What Goes Around Comes Around, Or, How I Started Dancing, Stopped Dancing, Started Kayaking, And Eventually Got The Dancing Back Too

Pity I didn't get any use out of these DANCE SHOES, isn't it? 😉

Another rambling walk down Memory Lane because of something I pulled out of a closet. Ah closet cleaning. Once every fifteen years whether they need it or not, eh?
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1998 was the year I started paddling seriously.

My main hobby before that had been Irish music and dance. I'd been introduced to Irish music by a co-worker at Carnegie Hall, where I had my first long-term job in NYC (got to go to the Carnegie Hall Centennial Gala, even!). One March, I'd found a copy of John B. Keane's The Bodhrán Makers in a St. Patrick's Day display at a nearby Barnes and Noble. The Bodhrán Makers is an excellent novel about small town life in Ireland in the 1950's, with the bodhrán (goatskin drum) makers of the title being rural folks who were terribly poor but cherished rich musical traditions that had been handed down through the generations, and the people of the town - particularly the Church - who wanted to see the old ways dead and gone. Fantastic book, in fact I just stopped typing for a minute to go find it because now that I'm thinking about it, of course I have to read it again.

I'd first read my dad's copy in the UK, where my folks were living when I first moved to NYC. I'd really enjoyed it, so when I saw it at the bookstore, I grabbed it. Well, when Annmarie from the development department walked by my desk and saw it, she came to an abrupt halt, pointed at the book, and said,

"WHERE did you get THAT?"

Am's family is good solid Brooklyn Irish with deep roots remaining in Ireland, and she was very familiar with the author (best known here in the States for writing the play that became the 1990 film The Field, starring Richard Harris, and held in the highest regard in his home country). She already knew the book but this was in March of 1993 and it had just had its US release in October 1992. She was completely startled to see it sitting on a random co-worker's desk! Once I told her where I'd gotten it, she smiled and said,

"If you like that book, there's someplace we need to go some night".

"Someplace" turned out to be a local pub (was it Muldoon's, or Kate Kearney's? So long ago!) where Brian Conway and Don Meade were running a weekly seisiún.

I was completely enchanted by the music and Am and I got to doing that as a regular thing. Next Am introduced me to the Irish Arts Center, where we signed up for set dancing classes. She also brought me a tin whistle back from one of her trips to visit family in Ireland, so that's where that started, and I was doing some Irish song classes there for a while too.

Annmarie has ended up being pretty much my oldest and best friend here in NYC. Her family made a habit of welcoming young folks who were far from their own families for Thanksgivings and other events; TQ and I tend to go to his mom's for most holidays now but I've had some great times with Am's family and I still look forward to seeing everyone at the big family gathering an aunt and uncle hold around St. Patrick's Day every year in Brooklyn. Am moved out of the city years ago and I don't see her as often as I used too, but I still see her whenever I can.

Anyways - once she introduced me to Irish music and dance, that became What I Did through most of the 90's. At first it was set dancing (much like square dancing except that instead of a caller, there are set "figures" that the dancers learn). There was a great Irish social dance scene in the 90's, with Joanie Madden of Cherish the Ladies (great musician!) and friends playing for set dancers at Flannery's Pub every Wednesday night and ceilis to go to on weekends. I made a good group of friends through the dancing, eventually started dating one of the guys, it was pretty much my entire social life. Good exercise, to boot!

For a while I just did set dancing, then the fella and I started taking step dancing at the IAC. He'd done it for a little while as a kid until his mother made the mistake of having him appear onstage before his elementary school classmates in West Virginia shortly after they'd moved there from somewhere where Irish American kids just took Irish dance classes because "that is how they do" (quoting Zefrank). Oh yeah, and she put him in a kilt. Turned out 1970's children in West Virginia weren't ready for a little new boy in a skirt, the curtain went up and the laughter began and they were laughing at him, not with him, and that was the end of his dance career at that point, but he was genuine Irish American (last name Murphy, ok?) and as an adult he'd gotten interested again. I wasn't particularly good at it, but I was having fun plugging away, and after I'd been doing it for a while, I started talking about getting some proper shoes for it. I'd been using the same shoes I'd used for set dancing and they just weren't really bangety enough for the step dancing, which is the solo percussive dance that everybody's now seen in Riverdance. I mentioned that I needed some "riverdancing" shoes to my folks and they decided that would be a great birthday present.

Now at that point I think they were in Hawaii, so they couldn't exactly take me out shopping, but they sent me a check that was going to cover the shoes plus a really nice dinner or two with the fella.

Except that that was when the fella heard from his college dreamgirl, and then things kind of fell apart. She was thinking of moving to NYC, and yeah, she was willing to think about going out with him (which she'd never been willing to do in college, which I think was part of the appeal). Turned out that he was still carrying a torch for her lo these many years, which in hindsight wasn't all that surprising (I had all along been more into him than vice versa), so was the end of us (sad trombone).

Unfortunately that then made the social dancing really frickin' weird. Irish set dancing may not have the obvious smolder factor of, say, tango, but the fella was a good dancer, we danced well together, and although we would split off and dance the occasional set with friends we mostly danced together.

Lost my partner, what'll I do?

