Free · The Championship Surfer Scorecard
Find out your number in about fifteen minutes. Then find out exactly which champion behaviours you're missing. Every one of those champion behaviours can be trained.
You know the feeling. You are on fire in a free surf, then the jersey goes on. Now you can't find that surfer anywhere. Everyone tells you to "just go out there and relax." But that works for about five seconds.
Here's something better than advice. An Australian sports psychologist, Dr Brent Rushall, spent years testing world champions — 384 of them — and pulled out the 100 things they consistently do. A behaviour only made the list if more than three-quarters of the champions had it. This checklist, adapted for surfing, tells you how many of those 100 champion behaviours you already do.
At the end you get a score. It's plotted against where the 384 world champions landed and where the 4,083 general athletes landed. So you can see exactly which crowd you're standing in. Then you get the part that actually matters: the exact list of champion behaviours you're missing. Not just some "work on your mindset" fluff. But the actual list. And because every item is a behaviour, not a talent you were born with or without, every single one can be trained.
A taste of it. Item 60 reads: "I am nervous and tense before a comp." That's on the champion list. It only made it because most of the world champions ticked it. Being nervous before a heat is a champion characteristic. Which means "just relax" is advice to be less like a champion. There are ninety-nine more where that came from.
You have to actually take the test. All 100 questions, about fifteen minutes, answered honestly. Not the answers that sound good, the ones that are true. You can tick the right-sounding answers and you'll get a great score describing a surfer who doesn't exist. Plus you'll have wasted your own time. If fifteen honest minutes to do the test is too much, then the program will be too. Good to know now.
One thing before you start
Your report comes with three parts: one for you, one for parents, and one for your coach — because the gaps close a lot faster when the people in your corner know what to work on.
So when it asks where to send it, if you're under 18, that's a parent's email. Grab a parent, do the fifteen minutes, and they get their copy the moment you finish. If you're 18 or over, use your own email.
Parents reading over a shoulder: there's a section written just for you in the report. It includes the one thing to say in the car after the contest, and the four things not to. Stay close for this one.
— Dr Mike Martin
One hundred questions. Ten pages of ten. Your number at the end.
Start the Scorecard →Free. No card. Your answers are scored on your own device and never sent to us.