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My friends are my heroes!

My friend Del wrote a brilliant article recently where she called out 5 women who inspire her in kayaking; specifically, she stated the things she loved about these amazing individuals! We often use the hashtag #myfriendsaremyheroes, but I think that Del has hit on something vital here. It’s really easy to think well of people, but how often do we just up and say it!

In the whitewater community, we need to be building each other up and stating exactly why our friends are our heroes. So today’s article is about 5 inspirational people I am thankful for in our community.

Del

I couldn’t start this article without talking about the infectious ball of happiness and kindness that is Del! She is a positive presence wherever she goes, whether online or on the river. Always willing to chat and laugh as we float downstream. Full of passion for the sport and the whitewater community. So determined to improve her personal paddling that she inspires others to do the same.

If you paddle with Del, you will not be able to stop smiling! But the thing that will strike you most is her generosity. I cannot count the number of times Del has fed me snacks (or sandwiches), because “we can’t have you starving!”

Thanks Del for consistently pushing me to improve. For being a listening ear. Thank you for all the snacks! For your unbeatable smile.

Jack Grace

“Can I take a playboat on the Tees please?” were some of the first words Jack ever said to me. That probably says quite a lot about him. The fact I said yes probably says a bit about me too…

It has been a privilege watching Jack grow from an enthusiastic youngster into the person I most enjoy kayaking with in the world! We’ve reached a stage now where we understand each other. Where most of our on-river communication is non-verbal. If Jack thinks it goes, I can trust him that it goes. When he’s feeling unsure, I usually am too – sometimes I’m already walking!

If you want to be in safe hands on the river, paddle with Mr Grace! He inspires confidence in those around him. And if the proverbial hits the fan, you can guarantee he is already in place to pick up the pieces.

On top of all that, Jack cares about people. Deeply. He’ll ask you how you are, then ask again! We need more of that in this community.

Thank you for keeping the most solid head on your shoulders. For your willingness to mega-train! Thanks for your kindness.

Tom Clare

Everyone’s favourite paddling photographer, I’ve had the privilege of knowing TC since our first year of uni together. From Scotland to Austria and everywhere in between, Tom has always been someone to depend on!

We’ve paddled in skins at HPP in March (a terrible idea in case anyone’s wondering). Due to navigational ineptitude, we’ve hiked the most circuitous route into the Pattack ever (and missed most of the river)! We’ve had interesting encounters with Mountain Rescue.

We like to joke that if nothing else, Tom can be relied upon to make everyone else in the group look good. But that suggests he doesn’t do anything else. And for all the times his lines aren’t stylish, Tom has been a faithful friend, a legendary cameraman and a smiling face on the bank-side end of a throwline a thousand times over!

Thank you for your selflessness. For your massive grin! And thank you more than I can say for making all this possible by creating the most amazing website.

Joel

I’ve only known Joel for about a year, but he’s one of those people who you just get on with straight away. Though perhaps there’s something about running the Upper Dart together in high water that forges bonds of trust very quickly! Joel’s laid-back attitude and wisdom on the river make him an epic companion for adventures.

Joel is another friend on whom you can rely. Whether for safety on the river or stoke as you head to the next one, he is dependable. Not only that, but Joel loves adventure. When there’s biblical rain out on the moor, sure, you could run the Upper Dart on high, or you could go hiking and explore some silly ditch up above the tree-line!

But the most amazing thing about Joel is his giving nature. Thank you for being willing to drop your own interests to help others. For your stoke. For making me want to push my personal high-water mark!

Sharing the excitement of Jordan’s first lap on the Loop with Joel.

Ollie

Hands down, Ollie is one of the kindest, most self-sacrificing people in the whitewater community. Generous with his time, his energy and his home! Plus, he’s dog-father to the two best boys on the planet!

Ollie is not afraid to dream big. Ever since our uni days together, scheming up insane trip ideas and designing longboats together, Ollie has proved his genius time and again. Not only is he talented, but he is a considerate friend and an unbelievably kind man. Case in point, when I snapped my Odachis in half, he had them repaired with a new shaft in under a week. All while running his own business and letting me crash in his house!

Ollie inspires me to push forwards as a coach and a business-owner. To not accept less than my own best. His self-starting attitude and perseverance are a fine example to follow.

Thank you beyond words for your generous spirit. For early morning Green laps and gym sessions! Thank you for being an inspiration.

Making faces on the Cheoah. Photo: Sarah Ruhlen

Coaching Insights: Trust your ability!

