Everybody gonna jump and shout
Everybody gonna sing it out
Everybody gonna dance around tonight
Well you can come on to my place if you want to
You can do anything you want to do…
-mccartney

I have to tell you, I really dislike events where the organizers spend too much time telling coaches and participates what sort of time they are having; “We had a great day, didn’t we!!?”, “What wonderful weather we had today!” (so far so good….), “Remember, the most important thing we should do today is have FUN!”, (Warning! Warning!) “Give yourselves all a round of applause!”  (There’s the wind up, here comes the pitch!) “Fun, great, fun, wonderful, fun, great, fun, weather, wonderful, fun, love, vendor, fun, sun, wonderful fun on a sticky bun fun!!!!”… (AND…. breath!)

You know what I’m on about!  While all this pep talking might be fine in small doses, I think everyone knows what sort of “time” they are having and telling them shouldn’t be necessary.  In fact when people start telling me what sort of time I’m having, I start to feel psychic beat down coming.  I’ll admit it, I’m an awful psychic heckler when it comes to pep talks… (Don Rickles could only hope and weep!) Why not spend the time wasted on “happy, happy, joy, joy” pontification on something more constructive like, well,.. ANYTHING.. Maybe even something actually fun!?

“Fun” is organic.  While you can hope to set the stage for fun, it cannot be conscripted.  Fun does not care about lesson plans, toys or speeches. Fun is in the layer just out of reach of the plan. Fun can be nurtured,  but not guaranteed. Fun is individualized.  Fun cannot be summoned up like a spirit. It cannot be requested, dictated or injected after the event.

Fun is the wild spirit of the mind. Fun is not always expected, well timed or even appropriate.  One of the funniest things I’ll ever remember happened at my father’s funeral when I was 14.  No one was there to have fun.. but for a moment, it was just that.  Fun as George Carlin once noted, can happen in a church pew… You simply can’t tell people to “have fun” or “be fun” or conversely, when not to break out in a loud, glorious giggle fit.

This year at Grand Marais the folks with Downwind Sports and with the special strangeness of Kelly Blades, kept things real. Coaches were told repeatedly, “You know what you’re doing.” and yeah, we do.  So we just went and did what it is we do.  Each coach according to our particular gifts. We had fun. Most of us probably never bothered to actually verbalize to our students that we were going to have “fun” or that the most important thing to remember is to have “fun”.  No, we just did our thing.  We went out and played. We talked to each other about life and paddling. Laughter and smiles filled the beach.  We took time out before and after classes to help students tweak skills. We test paddled. We caught up. We offered tips and asked other coaches for advice.  We communicated and we communed.  We listened to music. We heard stories. We filled in. We saw photos and videos. We explored the beauty of the surrounding area.  We played in waves. We walked the beaches.  We took pictures. We brought the kids. We fell off paddle boards, ran in sand, schlepped boats, made funny faces, caught up on gossip and so much more.  With no one to tell us what to do and no more than a few momentary meetings, we just got on with it.  We gathered up and got our game on. Now that’s certainly more fun, than scrambling to make a bunch of meetings where someone  goes on and on about how we’re all about, “having fun”. Isn’t it?

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