Archive for the ‘Coaching’ Category

Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we was voodoo
The kids was just crass. He was the nazz
With God given ass
He took it all too far, but boy could he play guitar
– bowie

So I got into this conversation the other day.  The topic was “Names”.  Do paddlers you read about in Sea Kayaker magazine inspire you to sign up for events or symposiums?  Would you go any way?  Maybe when you read that a certain paddler is going to coach it’s a great idea to attend to get instruction from the ‘masters’ so to speak.  But what if the ‘Name’ is only there to present and preside?   Should symposiums sort out the green M&Ms for  the latest person to paddle across Boyizitbig Bay, or should they save the bowl for a couple great coaches instead?   Read the rest of this entry »

I told you ’bout the Fool on the hill, I tell you man he’s living there still,
Well, here’s another place you can be, Listen to me,
Fixing a hole in the ocean,
Trying to make a dovetail joint,
Looking through the glass onion.
– beatles

Here’s one of those strange and yet weirdly meditative kayak play moves.. this is an open lotus.. to make it more challenging bring your feet in further underneath your body then bring your arms inward, turn your hands up and rest them on the paddle just above your knees. Of course do that funky thumb & forefinger thing as well… Let me know if you become one with the universe!

Yesterday I went on a short rant about the concept of “fun”. The main point of the story of course is that fun is not a commodity, but an organic result of an experience.  Some people struggle with the concept of fun and yet know it to be important, so they say the word repeatedly in hopes of conjuring it into existence. I think this has consequences as well when we start mainstreaming “experiential learning” & learning through play” under the recently hip label of “Discovery Learning”.   Experiential learning and learning through play are actually fairly slippery concepts and doomed to become failures and distractions if we don’t “feel” what we’re doing out there.  We again can’t simply say we’re all about “Discovery”. Read the rest of this entry »

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.   Read the rest of this entry »

You can poison my cat / Baby I don’t care
But if you talk in the movies / I’ll kill you right there
It’s just the little things
Yeah it’s the little things
That drive me wild
– alice cooper

Rolling a kayak is easy.  Learning it is hard.  Teaching it, even harder.  As instructors we know how easy rolling is, which can make us blind to all the little things you need to do right to get your roll consistent.  My major focus as an instructor has always been body control.  I hate the C to C roll for sea kayakers because I find it disappointing for the students and way to much fun for the instructors because they get to spend so much time talking and demonstrating.  The C to C is also all about testosterone in the beginning which runs totally against many students natures..  I could go on and on, and I will (I’m sure) but for the moment I want to tell you where I was cocking things up…   Read the rest of this entry »

And a bearded lady said to me –
if you start your raving and your misbehaving –
you’ll be sorry. – Tull

It’s O.K. to suck at something. Kayakers often forget when they were afraid they would fall over on flat water, but most of us have been there. Over years we learn all sorts of fun, fascinating, and “cool” kayaking skills. Even so, there are always things we’d like to be better at, and certain skills that we can never seem to perfect, our “Achilles Stroke”, if you will. Mine is using sweeps to turn-in-place. I struggled perfecting it for so long I think I developed a mad case of sweep-on-a-dime-o-phobia, I can do it, cleanly, smoothly and the rest..but I never and I mean NEVER feel comfortable. It’s that one move that still makes me break out in sweats when I have to demo it. As I said, we all have those moves that drive us crazy. For some it’s an offside roll, for some it’s side-sculling, for others it’s a hanging draw. What’s you’re Achilles Stroke? What’s going wrong? Maybe someone around here can offer some tips!

Oh You Pretty Things / Don’t you know you’re driving your
Mamas and Papas insane / Oh You Pretty Things
Don’t you know you’re driving your / Mamas and Papas insane
Let me make it plain
You gotta make way for the Homo Superior
– bowie

Well, I’m not sure how it happened.. Well I am.. I had someone keeping me on task.. anyway, I’m first-aided, CPR’d and ACA’d and ready to teach my first 2 day sea kayaking class of the new season tomorrow at Rutabaga in Madison, Wisconsin.  I don’t even want to think about how long I’ve been doing this now.  I mean, how many years can you do something before you can no longer play the “outsider” role?  I start getting weird chills when I start thinking I may be becoming part of the establishment.. ooooooh….. Read the rest of this entry »

“Maybe there’s something over there!”  Nope.  The running joke of the weekend was that the most recent 1 footer to go under our hulls must have been at least a “4″.  In the end, for students looking to upgrade their coaching level to an L4 the weekend was pretty much a wash out. As a cruel joke nature provided a beautiful weekend for paddling instead of the nasty one we were all hoping for.   Read the rest of this entry »