Your own coach, all week

A week of one-to-one coaching from the glass treehouse, one minute from the longest left in Mexico, with local breaks to explore by road or boat and your own coach from the morning session to the evening review. You leave understanding what you are doing on a wave and what to work on next, which is to say you leave as your own coach. For one surfer, or for a couple or two friends who both surf.

Who this is for

Surfers past their first waves who want to get properly better, whether they have been coached before or never have. Some arrive knowing their level and the two or three things holding them back. Others arrive with a feeling that they have stalled. The week starts wherever you are.

The coaching is precise. Every session has a named skill, every skill has something you can see on your own footage, and progress is a gate you pass rather than a feeling you leave with. It is not only that. Jordan coaches the whole experience of being in the ocean: feeling safe, feeling looked after, and having a very good time while you get better. Reading a wave, timing it, catching it and moving with it is the closest thing to flow most people ever feel, and that is what the week is for. It suits intermediate surfers most of all, longboarders especially, and anyone who wants a clear road map for the next year.

The wave, and the ones around it

La Saladita is the home wave: a long, soft left-hand point that peels for several hundred metres over sand and cobble and breaks almost every day of the year. Waist to chest high and glassy from November to April, chest to overhead on south swells from May to October. It is the best learning wave in the country and one of the best longboard waves anywhere, and it takes a log, a mid-length or a fish on any given day.

Within half an hour by road, or a morning by boat, there are beach breaks and points that surf very differently, and most weeks include a session or two away from the point. Which break, which day and which board depend on the conditions that morning, your level, and what you want from the week. A skill that only works on one wave is not a skill yet. Templo keeps a quiver for all of it, and part of the coaching is learning what each board asks of you.

The week

One filmed coaching session a day, with one at first light and one at sunset in the week, and the afternoons yours to free surf. The point gets busy mid-morning, so the week is built around the quiet windows, with one deliberate prime-time surf if you want to feel it. The review sits where it suits you, midday or evening. Session times follow the tide and the light; away days follow the conditions, your level and what you want. The coach sets each day the evening before.

What a coaching day is

One skill per session, named on a card before you paddle out. A local water coach beside you in the lineup: someone who has surfed this point for years, who helps you into position, calls the wave and keeps you safe. Two surfers, two water coaches. The session is filmed and photographed from the point, so Jordan is watching and coaching every wave rather than working a camera. Six waves on the drill, then the rest of the session on the wave itself. The second surf of the day is yours: free surf on a board from the treehouse, no card, no camera.

In the treehouse, your rides go on the screen the same day, against the card. One correction, not ten. The examples in your review are your coach, on this wave, on these boards, doing the skill right and doing it wrong on purpose. Theory fits the wave: reading the point, what the board does under you, where the turn happens. Your map is marked as gates open, and on Friday you take home a written plan. Two surfers review together, each with their own card, map and plan.

What is included

• Seven nights in the glass treehouse, one minute from the point, with two beds, the copper tub and its own gym down the back path.
• Five days of one-to-one coaching, filmed, reviewed and written up, with a local water coach in every session.
• The gym, sauna and ice bath, yoga classes at the house whenever they run, and surf-specific stretch with Jordan. One massage on the beach on the rest day.
• One training session in the gym with Jordan, a certified personal trainer, and a surf-fitness plan for your next trip.
• Breakfast and dinner daily, lunch on coaching days, cooked at the house by a local cook.
• Airport transfers from Zihuatanejo, and the drive or boat on away days.
• A quiver for your level and for each wave, longboard to shortboard, or bring your own.
• Every ride of the week, cut and named, plus your photos, in a cloud folder you keep. A film of your week, and, if you like, a surf movie night with your coach.
• Your skills map with the gates you opened and the next three, and a month of remote review afterwards.

Two of you

A couple or two friends who both surf can take the week together. The treehouse has two beds. Each of you has your own water coach in the lineup, your own card, map and Friday plan. You share the wave, the sessions and the reviews, and the coaching stays individual. A non-surfing partner is welcome too, and is welcome on the away days and the boat.

Pricing

Figures in US dollars, all-inclusive except flights and the rest-day dinner. Returning guests take ten percent off the week.

After your week: remote review at $240 a month, footage in, marked map back, until your next visit.

Already staying at Templo?

Guests staying in The Poolhouse can add coaching to a stay without booking the week. Same coach, same water coach beside you, same filmed session and same-day review, and your rides in your folder that evening. A coaching day is $500 for one surfer; three days $1,350; five days $2,400; a second surfer $250 a day. A gym session and surf-fitness plan can be added to any stay. Ask when you book, or on arrival; a fifteen-minute chat and a few of your waves on the first morning is all the placement it takes.

Your coach

Jordan Smith has coached surfing for nineteen years. For three and a half of them she was a technical coach at Surf Simply in Nosara, Costa Rica, running daily video analysis and theory and delivering the breath-hold lecture, and mentoring new coaches on the team. Before that she ran the surf program at Las Olas in Sayulita for five years. In 2023 she was head coach at Drop In Surf Lodge in Lombok, where she designed the intermediate and advanced program, chose the break each morning and ran the boat captains and local guides, and she has guided at Mahi-Mahi in Simeulue. She trained in paddling technique with Rob Case and in oceanography at Cabrillo College. Surf Simply's founder wrote that she "brought a seemingly bottomless pit of enthusiasm," and its coaching director that she "was very committed to learning every detail of our coaching curriculum, and became a mentor to several new members of the team."

Certifications: ISA Level 2 equivalency, ILSF and Lifeguards Without Borders ocean rescue, Bronze Cross and CPR-C, WorkSafe BC Advanced First Aid, NCCP, ISSA personal training, 200-hour yoga. Local water coaches are experienced Saladita surfers who know the point better than anyone.

What her guests and her employers say

"By the end of day one she had already completely transformed my technique. She can break down super technical ideas into simple steps anyone can learn, and any time she explained how to do something, she also explained why it works. I still hear her voice in my head almost every time I'm in the water."Xenia Ray, coached by Jordan for a week in Nosara

"Jordan was quickly able to see where I was strong and identify the areas where I could progress that would produce the greatest returns in my joy of surfing. She did not take a one-size-fits-all approach. It really mattered to her that I understood the lessons and was able to apply them in the water."Cody Strate, Managing Director, Upward Spiral Group, coached by Jordan in Nosara

"Jordan brought to her role at Surf Simply a seemingly bottomless pit of enthusiasm. Her hunger for knowledge and motivation for self-improvement was evident from the first day."Rupert Hill, CEO, Surf Simply

"She was very committed to learning every detail of our coaching curriculum, and became a mentor to several new members of the team. She was able to make genuine connections with her students."Harry Knight, Co-Owner and Coaching Director, Surf Simply

"Guests from all surf levels that had taken Jordan's coaching significantly improved their surfing, as well as myself. She has gone above and beyond any expectations."Lise Madsen, Owner, Mahi-Mahi Surf Resort, Simeulue

Before you arrive

Two weeks out, send ten waves of your own footage, phone quality is fine, and Jordan marks your map before you land. Your first morning is confirmation on the wave, not discovery. If you have no footage, the first session is filmed and the map is marked by lunch.

Booking

Weeks run Saturday to Saturday year-round. One booking a week: a solo surfer, or two who come together. A deposit of thirty percent holds the week; the balance is due sixty days before arrival. Inside sixty days the week can move to another date.

The fastest way to check dates is a DM to @templosaladita on Instagram with your dates, your level, and whether it is one of you or two.

The coaching is Jordan's own program, delivered at Templo. It is not affiliated with any other coaching school or resort.