" 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
--
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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.