A Race with Improvers

I taught a fun class near the end of September, taking students down to a little tiderace that forms under the George Washington Bridge, right here in Manhattan.

I called this an an improvers class, as everyone had some experience sea kayaking, but wanted to develop their skills a bit. The tiderace was just a bonus feature to practice against.

First, we practiced near Dyckman street, in the last bits of ebb tide, working out the fiddly bits.

A wee bit of practice.

Then, we headed south, towards to bridge.

Sally forth!

On the way.

I've mentioned the GWB tiderace before. In a post from last year, I described it a bit of a trip Kayak Dov and I took.

At the start of the flood cycle near the bridge, a wider body of water starts flowing past Jeffrey Hook, where the Little Red Lighthouse sits. Furthermore, if you look on a chart, it's clear that the hydography has a steep, banked curved in the long bay south of the bridge. The effect is that a large volume of water gets squeezed and accelerated at the hook, and the surface water piles up and back over itself. As these waves form, they appear to fall, bizaarely, back towards to flood current. As the effect builds you can actually surf upstream, and if some sizable wake arrives from, say, a passing barge, you can ride some dumpy waves in excess of 1m in height. It can be quite exciting.

For these students, it was a safe, low-consequence environment to gain confidence in somewhat rough water. What I like about the area for instruction purposes is two fold. First, there's a sizable eddy just north of the hook, making for a safe spot to retreat to or observe from, as well as a "ski lift" effect to make multiple runs practicing peelouts. Additionally, since it's a flood current, in the worst case, swimmers and boats and kit will all float back towards where we started.

Getting a taste.

Perfecting a stance.

We did have one rescue. Towards the end of the session, we did get a bit of wake that vaulted the wave heights to 1-2 feet from behind us. I shouted a heads up to my students, reminding them to keep momentum and either ride the wave or let it pass under. One was indecisive, and capsized. I was able to recover him, and called the rest over to the eddy. As a group we decided to end the tiderace portion of the session and practice rescues, with the current carrying us back to our starting position.

Taking a pumpout.

Enjoying the scenery.

Observing others.

I really enjoyed this session, and was happy to have a sizable group for instruction. It's an area I am constantly learning more about, and having a group of students with different goals and abilities pushed me to develop my coaching ability - focusing on one or two things at a time for each participant.

At the end of the day, we were treated to a weather system moving in, some potential precipitation crowding out our sunny day.

Farewell to the Bridge.

I hope to do this again next year - maybe more than once.

Instructional

You learn a stroke. Then you learn another stroke. Then another, and another, whatever order they come: propulsive strokes, turning strokes, bracing strokes. Along the way you learn how to wet exit, how to be rescued, how to rescue, how to self-rescue.

You go on trips. Short trips, long trips, so-long-you-thought-you'd-die trips, trips where maybe you did almost die or were at least at risk of severe inconvenience. You go with others, you go on your own. You see other people doing other strokes, or doing neat things in their boat, and you try to copy them and figure out what they're doing..

Then one day someone says, "can you teach me that?" And you kinda show them what to do. Then you take a class on how to teach, and you relearn all of your strokes because you don't want a bunch of people out there paddling as bad as you've been paddling. You learn how to introduce a stroke, demonstrate it, explain its purpose and block out time for students to practice. At that point, you're an instructor.

That is, until you see really good instruction in action.

I was fortunate to work with some excellent instructors at the Hudson Valley Paddle Symposium in late July. Organized by Matt Kane at PrimePaddlesports, with John Carmody of Sea Cliff Kayakers and Carl Ladd from Osprey Sea Kayak Adventures, along with other coaches I saw some very zen, very effective instruction.

Some coaches will say, they don't teach strokes. They do, but not overtly. They just go on a journey and observe. Oh my, how they observe. I had someone ask me one time if I was holding my right knee too tight against the braces, and I was. They make a mental list of what everyone's doing and give everyone individualized advice.

Then they find an area suitable for practice. Talk about what the boat is doing. Give students a simple exercise and query them on the outcome. Pedagogically, if you give someone an outcome and steps to reproduce it, they'll get anxious if they don't get the desired result. Even worse if they get it right they'll lock in that behavior: "this is what to do, always". If you give them steps, and ask them what happened, they learn for themselves. They put together what works and what doesn't, and you can give them variants; try a little more of this or a little less of that.

And of course, always, both sides, forwards and backwards.

Least said is best.

In the course of the symposium one pairing I had was with a woman who had a lot of casual recreational boat experience, and was in a sea kayak for the first time. After nearly a full day's session, she was still having trouble controlling the boat. It was hot, and she was clearly growing frustrated.

I asked her to watch me and tell me what I was doing wrong. I did everything that she was doing and got the same results she did.

"Look towards me," she said. This got me putting the boat on edge. "With your whole body!"

"Sit up straight.". OK, now I was in a stronger position, with more rotation.

"Extend your arms!" That got me more catch. By now I was edging the boat, paddling strongly, and grabbing as much water as I could. I was achieving the desired outcome.

"See," I said, "you know what to do. Everything you just said, do it."

She did, and was turning on the move and having fun playing with changing directions.

Getting students to own their knowledge is my latest challenge in teaching. I can show strokes, and I can critique strokes, but getting people to understand, in their own brains, what's working and what isn't, that's what I want to be able to do.

After all, the best instructors do.