This may not be true of everyone, but I find that I am often my own worst critic. Oftentimes I struggle to believe that my own methods and skills are going to yield results. It can be incredibly hard to trust your own ability! So that’s what today is about: a few methods to enable coaches to test the effectiveness of their work and trust in it.

First and foremost, surround yourself with other coaches. Ensure that you are learning from peers and more experienced coaches. Whether that means getting involved with local clubs or centres, taking part in online seminars or absorbing information from experts in the form of books or videos, it all helps! The more (and more varied) coaching methods you are able to observe and test out, the better your overall approach will become.

Obviously, comparison, especially with people on the top of their game, can be unhealthy and disheartening. However, this is not about saying, “they did it like this – that makes my way look rubbish!” Rather it is about saying, “that’s a really valuable technique – I wonder if that could work for me.”

Being in a forum of other coaches is so useful for your own growth. Plus you may also find that others want to try something you share with them. That can be a huge confidence boost!

Secondly, be aware of the flaws, but don’t rush to fix them. We all make mistakes, all the time! We look back (quite often immediately) at the way we delivered a coaching point and think: “that was rubbish! I could have done that so much better.”

In those moments, have grace for yourself, and don’t rush to correct the perceived issue. As I said at the start, we are often our own worst critics. And yes, it is really important to critique your own work and consider how to do it better, but that is a long-term process.

As an example, recently I have been really seeking to switch my coaching language to a more affirmatory style – praising the good, or even the desired good, rather than focusing on the improvement points. I constantly find myself jumping straight to a “how to improve” rather than stressing what already went well. But the more time I spend coaching, the more natural the new style becomes.

Trust your own ability as a learner to gradually adapt to a new (better) methodology.

Lastly, and most importantly, celebrate every one of your student’s victories, because they are your victories too! They are a direct product of your work and methods.

Obviously, if you are not experiencing any successes whatsoever, that could be a sign that something is awry! But if you are not celebrating the little victories, especially in slow-pace programmes, then you will very quickly end up feeling disheartened and unsure of your own capacity as a coach.

Some victories, like Jordan’s learning to roll without any physical intervention on my part, are huge and obvious. Others, like Jordan making a slight increase to his torso rotation during forward paddling, are subtle, but no less worth savouring!

Still a lot of room to refine this, but what an achievement!

Hopefully these points have been really helpful for any other second-guessers out there! How do you combat self-doubt as a coach? Let me know in the comments!

Coaching Insights: Slow is smooth and smooth is fast!

Yet another maxim that kayakers use a lot is “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” It probably rings true in many contexts, not least racing. But I had never thought about applying it to the overall learning process until recently. So that’s exactly what this article is about: pacing programmes appropriately.

We return to Jordan’s journey towards rolling. As I said in a previous post, Jordan and I set our expectations early on that our hands-off method of rolling learning might have a longer learning curve than traditional methods.

In fact, there have been several sessions now where we have very deliberately steered our focus elsewhere. We spent a session looking at nothing but forward paddling. We’ve done some basics of freestyle. We played about with some land-based safety and rescue work. All the variety has really aided Jordan’s learning and our enjoyment of the process.

Another major upshot of all this variety, particularly the freestyle sessions, is that Jordan has been having more upside-down experiences! His comfort-level underwater, not to mention his spacial awareness, has grown exponentially. Where before I had only seconds to reach him before he chose to swim, I now paddle lazily over to his inverted boat to find his hands already instinctively reaching for my bow to T-rescue!

The most remarkable thing about it, certainly for me as a coach, is how organic it feels. It can be so tempting to push for fast results – I have definitely fallen into that trap before – but this slow approach is paying off. Because the growth is natural, Jordan and I regularly have to pause and reflect on it. We often find ourselves commenting: “well, that’s a big step!” But in reality, there aren’t any big steps; we are simply observing milestones on a long, steady journey.

Our recent session at Chertsey was one such milestone. With very little hesitation, Jordan started playing around with the flow and the pour-over. When he flipped, even in the new, turbulent environment of the river, he kept his cool and waited for the T-rescue. A month ago, that simply could not have happened!

So what does this mean for coaches? Well, my main take-away here is simply this: don’t be afraid of slow results. They are just as rewarding, if not more so, than quick ones. Take the time to acknowledge and savour the victories. Try coaching for continuous growth, not just rapid results.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: celebrate every victory! Celebrate loudly!

Coaching Insights: Lights, Camera, Action!

One of the main methods Jordan and I are employing to get geeky and improve his paddling (and my coaching!) is video analysis. It has already proven to be a really effective tool for us, so I thought it might be valuable to share some of the insights we have gleaned so far.