So one day I wandered down to the Hudson to watch the water go by and think things over and there went a whole flock of tiny boats. Oooh.

Take a kayaking lesson and discover a new addiction that didn't need to be a couple thing at ALL, that's what!

Oh, yes, when TQ came along it did become something of a couples thing - but that was years down the road and I guess I was ready. And the boating is still nowhere near as much of a partner thing as dancing had gotten to be - we like paddling together but we both like paddling on our own and with other friends, too. Better balance, really.

Anyways, with the What I Do in my life changing (I kept on with the tin whistle 'cause that had been more my thing than our thing, I backed off on the dance, and was loving the time on the river) I sat on the shoe money for a while and then all of the sudden it was fall and I wanted to keep paddling and that's when the theoretical shoes magically transformed into an actual Henderson paddling suit. POOF!;

i mean really, you'd think it just sat in the closet the whole time, wouldn't you?

Practically pristine...what a waste...

No, seriously, this was a great piece of gear and I wore it absolutely to shreds. At first it was just out on the river, then as it started to wear out, I got a new one, and this one became my pool suit. There was a while when I was regularly going to weekly pool sessions in the wintertime (note to self: you should get back into that!); chlorine's hard on gear so it's good to have something old to sacrifice, and this Henderson suit did that dirty job for a very long time.

I have finally just chucked it as part of project Seize the Storage. Old gear goes. But here's the comes around-goes around part - with dance classes back into my life (delightfully small world, Megan, one of my teachers from way back when, literally turned up calling a square dance in the back yard at Sebago and it turns out she's teaching close to where I work and at a good time for me to get over there) that right about the same time as the wetsuit that was originally meant to be a pair of dance shoes reached the end of a spectacularly long and honorable run -

I finally got the shoes! 

Yippee!

WOW, I'm so excited. I haven't done this in WAY TOO LONG. All packed up for the Hudson River Paddlesports Symposium, had to take a picture to share before I left for work this morning.  This is how a paddler without a car gets to some good coaching - I'm renting a boat but bringing my own stuffs. Can't wait!

Four (plus many more) to take me home

Back in the day. Wish we lived a little closer to Deception Pass, such a great class there with Body Boat Blade. I did have to be fished out a minute later - that's FINE, I was playing hard at the upper limits of what I could do, and that's what makes a paddler get better.

Just finishing off the one paddle, two paddle series I started but stalled out on in favor of pretty pictures from vacation. I'm of course quoting the 60's era Hawaiian song that's remained popular to this day, and I've done one paddle, which was frustratingly short, two paddle, which was way better even if I didn't find the whale, and three paddle, which was a lovely spin around Canarsie Pol and Ruffle Bar with a new member who was looking to get out and turned out to be a very good paddler. In that one, I mentioned running out of steam a mile or so from home, and my frustration with my continuing relatively poor physical shape.

So - four to take me home. Pardon me while I get a little more metaphorical here than I usually do, but have you ever heard it said that your body is your home? I think the business about your body being your temple is maybe more common, but I've seen the "home" description from time to time. Going with that, well, my "home" needs some serious work to get it back to a semblance of what it used to be, particular where it comes to paddling. In the not terribly distant past, I've been a pretty skilled paddler. Under the old BCU scheme I was a 4-star paddler, in the ACA, I'd gotten up to being a level 4 open water coastal kayaking instructor. I was strong, pretty fast, maybe not the bravest surfer in the world (seriously, every time I have ever gone to go into surf or whitewater I started out just about wanting to pee my wetsuit, but I always knew that if I could just get past that and get myself out there, I was going to have fun), but basically somebody who was able to get out in rough conditions, have fun, and show others how to do that too. If your body is a home, mine was a solid, comfortable, and strong one. I knew what I could trust it to do, and more often than not, when I tried something challenging that I wasn't sure I'd be able to do, I ended up being pleasantly surprised, finding that whatever it was was not just within my capability, but actually fun.

But then the home got hit by the surprise storm of cancer.

This is all getting to be a while ago now.

That's why it's frustrating that I'm still flailing around not knowing what I can do.

Timeline:

I found the lump in August 2015.

I had the mastectomy in October 2015.

I went through chemo from November 2015 through April 2016 and then had breast reconstruction surgery in late April of that year.

I was given the go-ahead to get back on the water pretty fast after the mastectomy, and my first paddle was almost exactly one month after my surgery. So much faster than I'd expected! Here, that was so awesome I have to put up the picture: 

Now this was probably the shortest paddle I'd been on in years, aside from those where I was leading short trips for club open houses and such, but OH so satisfying.

I kept paddling through chemo. I was getting my foundation back together, and I think it really helped my attitude in getting through what was a pretty tiresome procedure - I did pick what I jokingly called "chemo lite", a regimen that was much gentler than the ones that make you lose your hair and your appetite, but it does run twice as long. I'm pretty sure that keeping myself physically active made it easier and it certainly gave me a mental lift to post stuff like this: 

And I continued working on re-solidifying my foundation through 2016. I kept paddling on weekends, and the Coney Island Y had a great deal for the summer so I joined and was swimming laps on weeknights, I was taking it all pretty seriously and actually working at it.

