Founders Coco and Izzy Tihanyi remain at the forefront of female surf instruction while pointing their boards towards wider horizons.
Fostering camaraderie in the waves and curating community collaboration, Surf Diva is celebrating 30 years at the forefront of female surf instruction and getting thousands integrated into surf culture.
Surf Diva, which now runs yearlong surf camps, clinics and lessons for women, men and children of all ages, along with a popular retail shop on Avenida de la Playa, became a La Jolla Shores fixture when it officially launched in June 1996 with women’s weekend clinics.
Image courtesy of Surf Diva
Founded and still led by twin sisters and lifelong La Jollans Coco Tihanyi and Izzy Tihanyi, Surf Diva pioneered female-focused surf lessons when there were none, gaining national recognition from a 1997 Wall Street Journal article highlighting the Tihanyis’ efforts to flip a male-dominated sport and furthering their success.
Surf Diva co-founders Izzy Tihanyi, left, and Coco Tihanyi
Thirty years later, the local surf divas are still surfing, innovating and keeping their eyes on the expansive horizon.
From dilettantes to divas
Image courtesy of Izzy and Coco Tihanyi
The sisters learned to surf from their father, who bought a surfboard immediately upon immigrating from Europe. The girls (including the third Tihanyi sister, Valerie) spent their childhoods in the waves at La Jolla Shores, growing up immersed in the ocean and connection through sports.
Both went to UC San Diego, with Izzy competing in surfing and earning a national championship in 1988.
Izzy Tihanyi ‘rippin’/Courtesy of Izzy Tihanyi
Izzy found joy teaching surfing at the Mission Bay Aquatic Center, running PE classes for San Diego State University, teaching SAT classes and more, also working in sports events and production and holding down jobs at surfing, skiing and snowboarding magazines.
Meanwhile, Coco became the fourth employee at the then-fledgling Reef sandals before moving to Los Angeles as a brand manager for Disney sports apparel.
The sisters found themselves “going through that moment where you [ponder] what makes you happy, what really gets you going,” Coco said.
“It wasn’t the success or the money; it’s what makes your heart beat, what makes you get excited to get up in the morning to do something,” she said.
Looking to grow a business together, Coco and Izzy formed Surf Diva on the weekends, offering the first female-centered surf clinics in the region to women who were about to hang ten into the future.
Friendships forged in rarity
Wanting to share their instilled family camaraderie with others, Coco and Izzy had realized other women weren’t able to experience the same bonding through athleticism.
Other women, Coco recalled, would remain on the beach watching brothers or boyfriends surf, without a sister to encourage them to try something new.
In 1996, the landscape – or seascape – of ladies who surfed was nearly barren.
“It was very few and far between, non-existent,” Izzy said. Girls “had to earn their spot, and it was really hard back then.”
Female surfers who spotted another woman in the ocean made “instant friends, because it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s another girl in the water,’” Izzy said.
It followed, then, that there was a dearth of surf lessons and surf shops geared toward women.
“If you wanted a lesson, you had to go into a surf shop and coerce a 17-year-old kid, a shop grom, to take you out to surf,” said Izzy.
And any lesson included a “brah/bro” factor that often intimidated women, she added.
Surfing isn’t just riding a board, Coco emphasized; it’s learning safety rules, waves, currents and locations and surfer etiquette.
Image courtesy of Surf Diva
With time and women-led efforts like that of Surf Diva’s, the female surfing community has grown into an industry rivaling its male equivalent.
“The girls are more accepted and more appreciated now,” Izzy said. “Now it’s so good, it’s so different,” with the World Surf League being one of the first leagues to offer equal pay for women and other benefits.
The tide shifts
With Surf Diva’s success came growth: six years into the venture, “a guy called and said, ‘I want to learn from the divas. I don’t want to learn from randoms and dudes,’” Izzy recalled.
Responding to that demand, Surf Diva went co-ed in 2002.
The shop followed in 2004, a curated collection of local brands the sisters believe in.
“It’s important to [be] careful with having brands that are starting out [and] really trying to support them,” Coco said, adding she still mentors newer brands featured in the shop.
“I think it’s important to help each other, because I want to see those brands succeed,” she said.
Eventually, Surf Diva merged with the Australian Surf Academy to run kids’ surf camps, changing the name to “American Surf Academy,” now the premier surf camp in San Diego for teens.
Image courtesy of Surf Diva
Those aren’t the only kids on Surf Diva’s roster: the company hosts year-round camps for kids of all ages on school breaks (summer, winter holidays, Thanksgiving and spring breaks), though summer is arguably the fullest expression of those offerings.
Image courtesy of Surf Diva
For the local kids, there’s Surf Club, a program running throughout the school year.
“Those are our future coaches,” Izzy said; both sisters relayed stories of emotional former students eventually receiving their red coaching jerseys.
Beyond adult and kids programming, the offerings are as vast as the ocean’s edge: Surf Diva doesn’t seem to have a “no,” running clinics, private surf lessons and accommodating all requests.
“It’s really fun,” Coco said. “When somebody asks for something, it’s like, ‘Okay, let’s do it,’” whether that’s bachelorette parties, family retreats, corporate team building or another particular request.
The Surf Divas’ global reach
The “feather in the cap,” Izzy said, is the number of next-generation students who return again and again.
“It’s the La Jolla people who bring in their grandkids, whose kids came through the program and we just really feel so grateful that they’ve supported us this long,” she said.
Image courtesy of Surf Diva
The company’s pride is also in its staff, whom Coco calls family; many instructors teach outside their full-time jobs or are teachers on summer break and several return year after year for decades.
The reach of the red rash guard spreads far beyond La Jolla, however.
Image courtesy of Surf Diva
“We recently realized we’ve taught over 1,000 instructors,” Izzy said, with many of those teachers launching their own surf schools in Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Hawaii and more.
“You see instructors wearing red rash guards throughout the world,” she said. “We started that,” along with the sisters’ system of kids wearing varied colored rash guards to differentiate ages and skill levels from a distance.
Catching the next wave
Business photography by Provisions Media
With 30 years behind them, Surf Diva is always looking forward, Izzy said, focused first on “having an amazing summer.”
In the fall, the sisters steer themselves toward school programs while Coco refreshes shop items and the team brings in more “retail therapy” events, opening the shop after hours for a group’s party or gathering during which Surf Diva will donate a portion of proceeds to a cause.
“There’s so many opportunities coming,” Izzy said, like licensing or collaborations with “different companies that follow our values.”
Brainstorming the next wave for Surf Diva is “what we love,” Coco said.
“We still wake up every day so excited to come to work,” she added.
That fervor keeps them always pointed towards the ocean they love to share.
One surf clinic, Izzy said, “and your life is changed.”
