So, Jill and I hit the water Monday evening for her final class session. She went straight for the Leviathon, which is one of the homemade k-1's at the club.The water was like glass on the club side, although it had looked a bit bumpy on the course side as I crossed over Clark's Bridge. I figured we could just stay on the club side if she was paddling the tipper boat.
Up to this point, she had never flipped. As I've said before, she's got good natural balance. That's a definite plus in what we do, but not everyone has it. Trust me. Anyway, we took off from the docks and headed out on the lake.She did a really great job incorporating the technique we had been working on. Good stretching, good job trying to "spear the fish" Little bit nervous about using her legs to push off and create the neccesary twist, but for her first real paddle in this boat, she was doing really well. Then came the first hard turn...splash!! She grabbed the boat, flipped it over, and began swimming it back in toward the shore to get back in. Yay!! I was proud!
Everyone who paddles alone needs to know how to get back in if they flip. I teach the newer folks to straddle the boat, and then use one blade of the paddle as a kickstand as they get in one leg at a time. This will enable you to get in even if the water is choppy. We finished the paddle, approx 2k, before we decided to head over to the course side. After all, I didn't see too many motorized watercraft over there from my vantage point. Oops.
We started up the course, past the Olympic finish tower, no problem. We didn't have a whole lot of time left in the session, so we decided to go up to about the 500m mark and turn around to head in for the evening. Out of nowhere come the largest succession of jetskis and large boats hauling tubes that perhaps I have ever seen. No problem, right? After all, one of the first skills I teach is how to turn and paddle through those crazy big washes that we can see in the summer. Well, it was the freaking ocean. No lies! Poor Jill flipped probably about 25 meters out on the course and began the very tough swim back in. I pulled over so that I could help her get back in, and stuck my one leg out of the cockpit and into the red clay mud so that the big waves that were crashing in would smash by boat on the rocks. It was kinda nuts!! The waves were crashing in and then pulling out just like the undertow out on Tybee. We had a great time, despite the fact that we were pretty much stuck waiting for an opening to get her out there and headed back without a good chance of not flipping.
Got out of there, headed back, and of course the lake was still mirror flat once we got under the bridge. A good time was had by all.
So, what did Jill learn that night? Well, get that first flip out of that way so that you can be confident in your ability to recover from it and move on. Paddle out of your comfort zone into the rough water once in a while.
If things get really rough, just laugh your way through it.
And if necessary, just hold onto a dock until the worst is over.
No comments:
Post a Comment