And then last year I let it all just kind of fall apart. We had some extra stuff going on at work, and I just stopped doing the work I still needed to do to get the "house" back in shape. I was doing some paddling on weekends but I stopped swimming. I did pick up Monday night dance classes after running into a dance teacher of mine from years back when I was doing a lot of Irish dance, back before I started kayaking, so that was good, and I had gotten back up to the point where I could keep up with beginner to intermediate groups  and even take pictures and not end up getting left behind too badly (that was a shocker from an early group trip around Canarsie Pol in 2016 - I stopped to take pictures as my friends paddled by, and then I went to kick into high gear to catch up and EEK NO HIGH GEAR - fortunately TQ was along and came back to babysit me, but that was a shocker), but I just stopped making progress towards getting back what I'd had.

And I've lost confidence. A friend had once asked me if I thought I'd lost my nerve once when I got to talking about this, and I think I said "Not really" but I think I just didn't want to admit it out loud. The reconstruction I chose to go with involves a significant re-rigging of the chest muscles, with the pectoral muscle stretched over the implant to make the shape. It looks fine but it feel a little weird and although my plastic surgeon has told me that I can do anything I guess I'm not entirely trusting things yet.

And the rebuilding that I have done so far has all been on flatwater. With the exception of some fun class 2 whitewater last year in Colorado, I haven't tested things out in anything resembling rough conditions.

And at this point, because I haven't tested them in anything except flat water, I literally don't know what my skill level is these days.

So, this needs work.

For the fitness, I should get back to the swimming; I love the Coney Island Y but the Park Slope one is easier to get to so maybe I should just suck it up and join there. I did swim there once when the Coney Island pool was down for some reason and it was perfectly nice. Could try running again too - I've been finding my friend Jenn's Brooklyn Runner in Calgary blog has been getting me thinking about how running is such a wonderfully simple outdoor excercise; I used to run but I never enjoyed it that much but I think that was partly because I was always pissed at myself for being too slow (somewhere when I was a kid and running a lot more, I picked up the idea that a 9 minute mile was "respectable", which made being slow very depressing). I recently ran across a plan for getting into running (or back into running) that suggested starting with going out for a half hour WALK into which you insert short bouts of running, even as short as two or three minutes if that's what's comfortable. Then you build as the running gets more comfortable. Simple, and I do like to walk so this could work.

And obviously, I need to paddle more. I've been wanting to get weeknight paddles back into my life - those are so nice in the summertime, and I do get to the occasional club evening paddle, but I would genuinely love to make those a little more regular. One of the members of the Church of the Double-Bladed Paddle Facebook group had suggested the "2017 Challenge" last year, where members would log their miles and shoot for 201.7 miles. I was thinking about doing it and then just utterly failed - I have no idea how many miles I did paddle in 2017 but it wasn't anywhere close. I was thinking I might do a 2018 version. I have been tracking my mileage this year and I am going to have to pick things up if this is going to happen, it's mid June and I'm only at 54 miles, but between bad weather and a bad flu I did get off to a very slow start. I'm not saying this is a resolution - resolutions work about as well for me as 9-minute mile expectations, the only New Year's resolution I ever kept was the one that I would never make another New Year's resolution - but it would be something to shoot for.

So that's all a good enough plan and all stuff I can work on myself.

Getting the higher-level skills back up to speed is going to take some help. I think that the only way to knock out this stupid timidity is to get myself out with some instructors - except for the May whitewater class last year, I haven't taken any classes in a very long time. Now this is something that I AM determined to do this year; I didn't just magically get into a kayak and become a good kayaker, I have relied on a series of instructors who I trusted, and I think that getting myself back into some training situations is the key to getting back some of what I've lost. I don't know exactly what I'll do this year, there are budget limits and I don't have a car, but I'm starting out with a couple of days at the upcoming Hudson Valley Paddlesports Symposium that Facebook had been dangling under my nose for a while. I'm not expecting the rough water that I'm feeling like I need to get back into to really see what's still working and what isn't, but I'm expecting that this is going to be an excellent skills refresher and a good step back towards where I want to be.

After that, there are a couple of instructors around who I used to take classes from with whom I'd love to get back on the water. Bill Lozano's Atlantic Kayak Tours used to be at Annsville Creek, but moved to Norrie Point (first he just opened a branch there, then decided to make that the full-time location), so he's a little bit harder to get to, but I do see he's got something in NY Harbor in September - he's an excellent instructor and had a lot to do with my getting as far as I did. I don't see this on the AKT calendar but I would also give my eyeteeth to get in on a weekend in Rhode Island with him and his team - I did my 4-star assessment with them up there years ago and it was phenomenal.

Bill was actually the main mentor for instructors and higher level paddlers at Sebago for a long time, but he was more involved with the BCU back then, and at a certain time Sebago made the decision to switch over to the ACA. At that point Elizabeth and Gordon O'Connor-Dayton from Sea Kayaking Skills and Adventures started coming in to run our instructor training classes and other higher-level skills classes. They are also excellent instructors from whom I have learned a lot. When I started taking classes from them they weren't married yet and Elizabeth lived on Long Island; in 2010 they got married and moved to Connecticut, opening up a new company called Changing Tides for their business up there. The relationship with Sebago tailed off after that, and I'd lost track of them for a while; I actually went looking for Changing Tides last year, probably already thinking I needed to get back into some instruction, but couldn't seem to find them, but then Gordon emailed me to say hi sort of out of the blue last October and sent me the updated websites for their businesses. Also turns out that they're still teaching at Empire so that's another really good possibility - again, pretty quiet water there, but again, would be a great skills tune-up to spend some time with them.

