Race Day

Get left get left get left, right stroke, lean, lean, move right, catch the corner, lay into the boof, stomp it down, keep it moving keep it moving. get the bow back downstream. pump pump pump. Good line.

Racing is a fight against the current to work with the current. You can always find a line that feels like it is propelling you forward, it is just a matter of how you see it. I have taught many people a little bit about kayaking but a few people have taught me a lot about kayaking.

1. Always stay on the edge of eddies, stay away from wavetrains. Every time a wave crashes over your boat you lose two seconds and you need three strokes to get back to full speed, wasting speed and energy.
2. You only really make up time in your lines. I have never passed someone in flatwater. Practice your lines.
3. Do NOT land flat, land at a 45 and use that transition to speed yourself up. Landing flat takes away most of the speed and does not transition it into forward moment.
4. Strong core. You paddle from your lower abdomen, so make sure you have been doing your crunches.
5. Keep your chin up. This one sounds silly but as you close your chin to your chest you are curling your back, keep an upright back by keeping your head high.

That is enough. The most important is to know the lines, but knowing the lines means that you are avoiding any hits and laying down boofs.

See you at the tobin race... if my shoulder has healed.

Kokatat

Desperation

The water is low and the drive down the canyon is long and slow, winding through bands of rock, red and grey. The river fluctuates in flow as concrete barriers squeeze through turbines to generate precise amounts of power. Minimum flows allow for life to scrape by in the riparian environment.

 Humans have their hands in everything, fastidious in their attempt for control. Not us, we  don't have delusions that the river is ours, that we can tell it what to do. We merely work with it to move downstream, always asking it's permission for passage.

Here our boats displace water and hold our bodies above the fluid. The rocks lay sprinkled in the river by a hand much bigger than ours. As you pass through the boulders and fall into the water it is better to keep your hands at your sides, just as you were taught as a kid. The boulders have a tendency to punish those who get too frisky. They frown upon improper behavior. Tuck in your skirt, keep those legs covered, and always look downstream. 

 It's a maze of beige with the winner coming out unscathed. These rocks know things. They sit and watch as small, frenetic beings splash around them. They wonder, "Who are these creatures of such curiosity playing in my waters?". But they let us pass, even though sometimes you just tuck up real tight and think happy thoughts.

Sometimes we dance with the rocks and sometimes we are wallflowers. Either way the river teaches and we learn.