Surfing with Grace AND Grit

Calling surfers who feel stuck!

Are you generally surfing the green (unbroken) waves but sometimes feeling intimidated and tentative when the swell is a bit bigger than you're used to or the line up is a little more hectic than you like?

Do you find yourself paddling into challenging waves with a head full of chatter and then bailing out at the critical moment when you could be taking off?

Are you wanting to return to surfing after time away because of children, injury, illness or some hard times in life? You know you're not ready to head out the back and would love supportive company and a reminder of the basics so you can grow your confidence, composure and courage again.

Are you feeling frustrated and worried that you lack the courage and skills to grow your surfing to where you dreamed you could go?

Are you wondering how the hell to break through this stalemate and blossom into the joy and soul of surfing again?

This 1-day water and land-based workshop is designed specifically to get you through this mental, emotional and skill gridlock so you can consciously grow your next stage of surfing.

Your host Alice MacKinnon (aka the stillness ninja) started surfing at 46 years old. At 50 she became a surf coach with Surf Easy Surf School at Currumbin Alley on the Southern Gold Coast and specialised in working with women's fears in the water. Now at 61 years old she's surfing more joyfully and skilfully than ever before on the beaches and point breaks of the Gold Coast and Northern NSW. She is also a specialist emotion, mindfulness and wellbeing coach, mentor, speaker and writer. And a yoga, qigong and fitness instructor.

Alice co-produced, co-wrote and surfed in the 2023 documentary "Taking Off: Tales of Older Women Who Surf". She's the author of "Surfing as a Dance: How One Woman Found Grace In and Out of the Water"; "Becoming a Stillness Ninja: Stories of Resilience, Recovery and Love"; and "the dharma of surfing: wisdom from the water for life". She is currently writing and producing her fifth book "Wellbeing is a Skill: The Inner Ninja Handbook".

Alice knows about anxiety, fear and surfing. She actively engages with her anxiety and fear when she's surfing her own edges in big or challenging swell and big or challenging crowds because she's got loads of hands-on tools that she practices in and out of the water. She knows how to clear and compose her mind and bring herself into the perfect present moment, with the best of her surfing skillset, to catch the perfect wave with courage, commitment, composure, joyfulness and curiosity.

In this workshop, Alice will take you right inside her own mind, skillset and practices to share her secrets of surfing with grace and grit.

She'll be teaming up with the fabulous coaches at Surf Easy Surf School again for an early morning, water-based surf session at the Alley so we can all get ourselves into the zone for the day.

Then we'll adjourn to the Volunteer Marine Rescue Building on Currumbin Creek for a raft of land-based, practical insights, stories, sharing, wisdom, laughter and learning. 

We'll wrap up the day on SUPs on the rising tide in Currumbin Creek to work on our dynamic balance; breathing for focus, power, strength and recovery; power and endurance paddling; and fast pivoting and turning.

Everything is included in the price - Surf Easy lesson, SUP hire, all materials and resources, refreshments and lunch.

This is a big, beautiful, exciting, breakthrough day. Surfers who who feel stuck or are returning to the water after time away - I'd love you to join me and a supportive community ready for our next surfing evolution.