And then there's a friend at the club who has been going out for some rough water practice pretty regularly - she's offered to take me along and I should take her up on that.

So...wow. Sorry about the novel, but there, more or less, is a plan. And to quote something my dad used to say to me when I was tackling school projects - I've planned my work, now let's see if I can work my plan. This should at least be a little more fun than homework!

To be continued (knock wood).

The Envelope, Please...

Still working on prep for Level 2 - here are the elements of a trip planning exercise I've come up with as part of the classroom session. Don't want to give the whole thing away, of course, but you can probably guess how it's going to work. I'll report on it after we've played, but I think it will be kind of fun. I'm actually looking forward to giving it a try. And aside from copying some handouts and laminating the lesson plans for myself and my assistants, I think I'm pretty much ready - and I didn't even have to pull an all-nighter! Woohoo!

Getting Ready for Level 2

Fun fun fun! I am collecting and inspecting all my "stuffs" tonight, in preparation for the ACA Level 2: Essentials of Kayak Touring class that I'm teaching this weekend. The way I've been looking at it, you could kind of say that Level 1 is the class where you learn to paddle, and Level 2 is the class where you learn to be a paddler - meaning a person who doesn't just know how to move the boat from point A to point B and back, but is starting to pick their own Point A's and B's, and know what they need to have in the boat and what sort of preparations need to happen to make the journey safe, fun, and legal.

Tonight I'm pulling together (or is it pulling apart?) my own kit in preparation for that. It's an interesting exercise in that I'm planning to talk about both hot & cold weather preparation, so I'm pulling out a lot of stuff that would usually be sitting in drawers this time of year. It's actually a good exercise for myself, especially since I somehow managed to miss my Vessel Safety Check this year (first time in several years!) - good chance to figure out what's missing or mislaid (like, I wonder where I left my 2012 Eldridge? and why was that strobe in the winter gear drawer instead of in the lights & radio bag where it's supposed to be?), and what just needs attention (e.g. - somehow my first aid kit got wet and a lot of the stuff in there is either flat-out ruined or looks so terrible that a person would lose all confidence in me when they saw it).

Adding the off season to the current season definitely adds some stuff - but I still think I'm going to be able to fit it all in the big black duffle bag. Lack of wheels does tend to steer a person towards the minimalist end of the kit spectrum!

ACA Quick Start in the Brooklyn Bridge Park, 6/4/2011

The Brooklyn Bridge Boathouse ran an ACA Quick Start class for boathouse volunteers on Saturday. They were looking for help & I'm glad I volunteered - what a spectacular spot, and what a nice bunch of people to spend the day with.

More later, I hope. I feel like I've had a bit of blogger's block of late -- almost have had too much going on, should've had a dozen good posts out of the ICE/IDW, season opener, NYS Safe Boating certification class, and preparations for the Sebago season - but noooo, I get home from all of those, sit down in front of the computer, try to thing of something to write & end up going "humannahummanahummana". When do I finally find myself feeling like I might be able to write something that is at least coherent? Oh, usually an hour or so into a work day the following week, when I can't. Anybody else get that? :D

Anyways, for now, I just couldn't resist tossing up this slideshow of one of the more spectacular venues in which I have ever had the pleasure of teaching.

Public kayaking at the Brooklyn Bridge Boathouse begins next weekend (June 11). For more information, visit their website, bbpboathouse.org

Collecting More Thoughts - Happier Now

Meanwhile, back at the beach: Are You OK? Yes We're OK, Except The Guy On The Left, Watch Out For Him, He's Not OK, He's DEVIOUS!

I'll be coming back to this tonight, I think, but here were a couple of thoughts about how I got so psyched out I'd left in reponse to a very nice comment from my friend Jean --

Why picking a topic that I know very well actually backfired when I needed to keep it short:

part of the reason for the freeze-up on the classroom talk actually may have been because I picked the topic of "Hypothermia". I have learned a LOT about that topic in the process of all those cold-water workshops where TQ & I have been part of the program - part of why I like doing those is because I learn so much from them.

The problem was that I had to give a 15-minute bullet-point presentation with plenty of interaction, and I hadn't thought it through quite clearly enough, and when I suddenly blanked on where I was & where I was trying to go, I ended up trying to convey every piece of information I've learned from the speakers at all of those workshops.

Left my poor students utterly baffled. No good.

Another point I WILL remember at the ICE: 15 minutes is not very long.

And on psyching myself out:

Boy, was I ever freaking myself out over this one.

I think part of it was that the stories from the last one made it sound like she was pretty hard-core. I should have remembered that none of the storytellers had been through an ICE before - they ARE pretty hard-core by nature, but they are also tons of fun and as far as being physically demanding, Elizabeth and Gordon's was almost exactly on par with the classes I took from Roger & Jan Schumann at Eskape Sea Kayaking and Ray & Margaret Killen at Katabasis.

