Bali Tourism News

ASI certifies Bali’s surfing instructors

June 6th, 2008

Ricardo S. Soler, Contributor, Bali

Surfing in this island capital of the resurgent but again fast-growing sport and art of riding waves is becoming an earnest business, with the introduction of a certification and accreditation system for surfing instructors.

An Australian certifying authority, the Academy of Surfing Instructors (ASI), is now undertaking the process in Bali.

ASI is an international organization setting the world standard for education and accreditation in the surfing industry. Two years ago, ASI started training classes to enable the island’s hundreds of surfing coaches to be certified and accredited.

Some 30 Balinese instructors recently took part in this season’s training and certification program, along with one from the Philippines and a female coach from Australia. The ongoing sessions closed at the end of May.

The student-instructors underwent rigid classroom lectures and actual beach and sea workshops especially designed to inculcate in them the professional expertise that will ensure their students learn more than just the very basics of surfing. Safety in the sport was also highlighted.

“In this way, instructors will stick to the rules and ensure student safety, as well as develop higher levels of skill, proper conduct and duty of care in a sport that, despite its seemingly harmless appearance, can be dangerous if one does not know what he or she is doing,” said Nigel Hutton-Potts, the director general of ASI, which is based in Bondi, Australia.

“There is a science to surfing, it requires more than just getting on a surfboard and riding a wave — there are not only hazards that must be prevented, but also skills that make the sport even more enjoyable that must be learned,” said Tania Nisbett, who is the education director and secretary of ASI.

Tania supervised the classes, which were handled by Darryl Buckley, a surfer who has taught thousands of Australians to surf over the last 15 years.

The expectations were that the appeal of surfing in Bali, arguably one of the most favored surfing sites in the world, would be enhanced, thereby attracting even more enthusiasts from all over the globe to learn the sport in the correct way — far from the sometimes frivolous manner applied by self-taught coaches.

ASI also accredits surfing schools and is currently undertaking a serious expansion program that aims to form affiliates in other countries. An affiliate accreditation agency has already been organized in the Philippines, with Buckley doing the information transfer to the local affiliate.

“All instructors trained by ASI will correspondingly be given certifications indicating their level of proficiency, much in the same manner as is done by certifying authorities in the diving industry,” Hutton-Potts said.

“We expect the new generations of surfing instructors in Bali will benefit from recognition as being experienced in surfing, in varying levels and degrees.

“This augurs well for an industry that has remained basically without any officially established and sanctioned set of rules in many parts of the world,” he said.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Entry Filed under: Bali Tourism News