

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