That is to say, I was tired at the end, but not at the end of my rope. Except during the towing exercise. At least not physically. Mentally, you know you're about done when you are scrambling around in the wreckage of the last scenario, and you've gotten lined up with the swimming IT with the maniacal glint in his eye who has caused all the chaos 50 yards from the landing, and you're carefully keeping his boat as a guard between you and him because he thinks EVERYBODY needs to go for a swim but as long as you've got his boat you're OK, and you are fumbling to set up a sling rescue and then...he stands up and you realize that you've been in shallow water and a couple of yards from a beach the whole time.

Devious.

Oak Beach Forecast & Tides, and a little self-indulgent pre-IDW moaning.

Marine forecast

FRI
SW WINDS 5 TO 10 KT...INCREASING TO 10 TO 15 KT WITH GUSTS UP
TO 20 KT IN THE AFTERNOON. SEAS 3 TO 5 FT.
Sunny, with a high near 69.

FRI NIGHT
W WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS 3 TO 5 FT.

SAT
NW WINDS 10 TO 15 KT. SEAS 2 TO 4 FT.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 64.

SAT NIGHT
NW WINDS 5 TO 10 KT. SEAS 2 TO 3 FT.

SUN
NW WINDS 5 TO 10 KT...BECOMING S. SEAS 2 TO 3 FT.
Mostly sunny, with a high near 61.

Tides

Tides for Oakbeach starting with April 29, 2011.
Day High Tide Height Sunrise Moon Time % Moon
/Low Time Feet Sunset Visible

F 29 Low 2:56 AM 0.1 5:55 AM Rise 3:50 AM 16
29 High 8:17 AM 0.7 7:47 PM Set 4:38 PM
29 Low 3:04 PM 0.1
29 High 8:45 PM 0.7

Sa 30 Low 3:40 AM 0.1 5:53 AM Rise 4:14 AM 10
30 High 9:04 AM 0.7 7:48 PM Set 5:36 PM
30 Low 3:43 PM 0.1
30 High 9:26 PM 0.8

Su 1 Low 4:24 AM 0.0 5:52 AM Rise 4:40 AM 5
1 High 9:47 AM 0.7 7:49 PM Set 6:36 PM
1 Low 4:23 PM 0.0
1 High 10:03 PM 0.8

Well, at least the weather looks good. And it will be fun, the Instructor Development Workshop. It will...

I am feeling a little stressed out/depressed about the class, though. All of my Facebook friends know the situation because I've been whining about it on a regular basis over there. Basically, late Winter/early Spring is budget season at work. The last time Sebago did an IDW, I couldn't do it because it overlapped with the presentation prep time. This time, the timing was actually perfect - our presentation was on the 14th, I think it was, we had the week before slated for building the deck, and then there were going to be 2 weeks where things were back to normal and I was going to have evenings free to prepare.

Well, that all changed, the presentation is today, there have been intense 12-hour days for all and I am just mentally wiped out.

I do mostly have my stuff together. I've been paddling all winter & so my kit is all reasonably well organized in little bags that pack in a big bag & then transfer to my day hatch. I was able to make it to West Marine yesterday for a few sundries that TQ & I needed or wanted.

I got a little Facebook fun out of that trip - yesterday's status:

How to make your sailing friends jealous:

OH MY GOSH! I just went to West Marine and I spent SEVENTY DOLLARS! Can you BELIEVE I spent that much money in ONE TRIP???

I'd left a key item at the club (lightweight hood with noseclip) when I did my big Spring boat cleaning on Sunday. Fortunately it was found by a clubmate who left it in the clubhouse for me, but that was an important enough for cold-water immersion work that I would run over to New York Kayak today to get one (Randy had told me he had the right ones in stock) if I hadn't had mine in hand by last night, but TQ was my knight in shining Taurus and ran me out to the club to pick it up.

There are a couple more items that the EMS (Eastern Mountain Supply) store across the street should be able to cover for me.

But man, I'm just rattled right now, and very nervous about jumping from the mental intensity of preparing the budget to the physical and mental intensity of the first 3 days of this 6-day process without one single day to sort of catch up with myself. I do have hopes of an early "pau hana time" today - 3-ish would be awesome but I really, really wish there were 48 hours between the start of the budget presentation and the start of the class, instead of 24. I'll do my best, but...phew.

Does anyone know of a store I could go to to buy the proper frame of mind?

However, there's still occasional sun here.

Post-storm sunset at the Hudson River Greenland Festival 2009, Croton Point, NY.


I don't know what they're sacrificing, but the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club & other assorted organizers have certainly had the cooperation of the weather gods for this event, at least the times I've attended -

let's have a comparison sunset from 2008:



And I've just gone through & done some captions for all the 2009 pictures I posted to a Flickr set on Sunday night. Check out the set here! It was really a fantastic weekend.