Before we get stuck into the lessons we have learned, if you want to read more about the context of why Jordan and I are using video so heavily, feel free to check out my last Coaching Insights post, here: https://www.whitewatercoach.co.uk/2020/08/15/coaching-insights-changing-tack/

So without further ado, here is the tick-list for effectively using video for coaching:

Take your video from the middle of the session. Jordan and I have found that it does a disservice to us both if we try to create coaching points based on his first or last attempts at any drill or skill. This is perfectly logical, because he needs time to warm up and explore a new technique, but will reach a point of fatigue where progress is nigh on impossible. For someone as capable of self-analysis as Jordan, it seems utterly pointless to me to build coaching points from his worst performances. Video analysis needs to show him how to refine and improve his best, when he is most physically and psychologically engaged with the skill.

Film lots. On the flip-side to the first point, if we are going to make use of video, we cannot settle for just taking one sample. It is vital to ensure that the video we capture and then analyse is actually representative of the participant’s current skill and understanding. If it is not, similar to the point above, then our coaching feedback is entirely redundant. Moreover, with a selection of videos captured during the participant’s peak engagement, we are often able to look back and observe a visible progression, which provides a huge morale boost for the learner.

Film different angles. Bridging the gap between breadth and depth of insight, gaining video from different angles not only allows for a greater sample size, but also enriches the level of detail in a coach’s feedback. Capturing different angles helps the coach to avoid heuristic bias and hasty analysis. We have to synthesize more information before we can make any useful or meaningful comments.

Watch lots. This is closely linked to filming lots; not only do we need to create as broad a sample as possible, but we need to watch each snippet of video in detail. If the first three points are about ensuring we generate a broad and representative data-set from our coaching sessions, then number 3 is about gleaning as much as we can from that data-set. Several times now, Jordan and I have watched back a piece of film and both picked up on different aspects within it. Every time we look, we see something new. For instance, the same clip might provide keys to unlocking multiple techniques, depending on whether we are focusing on arms, head, torso, etc when re-watching.

Celebrate the successes! This is not exactly linked to the other lessons, in the sense that it isn’t really about developing coach feedback or progressing the learner’s technique. However, it is probably as important, if not more so, than any of the others. When the participant achieves something, capture the moment! Get excited about it! Celebrate with them! Here is one such moment from a recent session with Jordan. Almost certainly, there are lessons to be learned from this video, but for now, reminding him of his success is of greater importance.

So there you have it! Video analysis can be a really powerful tool. For any coach pondering whether to make use of it, my encouragement would be this: take the time to film a lot and watch a lot – it is so worthwhile.

Rodeo isn’t dead!

Just in case it wasn’t apparent yet, I love downriver freestyle. Not much makes me happier than rolling down the river with a bunch of friends, playing every tiny wave, splatwheeling any rock I can and staring skywards.

That’s hardly a unique opinion, especially with the new surge of fancy slice-boats saturating the market. But I find it so exciting to see our amazing community returning to a style of river-running that embraces a more intimate connection with the three-dimensional nature of a flowing river.

It is exactly this love that has spawned my desire to run a downriver freestyle event, a day that celebrates our community and the rivers that we a blessed to enjoy. Read on to find out about how the first ever River Dart Rodeo is going to go down!

At 0900 on Rodeo day, all riders, judges and spectators will congregate at Dartmeet for the pre-competition briefing. For riders, failure to attend this briefing will result in disqualification. Obviously, there are likely to be a large number of us there, so wherever distancing restrictions and space allow, people should share cars to avoid clogging the car-park.

Once the briefing is done, we will hit the river en masse! The competition will be divided into three locations, with a defined upstream and downstream mark. Every rider will have two 1-minute rides in each location, the timer starting as soon as they pass the upstream mark, in which to travel downriver with as much complexity, creativity and fluidity as they can muster. For all of the potential issues of subjectivity, we are deliberately avoiding the rigid scoring systems favoured by modern freestyle, hoping to encourage as the maximum in freedom and progression. Though, for anyone worrying, there will be one judge utterly dedicated to counting who completes the most ends throughout the day!

In between locations, we will share the joy of our fantastic whitewater community, as well as doing some river clean-up. In fact, the river clean-up will also have a competitive element, because whoever collects the highest volume of rubbish during the day will win a snazzy prize too! Personally, I am very much looking forward to watching people try to compete with a whole load of flotsam swishing around in their boats…

For the crafty-minded paddlers among us, there will also be a prize for the most well-decorated vessel/rider. So get creative, bust out the Hawaiian shirts and make yourselves look fabulous!

