3 Days Coaching

In February, Chris and I spent three days being coached by Lowri Davies from Flowfree coaching. It was a fabulous three days in which we both covered so muchground and I certainly became much more confident as a paddler. After the inital and totally mandatory brew in the morning at the mile end cafe on the River Dee, we headed out onto the water. I spent the majority of the first day working on skills to put the foundations of my paddling in as solidly as I could such as bracing, edging, stability, ferry gliding and breaking in and out. Chris was working on more advanced stuff on the same water such as S turns I think and a few others.

Second day was pretty awesome :) I found the breaking in and out a bit easier having had a go, and even began to try and bust out a turn while crossing the flow and I made it although it was scrappy. Spent the day running the three features there and looking at punching through holes and improving my lines. Also, putting in proper strokes and in the right places made a massive difference. AND it mught sound stupid but i gathered the true meaning of the words 'keep an active blade in the water' !! It made another massive difference to me - especially when bracing and running an element as the reponse time of your boat becomes pretty impressive.

On the final day, another morning brew ensued, and then we embarked on a little river trip from the top of the Dee where it goes under the stone arches above JJ's...which meant that we had to run Serpents. We got down the first bouncy bouncy waves and then got out to go and inspect the drop. The water was running pretty low and it meant that the whole left hand rock 'shelf' was totally exposed, and the water falling off the rocks a bit further into the flow were too low volume to drop over. Then in the middle there is a deep V where the river has carved into the valley bed, and then towards river right, there is a pretty juicy undercut which was sucking most of the flow under from that point. After much, much deliberation and the epiphany that i was with a new Level 2 and a Level 5 coach meant to me that i counldnt be in safer hands so i decided to run the fucker! Having never run something like that, it was an experience. We had Chris on the bank with a bag on the lip of the drop, and Lowri ran it with me so that i could follow her line (phew!) Lowri set of toward river right, and then proceeded toward river left with the wave train flow above serpents so that she could run the drop towards the left where the deep V was. I made it down the wave train but was too far over and at the last second, eddied out just above the drop. This meant that i had to break out into the middle and make the V which was only about 3 feet wide, towards river left, from river right where i was by the bank! It was impresseive I even made the V, especially from the eddy i was in, and then i EVEN made it down the drop, but then hit the boil downstream of the undercut with my blade out just about to take the next stroke and then went over, and hurt my hand getting out, but IT WAS EPIC!!

We stayed an extra night in our AWESOME bunk house, and then trekked back to Oxford via Symonds Yat and Cheltenham to get my Dad a birthday present as it was on the day we left, Joined them in the pub, ate desert, coffee at my Aunts house and then home for serious chilled out time and some rest. :) Good times :)

Video at ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSS-EI0_0bU