Tasty the best advice is to get a goal for your four zones of whitewater.

Creeking - I don't think that creeking can be simply taught in a 2 day class, and cash won't bring skills. It is a continual process of learning, which can only be achieved through long term repetition and a motivated pursuit of gradient. The best way to achieve skill in this area is to link up with a group of paddlers ranging in skill but similar in motivation and get after it. Stay plugged in and boat as much as possible. Fall is a great time for this! My tip: Find you a crew, and then boat as much as possible.

Playboating - Believe it or not this is one of the easy ones to do on your own. It starts with concepts you can learn on a lake or river nearby and then moves to perfecting movements at local playholes/waves. Yea it certainly helps watching someone and tips and pointers are great, but practice and mad hours in your boat learning your edges and hips are going to really blast you ahead in this zone. My Tip: Don't pay anyone until your hitting a wall, rather hit the lake with someone that can teach you some basics and then practice until your ready for the next steps. I go to the lake on a weekly basis during the summer and there are plenty of other boaters that can pass on the knowledge too! keep an eye out for posts when people are doing flatwater!

RiverRunning - Not enough people seem to focus on this zone. While it is really a core part of all of the different styles of boating. Attainment and just plain downriver style and finesse are a great way to enjoy the sport and right now is a great time of the year for focusing on it. Most of the rivers are low and you can easily find a spot like boulder drop where you can just do lap after lap practicing eddy turns, pealin in and out and still have a blast doing it. My Tip: As you boat pay attention to the smooth lines and people with finesse, watch the movements and practice them. You will find most of these boaters are "old school" (silly to say that I know) but it comes with time and they have been around long enough to love the rio in many ways.

Squirtboatin - I can't really say much about this one since Im no squirt boater. I think it looks amazing and I hope to join the leagues of the sub surface soon, it seems this is one aspect that you really have to niche into because other boaters are not going to be compatible with the focus you need to bring. IE parking at a little deep eddy and squirting for an hour might bore your creekin buddies to death. My Tip: Buy me a squirt boat and I will meet you whenever you want to work on squirtin, I swear!

Might seem like alot of jabber, I just have yet to see anyone really progress in this sport because they took lessons or paid for instruction. Most of the folks that rip it , get there cause they are really motivated to learn and take every chance they have. Help is abundant on the river, you just have to grab it when you can and keep after it!


Edited by James - 23 Aug 2009 at 1:53pm

I respectfully disagree on this one. We've been teaching 2 day creeking clinics for almost 5 years now and have seen a lot of people really step up their game after instruction on stroke placement and timing, body position, edge control, and other techniques. There's a lot of specific techniques that you can work on that make a big difference, and instruction is a faster way to learn than trial and error. There's no sport that some coaching won't make you better at. Of course you then have to go out and practice after you've been exposed to the material, but knowing what to work on goes a long way. We've had people who were stuck at 3/4 for years step up their game to 4/5 in a few months after taking a course.

Leland

Adrien, I can show you how to be hole bait! Im great at that!!

Surfing takes a lot of practice no doubt so you all ready have the mind set learn no matter the risk. That's a huge step for sport's like whitewater kayaking, I suggest getting a few intro to playboating vids if you want to play boat. Ken Whiting and Eric Jackson have good intro and advanced DvD's. Then hook up with knowledgeable and fun people, just like surfing you should learn advance and have a blast. I always say spend less time on talking saves more time on doing. Well maybe I just said that only now but I'd really try not to pay for lessons, if you can trade. Or just paddle with people that want to, not only teach but learn as well. I find most people try to teach before they have learned. To teach it you have to know how to verbally explain technique then show them. Most people just jabber jaw teaching into the ground. Talk talk talk it's just like typing you could go on and on and on for day's and never really accomplish anything except for making yourself feel important by wasting your breath and each others time. I got an Idea grab your gear and come out to the sky. Then Paddle waddle doodle all da day. Don't forget to try what ever it is you want to wrk on because thinking and talking about it only go so far ......Later 

Edited by Chuck e fresh - 24 Aug 2009 at 12:06pm

Adrian, I agree with you. That's what I did with skiing and I got good pretty fast. The biggest thing with creeking (I think) is the head game. The basic concepts are simple enough, given some time, but if the head is not right, the body will not follow. Corran Addison has a great DVD called Legend of the Falls, which goes over many techniques and theories in a very easy to understand way.

That sounds a bit like highschool sex ed!

boing!

Tasteywaves-- keep me in mind, in an informal way. That is to say I'd be willing to go out with you and have a structured day running some class IV somewhere. Maybe you could just get the gas or something.

If you find good instructors worth paying in a formal setting, that can be a good way to accelerate your skills. You can also learn by watching the good paddlers you paddle with. Their form and habits will rub off on you. Mostly just get out and paddle.

I would thoroughly enjoy being schooled in hole bait. In fact, I think I am pretty good in that category

Right On JP!

And I would also add that paddling class III is awesome. Sure its boring if you take the standard line, but by picking alternate lines, catching all the funkey eddies, and taking every possible route through a rapid (including up stream moves), you can simulate class IV or even V moves with a lower probability of bodily harm if you screw up.

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I'll be on the Sky this weekend.. thanks for the input I'll go for every eddie I see