River Training Feedback. - 2009/11/19 23:49Ok, As the heading suggests. FEEDBACK. How do you new people to the river environment feel your progressing on the Sunday sessions?
We'd like some honest feedback in respect to how you think things are going. Over the last few weeks Alan has been consolidating things. I.E eddying in / out, Breaking in / out. and other general moving around the river.
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Brian Alner
User
Posts: 35
Re:River Training Feedback. - 2009/11/21 13:36Hi George,
I only managed to attend a couple of sessions and was really stretched by the volume of water. I learnt a lot, and it has shown up various weakneses in my skills and given me lots of things to work on in the pool over the winter, so very valuable. Robbie coped a lot better than I did. Thanks to Alan and everyone who helped out.
Unfortunately one of the other things that I learnt was to keep your mouth firmly shut if you capsize! I've just got out of Crosshouse after a week thanks to a couple of nasty bugs - cryptosporidiun and leptospirosis. Although you can never be entirely sure where these come from, Public Health think the River Doon is far and away the most likely source so will be a paying a visit to some of the farms on the banks............
The symptoms are initially exactly the same as Swine Flu so that didn't help matters and prevented getting a quick diagnosis, but I'm on the mend now with no permanent damage and will hopefully be back in circulation in a week or so.
(If anyone feels unwell after a dunking with flu type symptoms (headache, dry cough, high temperature, muscle/joint aches and pains, diarrhoea and vomiting) you might want to press your GP to test for these bugs - they can lead to permanent kidney and liver damage if not treated quickly enough. These bugs can be found in the sea as well as rivers if untreated animal waste is being released into the water.)
Cheers,
Brian
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Jez Webb
Admin
Posts: 128
Re:River Training Feedback. - 2009/11/25 16:21Holy Smoke Brian!
I'm sorry to hear that you were floored by these pretty serious infections.
I'll put a newsflash on the home page of the site to direct people to your post, so people can watch out for this.
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Jez Webb
Admin
Posts: 128
Re:River Training Feedback. - 2009/11/25 17:28And to answer your question George...
If I had some observations on the Sunday paddles they would be:
We are a kayak club not a kayak school, and as such rely on the efforts of our members to organise trips and to a large extent bring on paddlers from the pool to the real world in the absence of many qualified coaches within the club. Many club members have been very generous in contributing in this respect on river and sea and done a good job.
I have been very impressed with how people's skills have come on - both the new paddlers, but also in the safety awareness of the established paddlers.
We need to keep working on safety, and be as diligent in this respect as possible to run safe experiences that nonetheless extend people's river skills.
I'd suggest two things:
Firstly, a separate series of trips focused on safety, leadership and follower-ship on the water rather than working on skills.
Secondly, I was brought up in my work in the outdoors to "review" experiences I or my groups had, and ask the questions "what went well," "what not so well" and "what can we do differently next time." (Or "what, so what, now what?")
This is part of "tertiary safety." (Primary safety - doing things to avoid problems, Secondary safety - dealing with problems, Tertiary safety - learning from problems.)
It would be good to add this to our paddling routine. I don't think it's a process for the forum, but a sort of informal "de-brief" after any trip.
Jeremy.
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Bill McKinlay
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Posts: 19
Re:River Training Feedback. - 2009/12/20 09:57George/Alan,
I'm a bit rusty rather than new, having been away from River paddling for several years, and previously having used downriver racers and K1's rather than slalom/playboats.
I liked the format ok, and brushed-up some old skills and learned a few new things. The playboat certainly handles completely differently to anything I've paddled before, so it's a bit like starting over again.
Constructive ideas for improvement?
a) For the benefit of people like me who don't know who's who and can't remember all the names at once. A bit of an introductory session at the start with the experienced paddlers and leaders identifying themselves first, then the beginners and improvers standing in two groups so everyone can eyeball those who they might want to ask for advice/help, and also identify those whom they might want to keep an eye on as mentors.
b) At relevant places on the river, one of the experienced paddlers could name and demonstrate the various paddle strokes and techniques, explaining the reasons for using them. This did happen on a one-one basis and informally, but maybe a structured approach of covering all the useful manoeuvers throughout the trip would improve the consistency of the learning experience.
And a big thanks to the experienced paddlers who give up their free-time to pass on the knowledge.
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George Mcmillan
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Posts: 136
Re:River Training Feedback. - 2010/04/24 14:59Hi All, As we head into week 3 of our River introduction course new paddlers are getting there head around the movement on the river with breaking in and out of the flow quite comfortably. The structure will remain the same in the weeks to come, Breaking up into small groups we will focus on the small stuff that make up the fundamentals of river paddling. I.E breaking in and out of the flow, edging, edging and edging. Anyhows we are keen to here from people how they think there experience is going. Please feedback on here if you have any feedback.
thanks george
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