I quite often walk the length of the beach on small afternoons when the onshore is whipping through, tearing it up and creating the type of conditions most adult surfers avoid, but I kept encountering a pack of groms, under the guidance of a coach, frothing as if it was offshore perfection.  Having always been a bit skeptical of coaching kids at such young ages I decided to let Matt Grainger from Manly Surf School convert me to the cause of turning the flat white of bored gromhood into a frothing cappuccino of enthusiasm and ambition.

Swellnet: So tell me about the program you are running.
Matt Grainger: It's a program we've had for the last two years and it's called high performance surf coaching. We've had these grommets start off on the learner boards and progress to fibreglass and then it was like "What's next?" So some kids just want to learn technique and others want to do competition so we've got Kobi Clements out there who has won major events as a grom and Jamie Thompson won the NSW State Title last year, so that sort of level and that's what it is about, getting the groms frothing and getting Australian surfing back on the map.

So what age range are we talking about here?
We've got groms all the way from 10 years to 20. We've also got...like I trained Nathan Hedge today for the Australian Open so guys at that level. In the groms all the way up to Harley Ross. Webster who's a Curly guy, he got second in the Aussies and won the State, one of the best 16s in the country. So it's all different levels and we just tailor it to each group.

So what type of technical advice are you offering?
For technical, looking at all the way from foundations like your paddle on technique to using the wave, getting speed, all the way down to the bottom turn, re-entry, cutty and the higher level guys doing aerials and air reverses, so depending on the level we tailor it to that person.

...and some sports psychology at the higher levels?
For sure, talking to Hedgy today about how he feels after he has caught a wave, what is he thinking about....he was like, "I'm thinking positive thoughts...paddling back out, I've got to get a three-manoeuvre wave, I've got a 6 and a 5 I've got to get a 7." A lot of the stuff on the psychological side is all about preparation. Anything you do in life, any job, any sport, when you're prepared you perform better. So we get the groms to sit down, we call it the 60 minute heat, before the heat starts they are watching the waves for sixty minutes so they know where to paddle out and where to sit, taking little stats of how many turns they are going to get on the left, how many they are going to get on the right, so when they go out they have their plan A and their plan B.

How do you deal with the preparation to fail with young and vulnerable kids?
At the young level I just want them to have fun, keep that fun factor in. To get to the Aussie Titles, that sort of level, I want them over 16. I even say to the parents "Less comps are better". Not too many comps so they don't burn out. At the end of the day you're a surfer, you want to go out and have fun, you don't want it to be a chore.

How do you feel about putting young kids on the front page of the local newspaper or the Sun Herald?
It's a lot of pressure. It's better for the kid to be under the radar. The kid is better off without that pressure on their shoulders so that when they perform all they worry about is catching waves and surfing. When you've got all that pressure of sponsors and being the next big thing, we've seen it with other guys over the years. Everyone thinks they're a prodigy and when they are twenty they are over it.

I like the guys like Kai Otton and Adrian Buchan who have been under the radar but now they are thirty and they are top ten and loving it. I surfed White Rock with Kai the other day and he was hooting and hollering, that's what you want.  You don't want someone turning up going " I don't feel like surfing today". That's when their spirit is broken. You want to have fun!  I don't want the kids doing too many comps, I want them to enjoy surfing. It's a massive road, look at Slater, he's still enjoying his surfing.

...it didn't use to be so long!
No it was all over when you were twenty five, guys were retiring and now they have this longevity and it's cool. That's what I like about our program, I've got kids out there now who want to be Aussie champs and other kids who don't want to know about it, they just want to surf, so it's like I'll just make you a better surfer. If you don't want to do comps that's sweet, you don't have to. 

Just then we did two heat drills and then I said "Go out there and hit it as hard as you can, I don't care if you fall off, go and have some fun."  I remember being coached myself by Terry Day and Derek Hynd and that was great fun.  They were good coaches we always had fun.

So how useful is the video?
The video is the best tool you can get because it doesn't lie. You say to a kid, "You need to bend your knees more, you need to compress, you need to look at the lip, keep everything tight." And they give you a blank look. Then you show them the video and the penny drops, they go "I know what you're talking about." Or even a kid thinks he's killing it, his ego might be a bit high and then he sees the video and says "Oh, do I surf like that?" Well yes, I've been trying to tell you that for the last six weeks. But I love video and you can see the improvement of the kids. I like to work with the young kids more on technique rather than too many competition drills. It's the building blocks. Later on in life if you've got a poor bottom turn, you might have won all your comps when you were 12 but when you get to the higher levels and you can't do a proper manoeuvre, it will show. Technique is everything. If you look at all the hot guys, everyone's worried about the air or the vertical but it's the bottom turn. 

One of the things we say to the groms is "No legropes today" so they will learn to swim in. What if it breaks! Also etiquette "Don't paddle straight through the guts". All those things too, respecting other surfers....Look at those guys, having a ball! 

Two of Matt's groms Kobi Clements and Max McGuigan won their divisions in the Wahu Comp held recently, while Nathan Hedge, who he also trains picked up second place at the Newcastle Surf Fest comp.