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newbie at the pool

" John Q Adams" typed:

In 1979, when my son and I learned to kayak, we were taught the basic
art ... by volunteer instructors who were members of the San Francisco
River Touring Chapter of the Sierra Club. [snip happens]

[snip happens]

The training I saw other kayakers getting from "professional" instructors
was far below the standard of the SF River Touring Chapter of the Sierra
Club.

You were very fortunate in that, John Q. I was similarly fortunate
when I started out, by getting six full days of instruction for (IIRC)
$25 from The Canoe Cruisers' Ass'n of Washington DC. One of my
instructors was the late, great Roger Corbett. This training got me
safely onto the water where I could spend a coupla years developing
the basic skills I had been taught.

But, over time, it became clear that advancing to Class III+
whitewater in an open canoe would seriously stress the knowlege and
technique I had gained in that class, and I spent three weeks, over a
two-year period, at the Nantahala Outdoor Center. The wealthy
certified instructors were terrific paddlers and pretty fair
instructors, working for a pittance that might not have exceeded the
Federally defined poverty-level income. I was an elitist who was able
to squander under US$600 for a five-day vacation that included
lodging, wonderful food, any equipment I wanted to demo, activity
packed days, and all local transportation... in addition to
first-class paddling instruction. You could never get such value from
a Club Med, or an ocean cruise, or any other "everything-included"
vacation. My paddling skills increased greatly.

But, over time, it became clear that advancing to the occasional Class
V rapid I was canoeing could be done with considerably more style and
grace than I was exhibiting, and I started taking an annual three-day
clinic from Bob Foote, who helped develop the curriculum for the ACA
instruction program. Foote's classes marked a significant step
forward for me, inasmuch as he had studied techniques of teaching in
addition to his subject matter. And he had applied a rigorous
analysis to the sport of whitewater canoeing; rather as high-end
trainers study the ergonomics and mechanics of track and swimming
skills to maximize the performance of their athletes. $150 for three
full, intense days, usually spending the first on a lake to work on
pure stroke technique. I'll bet this wealthy certified instructor
earns a princely US$20,000 per year as an instructor (supplemented
with royalties from his boat designs, and I hope he's getting
something more from someplace). Again, I improved greatly under an
instruction regime.

Such a basic thing as rolling a whitewater kayak can be taught by most
people who know how, but surely there is none of you out there who has
not seen a gifted instructor who can get a newbie rolling in ten
minutes, WITHOUT risk of strained muscles or (worse yet) a fright that
might put the newbie off boating completely.

Every club I belong to (8 or 9 of 'em) offers a program of free to
cheap instruction, and they are all great to get a beginner started.
From there the limit is the paddler's desire. If his desire is to be
a very good boater, he must boat a lot, and, unless he is naturally
gifted, he must take advanced instruction.

If he wants to piddle around in flat water like William Watt does, he
doesn't need to spend a penny on instruction, and he can carve his
boat out of a log. But Watt spews his anti-instruction,
anti-manufactured-boat idiocy with no regard for whom his audience may
be. Anyone who tries to canoe Class III water, or above, with no
instruction in a boat made from a sheet of plywood, puts his life at
very serious risk.

William Watt is one of the more dangerous people in this newsgroup,
because his Luddite advice could cost a beginner his life.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net 1-301-775-0471
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll.
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu 1-336-713-5077
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters.

newbie at the pool

(William R. Watt)

Typed in I'm pleased to see posters in this newsgroup accepting the fact that
many
people teach themselves the simple act of paddling naturally, and have
done so at least since the beginning of human occupation of North Amercia.
I consider it a shame that 80% of the population of NA are currently

raised in congested cities, have little contact with water in its natural
state, and lack the necessary experience should they come into contact
with it in later life.

I have to take exception to this statement.
Native Americans were not self taught, but grew up in a culture where these
skills were valued, taught and practiced.

I did start out as a self taught paddler. The area I grew up in is not a
paddling mecca and I'm the only one in my family that could even swim. When I
bought my first canoe, I had to teach myself how to paddle. I read what little
literature available at the time and picked up what I could from other
paddlers. My skill level progressed very slowly and reached a plateau when I
started trying Class III whitewater. After a bad, high water incedent, I
decided to get serious about improving my skill level. I took a weekend course
from Bob Ruppel
at Riversports and ended up with private instruction because of some late
cancellations. Bob was an old slalom C boater and a innovative OC-1er. My level
of paddling jumped at least a class that weekend. I don't think that I would
have ever had enough time to paddle to develope
the technique that he had already learned
from racing and coaching.

SYOTR
Larry C.

newbie at the pool

"Michael Daly" typed:

I've got to hand it to you, willy boy - there
are only a handful of idiots that have made it onto
the r.b.p ****list and you did it in record time.

Mike

Interesting, isn't it, Michael, the way Willie What has this elaborate
simile system comparing "wealthy" instructors (and those
non-instructors who believe in learning from the hard-earned
experience of others) to followers of a "religion", much the way
another polluter of r.b.p has this elaborate mental construct about
instructors "murdering schoolchildren" for personnal gain. There
seems to be a common paranoid thread running through the messages of
both of these very dangerous (to the uninitiated, who might follow
their advice) men.

The difference, in my eyes, is that Watt has a reasonable, commonsense
theory WITHIN THE CONTEXT of the calmwater boating he does. To float
around a pond or flat stream fishing or birdwatching does not require
any expertise as a paddler, hence it is not really a very good value
to pay for instruction or for expensive special-purpose boats for that
activity, and you can, indeed, teach yerself all the skills you need
to engage in the activity relatively safely. Watt's problem, though,
was that he was blinded by his own context, and did not think about
the consequences of his assertions in other contexts: offshore
kayaking and whitewater boating, which are both hazardous endeavors.
When practitioners of those more dangerous sports/hobbies took Watt to
task for what was dangerous advice in THOSE contexts, he became
defensive and dogmatic, and now he's gone over the top.

Well, come to think of it, the other guy has a reasonable device, too,
if HE could just learn to discuss it in anything but extreme and
absolutist terms. Looks like a very similar pathology in both cases:
a kernel of common sense within certain contexts, twisted all out of
proportion by an attempt to apply it universally, and then carried
into extreme rants by an inability to discuss the matter rationally.

-Richard, His Kanubic Travesty
--
================================================== ====================
Richard Hopley, Winston-Salem, NC, USA
rhopley[at]earthlink[dot]net 1-301-775-0471
Nothing really matters except Boats, Sex, and Rock'n'Roll.
rhopley[at]wfubmc[dot]edu 1-336-713-5077
OK, OK; computer programming for scientific research also matters.
================================================== ====================