Body Boat Blade Ocean Currents Class - Photo Report

Well, I actually did the full report on the Flickr gallery - turned out there was a series of pictures that worked well to illustrate some of the sorts of things we were working on, that I thought I'd be able to do better in a just plain post. Anyways, it's a little on the long side, but it was a great class & I just got to having a good time using the photos as a memory-jogger for the various exercises & the way the class progressed. If you've got a little time, head on over to my Flickr photo set to check it out.

What a thoroughly satisfying experienced. Thanks so much to Shawna & Leon of Body Boat Blade, and also to all our classmates, for sharing your skills, enthusiasm & incredibly beautiful paddlers' playground with me & TQ! I hope we'll be back someday.

Weekend One Of L1 Coach Training At AKT

Morning at Atlantic Kayak Tours at Annsville Creek. There are our sea kayaks - we all arrived & carefully packed up our full kit & there they sit, and now we're all ready for day 1 of the 3rd US L-1 Coach Training course. We think. heh heh.

A thunderstorm -


turns to a lesson in flexibility. A teachable moment well taught. Out come the strangest boats, and a variety of accesories, and as the lightning flashed & thunder crashed & rain poured down, us students - sea kayakers all - looked them over, sat in them, how does this work, what does that do...kayaks are not the only boats.

The storm passes, and the instructors let us in on a good joke...all those carefully kitted-out sea kayaks, every bit & bob just so? We're not using those today! Ha ha!

What's that thing they say about "assume"? Rhetorical question, I know the answer...

The day was spent in these unfamiliar boats. A good lesson in how it feels to be a raw beginner all over again. People who learned recently actually have an advantage over the veterans...they know what it is to learn. Ten years in the same boat & maybe just maybe you're starting to forget. BTW, I failed the morning's main task - that was to paddle a boat that was completely unlike any you'd paddled before. The three in the picture above (a slalom canoe, a freestyle competition canoe, and a slalom kayak)? Those 3 happen to be the ones out of a dozen that I haven't got at least a passing acquaintance with. Somehow I didn't end up in one. I don't know why I didn't say something when I found out that the whole point was to get in a boat that was unlike anything I'd been in before. I wonder if I should rectify that on Saturday.

My solo canoe skills aren't great though - I can manage, but that's about it, so the cute little double-ended recreational canoe I did end up playing with was fun & a challenge. So maybe that was close enough.


The rest of the day flew by. Lots more lessons disguised as horseplay & fun. Lots of laughter. No more pictures - I've dewaterproofed my camera, plus classes like these, taking pictures would just distract me.

Although a picture of Bill sitting on the dock with the whiteboard would have been great. "Bringing the classroom outside", they call it. Hmmm, wonder if there's a waterproof overhead projector yet...

End of a perfect day. Isn't the reflection of the nuclear power plant on the water just the prettiest thing?


I should talk...there in my homework is my completed (at least I filled up the page) risk assessment for Jamaica Bay. Makes the place sound like the last place you'd ever want to kayak. Pollution, motorboats, glass & metal & pilings & other wreckage on the beach & in the water, fish-hooks lashing about, jellyfish, poison ivy...I finished the list, looked at it & thought "It sounds AWFUL!"

I wanted to write at the bottom "But we have ospreys!"

:D

Off to Session 2 this weekend. I'm studying, I've done my homework, I've written my lesson plan with an eye to correcting the criticisms my first one got.

However it comes out - as usual, it's been a ton of fun.

Why the BCU obsession?

Well, that was funny. I'd been thinking about writing a post explaining why I've been so sort of obsessed with the BCU of late (I've made a few references in the past couple of months, most recently Friday's poll-on-a-whim, but beyond that oh, gosh, the emails, the emails...). I guess I'd practically written it in my mind, but thought it was a little too long for a lunch break post.

But then Joe Rouse asked me the perfect leading question & next thing I knew, there was ALMOST the entire post in a comment in response - in far less time than I'd thought it would take. There was one more very salient detail involving allowing tails to wag dogs (or perhaps putting carts before horses, seeing as the question was straight from The Horse's Mouth). Caught myself thinking some not-particularly-rational thoughts in respect to what I was going to do & why - I'll probably write about that tonight.

But for now - since I wrote as much as I did, I might as well post it.

Oh - in case it's not clear - BCU = British Canoe Union, ACA = American Canoe Association.

Joe's question:
BCU? You must be an instructor. ;)
I belong to US Sailing only because I teach.

sidenote: Why do the Brits have the best programs? The RYA's Yachtmaster program crunches the competition.

My answer (with a few tiny edits)...
I was actually one of the partners at Manhattan Kayak Company from 1999 - very early 2002. During that time, I got certified as an ACA open-water coastal kayaking instructor& when I dropped out of the company, I let my certification lapse. It was expensive & a bit of a hassle to maintain & when I was teaching professionally, it paid for itself - when I stopped, it didn't. I've kept teaching on & off since then; the reason I'm so obsessed with this new BCU scheme is because our club is pretty much sans certified instructor - there are members who are or have been certified as either BCU or ACA instructors, but one lives in CA, one's moved to Queens & has a busy job & a baby, and one's wife just joined him in retirement & they basically plan to spend a lot of time travelling.