We are blessed to have some brilliant industry supporters coming down to join us for the day too. The great folks from Immersion Research Europe, Dewerstone and Pyranha will be setting up shop in the Newbridge car-park with a plethora of gear, demos and coffee! Once the competition run is over, we hope to make the most of the water and our community, so grab a coffee, grab a demo and hit the river!

Whilst you are happily enjoying the beautiful Dart, our diligent judging team will be busily beavering away totting up the scores! Prize-giving will take place just before sundown in the Newbridge car-park, where we will crown our men’s, women’s and junior champions, as well as our top trash-trawler and most outlandishly decorated rider.

To keep on top of Rodeo-related developments, keep the Facebook event in your sights. If you’re interested in developing your rodeo game and broadening the competition field, consider booking on for a day or few on my Downriver Freestyle programme.

Coaching Insights: Changing Tack

One of the many maxims that coaches hear all the time is: “if you say it once, but the participant doesn’t understand, say it again a different way.” Problems of understanding are almost always problems of poor communication. If a participant struggles to grasp a new skill or technique, it is my approach, not their apprehension, that needs to change.

With the advent of coaching in the pandemic, however, we find ourselves being forced to alter long-established methods. This was hammered home to me a couple of weeks ago, whilst coaching my mentee, Jordan. Having paddled for a couple of years now, he is seeking to advance onto the river and therefore wants to learn to roll. Traditionally, my approach to this would have been very hands-on – indeed, I don’t think I have ever taught rolling without at some point physically supporting or guiding the motions of the participant. Now though, I am faced with the prospect of teaching a roll whilst social distancing!

At first, my instinct was that it could not be done. I had fallen into the fallacious logic that since my existing method was so effective, no other method could possibly succeed! But who is to say that rolling cannot be taught only by visual, verbal and video-analysis methods? Of course, it helps greatly that Jordan is someone for whom such methods are preferable – he is particularly capable at observing a modelled technique and copying it, whereas questions like, “to what extent could you feel the effect of x?” don’t necessarily help.

Regardless, Jordan and I discussed making this into an experiment and a good test of adaptability and lateral thinking for me. Can I teach rolling without any physical intervention whatsoever?

Setting goalposts has been vital on this one. Using my old method, participants have often developed a robust roll on at least their dominant side, if not both, within less than an hour. We cannot be so certain of so rapid a result this time around. Jordan has to be comfortable with either swimming or T-rescuing an awful lot during the acclimatisation and muscle memory-development, which fortunately he is!

On the other hand, my instinct suggests that this slow-but-steady approach, with no physical intervention, ought to produce two significant results:

1. Having never had to rely on the physical crutch of another person guiding movements or supporting weight, Jordan will not have any mental crutches that might be associated with that support. This is, of course, incredibly difficult to quantify, but given the psychological aspect of paddling is a significant factor for Jordan, we should end up with some interesting qualitative data to look at.

2. Due to the extended amount of time spent in acclimatisation, Jordan ought to have a greater level of comfort and calm when thrown into the potentially stressful situation of being upside-down underwater than others I have taught in the past. I also anticipate that he will develop better spacial awareness underwater even than some advanced kayakers.

Only time will tell if our experiment will succeed, but whatever happens we will be documenting the journey and I will keep you updated! Look out for the next episode of Coaching Insights.

Ready, Set, Go!

The adventure begins!

Thank you for taking an interest in this new journey; I am so excited to be setting out! Over the course of the coming months and years, this website will be my means of keeping you up-to-date on new courses and events, as well as providing coaching insights and sharing the lessons I am learning along the way.

As I start out, there are a few people who deserve specific thanks, people without whom I would not be taking these first steps. First off, I am thankful for friends who inspire and encourage me to pursue my dreams, specifically Jonny at Gnarly Tree, Jack, Del, Tom, Joel and Katherine. Every one of you is such a blessing to me and I cannot thank you enough for your support, enthusiasm for adventure and kindness. Secondly, and more specifically, to the technical wizard Tom, who is responsible for this beautiful website.

It has been a busy few weeks getting the business set up, running coaching sessions and preparing for the upcoming autumn/winter season. I have been overwhelmed with the enthusiasm our amazing whitewater community has already shown, especially for the River Dart Rodeo. For me, it is so gratifying that other people are keen for this event, and I am looking forward to broadening the competition field through the winter with my Downriver Freestyle Programme.

If you want to share in this coaching journey as it develops, feel free to head over to the Facebook page and give me a like. I look forward to bringing you along for the next steps!

Del

Jack Grace

Tom Clare

Joel

Ollie

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