Support Tai Murphy on his Surf Journey

Hey Everyone. Thank you all so much for your support of my give-a-little page. Sorry for the delay in offering an update. I have been loving my first year at the Raglan Surf Academy but between school and all the surfing I am doing I hardly have time to post updates. If you do want to see some clips of how my surfing has improved go check out my instagram @tai4thebarrelkilla.

The waves in Raglan have been pumping I have been surfing everyday that I have been here, thats about 6 months of surfing everday, multiple times a day. We get filmed at every surf session and that as well as one on one coaching means I can really work on maneuvers. I use the videos of me surfing to improve through close analysis of all my waves, it really helps to see how I surf and then compare it to Pro’s to work out what I can do to be better.

We do land based training 2-3 times a week in the morning before school which works on mainly leg power. Workouts include things like plyometrics and working on performing when you are under pressure and tired. We also have been running a Friday afternoon comp where we surf against all the other students in the surf academy. During these practice-comps we learn heaps of different strategies to use in real heats. I am currently leading the rankings for these practice comps which I am really proud of.

The waves here in Raglan are much heavier than at West End, I have almost broken all my boards which sucks. A huge thank you to you donors for allowing me to get these fixed and even get some new boards so I can keep surfing. The water temperature in Raglan has been pretty chilly too, not as bad as normal west coast temperatures though. I've been wearing a 4/3 and booties, gear that has been bought with your sponsorship money thanks!

I've been doing quite a few surf competitions too, the Gisborne pro Junior we’re I placed 5th. the backdoor king and queen of the point and I recently just competed in the 41st annual Polar Bear surf comp in Sandy Bay where I placed 2nd.

As part of our Surf Academy school work we have just ran the Raglan School Surf Champs, this is a project for all the Surf Academy students. We had to plan and run a surf comp for all the other schools in NZ. We had about 8 schools put teams into this competition, including Trident High School and Whakatane High school. My role in the competition was Head Judge for the U16 category. I really enjoyed being able to work behind the scenes on a Surf Comp to see how

I am going to keep the Give-A-Little page open for donations as I want to keep surfing as much as possible and there are a few more competitions I want to do this year. I will also be coming home for summer to work at Salt Spray Surf School as an instructor.

Thank you all again for the support!