The last guy was the one who had largely been responsible for helping the club make the decision to adopt the BCU system as the club's preferred training & served as head instructor for most of the formal training sessions we run at Lake Sebago. He had given plenty of warning that last year was really the last year he would be able to do that. Now, uncertified does NOT equal incompetent - there are still several very able instructors in the club. Nevertheless, we're now in a position where we have to bring someone in to run anything but the most basic training - there's nothing wrong with that, but it's just nice for a club to be able to run at least beginner-level programs with people who are active members & will be around & available for continuing help during those early phases - the learning curve when a person begins to get serious about really acquiring some skills is pretty steep & it goes a lot better if they've got some people to turn to. That takes a little confidence in both directions, and a formal training session is a great place for that confidence to be established.

Because of that, the club covered BCU coach training for those of us who had the proper prerequisites to do so last year, with the idea that the recipients of that training would do whatever we had to finish off whatever we had to do to get certified on our own.

Only hitch is that we all got trained under the "old scheme", and now we have to get certified under the "new scheme", and that's not turning out to be so simple. Problem is that there aren't a lot of people in the US who are certified to do that yet. I'd started getting all stressed out about it & then decided that it was a stupid thing to give myself ulcers over & was going to drop it until somebody in the BCU hierarchy could give me a straight answer.

Recent development is that I DID get a straight answer. It requires dropping quite a few bucks & taking a week of vacation, but the guy who's teaching it is by all accounts an excellent instructor, his wife is an old friend from my MKC days (we taught a few Chelsea Piers kids' camps together, that was fun, she was great with kids' instruction), and it's on Lake Champlain, so I'm inclined to go.

But from the looks of the poll at this point, I'm not the only one who's found the transition confusing. And the thing was, the "old scheme" really did work pretty well. The "new scheme" was developed to fit in with a general coaching scheme that the UK has adapted for all sports.

The fact that the UK actually cares enough about people DOING sports -- not just sitting on their duffs eating cheese doodles & watching other people doing sports on tv -- to institute a nationwide coaching scheme MIGHT have something to do with why UK programs DO tend to be highly effective. Maybe it's just more ingrained in the culture.

Anyways, the problem is that the new scheme is HIGHLY relevant to what's happening in sports in the UK - the BCU coaching scheme is becoming one piece in a much larger picture. Here in the States, though, without that larger picture to give context to the changes, it's generating some confusion. With the old scheme being extremely popular & well accepted, that's a little rough. Be interesting to see if the ACA (who's gone to an interestingly BCU-esque 5-tiered system) starts making some inroads in the areas of the US where the BCU standards had gained the most ground.

Hudson River Greenland Festival - Registration Open!

photo by Jack Gilman

Hudson River Greenland Festival
June 27-29th
Croton Point Park, Croton, NY

Registration is now open!

Come spend the weekend on the Hudson River at Croton Point Park, learning and refining traditional kayaking techniques. Instruction will be led by Cheri Perry and Turner Wilson of Kayakways. This is a small intimate group so registration is limited and fills up fast.

Do not delay and miss out on the opportunity to be part of the experience.

Sign up now: registration will be closed May 4th. Choice of cabins/tent sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis with your registration.

Go to yprc.org for more complete information on the weekend as well as the registration form.

For more info, please contact Jack Gilman at hudsonsb@yahoo.com

* Check out the Yonkers Paddling & Rowing Club online athttp://www.yprc.org
----------------------------------------------
See you on the river!

More of Jack G.'s photos from last year's fun. I didn't make it last year because that was the weekend of the Sebago sailing clinic, but I'm happy to say I'll be joining in this year as part of Cheri & Turner's mentoring team. Can't wait!

Cheri Perry


Group shot


Turner Wilson


Mentor Maggie

ACA thoughts from recently-certified Ron!

Just a quick note - for anybody who found "ACA Goo Goo, BCU Ga Ga" (couple of posts ago, hence no link)and the comments that post elicited to be of interest, Ron (who I "paged" with a link because he was the first person I thought of when trying to think of who might be able to talk about the updated ACA teaching, since it was so long ago that I got my ACA certification) has got a post up now that gives a really nice rundown of his thoughts about his certification last year.

Interestingly enough, he's also talking about branching off & starting into some BCU training, and also likes the Greenland mentoring approach (ooh, hey, did I ever mention that I'm going to be one of the mentor team that Cheri & Turner have helping out at the Hudson River Greenland Festival? Looking forward to that!) -

Alex left a comment that made me realize I'd been overlooking the fact that having 2 major organizations actually creates some healthy competition -

Reading Ron's plans reminded me of something that I hadn't overlooked, I knew this, just didn't mention it -

I'm completely convinced that taking classes from different people, teaching with different styles, creates a certain synergy - ideas start cross-pollinating, the boundaries stop being so important & you just end up soaking up stuff in a way that feels amazing.

The most vivid recollection I have of that sort of thing really getting going was at Sweetwater a couple of years back when I went to their symposium & was taking Greenland classes AND working with Nigel F. & Kristin - the switching back & forth between boats & blades in the midst of the same symposium just jazzes things up in the most wonderful way!

All we hear is, ACA goo goo, BCU ga ga...

