ABSTRACT
Nippers programs focus on educating children from five years of age to fourteen about the environment of the beach and ocean where so many Australians spend their time in summer, encouraging healthy active lifestyles, and introducing them to the culture of surf life-saving. This chapter includes an explanation of surf lifesaving in Australia and the aims of nippers programs to provide a context for the discussion of a Positive Pedagogy (PPed) for sport coaching approach to help young nippers learn and improve their beach sprint start technique. In the beach sprint there is a clear need to develop technical proficiency and this may require some direct instruction but coaches can take a holistic and humanistic approach to help young athletes learn technique. The PPed approach to coaching sprinting technique can provide comprehensive understanding of the principles of running and provide a foundation from which young athletes can interpret information provided by the coach and apply it in their learning.
