There’s a lot of information in there!  I sit in my cockpit with my paddle over my lap as I look out at the new faces waiting for me to impart some new bit of knowledge that in theory will help them get started in their own kayaking adventures.

Of course those little moments are measured in micro-seconds, but the often seem much longer. That moment for the coach is the one where they hit the search button on their organic computers and pull up the outline for the next lesson; “Forward Stroke”. . . “Search”. . . In that micro-second all the information you’ve collected over the years pops up in a page ranked Google format. .

1. Forward Stroke: Outline
2. Forward Stroke: Brent Reitz DVD
3. Forward Stroke: Chicken Wing; See Brent Reitz
4. Forward Stroke: Push/Pull, good or bad?
5. Yoga 101 – Yoga & Shamanism, The Mulabanda
6. Variations on a theme
7. Modern Religions & Paddling Atheism
8. Forward Stroke: Outline (1978)

While all this information continues to roll up on your internal screen, your mouth launches into the outline (ranked #1). . . “Simply put “The Forward Stroke” is an officious way to say, getting from here to there. . .”. . .

Of course we don’t teach the “Forward Stroke”. Anyone from their first day in a kayak can go forward. What we as coaches do is really just help the student to make it more efficient. It’s hardly worth breaking into a lecture about motivating forces, drag coefficients and the like. They just want to paddle, and we want to show them how to do it without getting tired too quickly or ending up with some odd injury.

Once I click on “Forward Stroke: Outline” and my voice begins the introductions by memory I’m again examining in the background each highlight from the lesson:

1. Demonstration
2. What we did
3. Paddlers Box, square shoulders, sitting upright, hand placements
4. Planting the blade – Spearing not Slapping. . Clean, efficient
5. Stroke powered by Torso not arms – what’s going on inside the boat, legs, feet. .
6. Blade exit, point where blade changes from power, to drag, clean exit, loose hands, chimney flu effect, exit sets up for stroke on the other side. . .

Within each of these simple ideas are all the details. Again the details are in new lists of weighted information from the primary points, to secondary points, to interesting, to vaguely related, to stupid things that you’ve heard that just mess people up when they are trying to learn. With each step in your mental outline you again sort out that information picking through those nuggets as it were to for the bits that are most appropriate to the particular group or particular student. . .

Of course this is the progression that often creates the monster from that famous 1958 Classic. . “THE COACH THAT WON’T SHUT UP!!” Ahhhhhhh!!!! “Run Away!! Paddle for your lives! “. .

Funny how even when you accept the notion that paddling is not rocket science, you STILL can find ways to make it sound like rocket science! One of the hardest things for coaches, and people in general is to understand that just because they have vast amounts of information stored away on a subject, there is no reason, in fact it can be detrimental to share it all. Teaching kayaking should be much more akin to teaching a child to ride a bike than lecturing on molecular biology. The problem is we ENJOY the subject so much! Like that kid on the phone with grandma about her trip to Disney land, we just ramble on. . .

REWIND. . .

So still captured in that micro-second as the students look on, I hit the big red X in my mental browser and close all the screens and power off. I twist the ring round my finger and look across at the faces and feel the breeze come across the water and sun warming my face. I  take over from from automatic introduction, wrap it up and simply demonstrate. Quickly, yet clearly I hit a couple points that will help the student be a bit more efficient and let them go. . .After awhile, a good while that seems like forever, I gather them back. I re-emphasize those main points, offer a few moments for discussion and move forward. Saving all that advanced stuff for another class and often a more qualified coach. . .