Arms Down
Published July 13, 2010 | 
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… Continue reading
The Achilles Stroke
Published June 15, 2010 | 
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!
Certifiable
Published June 4, 2010 | 
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….. Continue reading
Looking for Mr. Goodwave
Published June 1, 2010 | 
“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. Continue reading
Posted in Coaching, My Paddling, Paddling | 
aca, Coaching, ICE, IDW, lake michigan, Milwaukee, wisconsinI hate navigation
Published May 27, 2010 | 
Man means nothing he means less to me
Than the lowliest cactus flower
Or the humblest Yucca tree
He chases round this desert
‘Cause he thinks that’s where I’ll be
That’s why I love mankind
– randy newman
Let’s just get this right out of the way. I HATE navigation. I mean, I LOVE maps and charts. As a teenager I used to stare at maps for hours. Even now I enjoy examining them and imagining how to get from point A to point B by car or kayak. What I hate is academic navigation. The bit where we toss a bunch of labels on common sense ideas, get all worked up measuring this and adding that to come up with some magical, algebraical solution to paddling across a bay in conditions where most of us should never leave the beach. Continue reading
Three To Five
Published April 27, 2010 | 
The shadows in the park were longer yesterday
and Lady Luck stood still, waiting for the kill.
- tull
ACA Proficiency requirements for L4 open water coastal kayaking instructors call for among other things, 3-5 foot seas, 3-4 foot surf, 15-20 knot winds, & 3-4 knots of current to be in force during at least part of the certification process. Luckily not all at once. I know that at the moment as I’m getting ready to update and going to be shooting for the L4 this time around. Funny bit is that I keep thinking about how these conditions compare from ocean to Great Lake. Wind is wind of course and current is current.. Waves on the other hand are different. Continue reading
That I am one of two planets dancing
I am part of two planets dancing
– bat for lashes
What is important is often confused with what is required. What is required is rarely important at all, other than to those who require it. What is important is often very different. Thing is, sometimes you must do what is required in order to be free to do what is important… (yeah, it’s one of those posts…)
Continue reading →