Playa Guiones, Guanacaste, Costa Rica 2020

Into our 8^th year of our high performance surf- training programs, we are excited to extend our invitation to this year’s program. You have the amazing opportunity to come and stay under the hospitality and guidance of Ane and Alex in Costa Rica. We are your coach’s, mentors and extra family over this time.

We are basing ourselves in the same property we have been in over the past few years, located just outside Playa Guiones in the Guanacaste region. We are blessed each year with consistent swells, offshore winds and a wide selection of waves, especially when the crowds get up at the main breaks. The town of Guiones is a safe and well developed with a strong family style community year round. We have a 3-storey modern house fully equipped and set in a shady Jungle surrounding with stunning views over the mountains. The house has A/C and a pool. It also has a large living area with a big flat screen. We have a comfortable 4×4 vehicle to take us to different spots and also to for-fill all our travel needs.

SURF COACHING

5 days a week. The coaching revolves around daily morning video analysis and surf drill sessions. Geared towards a better technical approach of high performance surfing focusing specifically on the key elements of the WSL judging criteria. Surf coaching will include contest and heat training with the opportunity to travel to and compete in local Costa Rican contests and on the Guanacaste tour.

The afternoons are time for a free surf session. Weekends will be for free surf time too and also guided trips to other spots around us. We have a photographer whom works with us twice per month, plus all video clips from coaching providing plenty of content for social media posts.

SCHOOL

Maintaining a high level of schooling is essential to our program and us. Our program is designed to cover all formats of schooling, from homeschool programs to set work from schools. Although we are accustomed that our students are enrolled in an online home-school program, we are now also finding that fulltime schools are very open to allowing students to take extended working breaks. We are happy to provide a letter to your school as well as any material in order to persuade them that the students’ time away is productive and credible especially for upcoming/future college applications.

Like previous years we will have a tutor to provide the excellent organization, support and relationships with our students through their schooling needs. The tutor will be with us 3 hours a day 5 days a week (Mon-Fri).

FITNESS AND CONDITIONING

We have a structured fitness program with a qualified personal trainer and a experienced yoga teacher.  Both of them understand well our students and together, they   help us provide a  tailored physical conditioning program over 3 sessions per week. This training includes yoga and surf centric TRX/kettle bell and movement strength training.

HOSPITALITY AND MEALS 

We have our maid, to care for the house and provide all the healthy filling Costa Rican style meals. Included in the cost are three meals a day, plus snacks, fruit and drink. WE can cater to all needs and dietry requirements, just require specific info and details in advance.

ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY

We have a number of projects that we like to involve our students. Let us know if you are interested and we will send you the info. We also encourage board and equipment donations to the surfing community in Ostional where we spend much of our time training and surfing.

Group size is limited to 4 places at one time however this is at our discretion and we may occasionally have group size of 5 to fit in with school schedules and other travel or family commitments.

Preference will be given to those who want to sign up for a longer-term project, i.e. 1 month or more. However we would love to see any surfer who wants to come and train and surf for a shorter period of time, the house is always open, provided we have the space.

Please see below the schedule for the winter program. We are keeping the breaks between each month to allow us to refresh and reset. If you are interested in more than one month this is a great opportunity to use this time to come visit your child and enjoy some time in Costa Rica. If these dates are complicated, we are open to try to accommodate your needs. We also can consider alternatives for keeping students with us during the specified breaks, please email us for more information on this.

DATES

 Due to Covid – 19 we have had to move our schedule around this year. Please get in contact to discuss what we are rearranging

 INCLUDES

• Accommodation
• 5 days per week surf coach program
• Qualified Tutor 5 days per week 3 hours per day
• Weekend/day trips to other local spots
• Video edit after stay (if requested) or full clips from time
• 2 photo sessions per month with professional photographer.
• Weekly Yoga and tailored physical training program
• Spanish conversational class
• Transport (plus airport transfers)
• Food for three meals a day at the house plus snacks and water/drinks
• Maid (cook and prepare all meals, washing clothes, daily clean/maintain )

EXCLUDES

• Flights
• Meals/food out of
• Extra School fees
• Spending money
• Overnight travel to other destinations e. for contest weekends (budget plans worked out contest by contest basis).

Surf Trips – Witches Rock/Ollie’s point, Surf and Fish boat trip, Pavones. Should the opportunity arise we like to travel a little further or do something a little different. This is at our discretion and based on the agreement of all families involved.

This is just an outline of the project, if you would like to discuss anything further and need more details please don’t hesitate to email us at initiativesurf@gmail.com. If you want to set up a phone or Skype conversation we can do this too.

If you decide you would like to confirm a place for a student, we will provide detailed agreement of participation within the house and instructions for paying the deposit.

Alex and Ane