Well, I haven't had a really parlous deep kayak-geek moment here on the blog lately. I had a MAJOR one last night when a friend emailed asking for general thoughts on different classes I've taken at different times, from different organizations. And since I've got plans for the next couple of evenings, and too much work to really take lunch hours to blog during the day, it just hit me...

why not inflict my late-night musing on the ACA/BCU thing & my approach to classes on the blog?

Actually the kayakers might find it interesting - and part of why I'm posting is because I'd be really curious about the input of people who've taken an ACA certification course sometime within the last couple of years (paging Ron, are you out there, Ron?). I think my last one was in 2000 & it was GREAT, Ray Killen ran a fantastic ICE & I had more fun, but dang that was a long long time ago and all the rumours I hear are of major changes.

So here we go. BTW, for those who find this sort of stuff unreadable - check out the BEAUTIFUL new pool some of us from Sebago got to go check out last weekend!

Anybody still here? Here we go...


Oh gosh, question guaranteed to generate a whole lotta blah blah - hope at least a LITTLE of it is useful.

OK...first off, my ACA certification was years ago - I think I got my first training in 1999, then got certified after getting another year of teaching professionally under my belt. I got the ACA Open Water Coastal Kayaking Instructor certification, then let it lapse when I dropped out of MKC in early 2002 and was no longer teaching professionally. That was long enough ago that a) I don't remember it very precisely and b) even if I did, I think they've reworked the curriculum quite a bit, so what I remember isn't necessarily much like what they do now. They've even changed the approved modelling for some of the strokes, I've run into situations where I was teaching old-school ACA & somebody else was teaching new. Now the good thing about the new form is that under the old form, it was sort of an all or nothing thing - from what I've heard, with the new form, there are a couple more levels.

ACA vs BCU - well, I've mostly done BCU training over the last few years because I like Atlantic Kayak Tours, plus now I'm in a club that made the decision to go BCU before I joined, so I'm going after my 2star coach certification because that'll be more useful to me in my current situation, where we have a set of people who the coaches will work with for long periods. In some ways I also felt like the ACA approach - which seemed less continuous, more modular, like here, you take this 2-day class, you learn this skill set - was better for a company like MKC, where we were teaching a steady stream of new people, some of whom would come back but who frequently just wanted a quick intro before heading off to do one of those no-experience-required tours or would come out, have fun with it for a while, then move on to the next novelty. But that's one of the things that I think the ACA has changed A LOT since when I was certified - seems like it used to be more about having the skill set to give a person a solid grounding in a fairly short time (usually a weekend) - now, I think they're taking an approach closer to the BCU, with more of an emphasis on continuous training.

Long story short though - which flag an instructor has chosen to teach under really doesn't make that much difference - a good instructor is going to teach a good class, a bad instructor's going to give you a frustrating experience. Both organizations' teaching schemes are being constantly reviewed & developed by people who really care about the sport & they both teach a good solid set of skills - really no wrong or right about it, boats is boats & they don't care if your name is
Nigel or not!

So, uh, let's see...specific pieces of advice from a person with a whole patch collection on the bookshelf -

Well, the big one is, have fun, and when you're in charge of a section, try to make sure your "students" are having fun too. Keep your group together, stay focused & engaged, the IT is always watching, even if it's not "your turn" (what you do when you're not on stage says things just as much as what you're doing when the spotlight's on you, no pressure mwahahahaaaa!)

Approach the class with an open mind. Like I said, there's conflicting versions of things being taught out there. Your instructor trainer may teach something differently than the way you were taught - be flexible, give their way a try, it's all just a little more for your own bag of tricks. Three years down the road, it will change again - it's a young & evolving sport, it's all part of the fun.

Personally, I tend to not stress out that much anymore about whether I'm going to pass or not when I take a training class. My 2-star coach assessment may be a different matter as our club really needs a couple more of us certified - but when
I'm doing something purely for kicks, like when I went for my BCU 4 star, I just go into it with the idea that I AM going to walk out of that weekend with some good stuff, if there's a patch, too, well, awesome, but the weekend's about learning new stuff & solidifying old & as long as I walk out feeling like a better, stronger, more confident paddler (or instructor) - well, then it wasn't a waste. Looking at it that way, I'm more relaxed, I have more fun, and I paddle better. Making "passing" the be all & end all just puts a lot of pressure on a course that's really a ton of fun (it really is - one thing I remember about both of the ACA certification classes I did was that there was an awful lot of laughing - there were serious moments but a lot of it was like one big game).

Nice thing about the IDW, assuming that they are running it even close to how they used to (warning - that's a HUGE assumption!) - the first weekend, they will teach you to teach - it's pretty low-pressure, and you'll get comfortable with your IT & the rest of the group. At the end of the weekend, you'll have a sit-down with your IT - you won't be going into the ICE blind, you'll know what the IT thinks are your strengths & what things they feel you might need to focus on a little more (and if they don't find some of the latter, they aren't doing the job you're paying 'em to do!)

I guess the one other universal piece of info you always hear about these things, that's very true & worth remembering -

The instructors are totally rooting for you to do great.


So there you are.

Hm. Claire told me I should put about six inches of horse manure on my little garden bed. I think this would just about do it if I could just figure out how to extract it from cyberspace...