Clay's Coaches Report Session #2

My first session up here with the Keeners we had some really strong paddlers and a lot of Keeners perfecting their rolls and learning the basics of ''head down while rolling and bracing'' and ''Look Upstream when doing freestyle tricks or surfing'' before moving on to roundhouses, some blunts, and lots of spins.  We seal launched rocks to practice waterfall technique, swam rapids intentionally, talked a lot about river running trip etiquette and of course surfed our brains out as Garb was perfect!

  This second session has just started and we happen to have MANY of the same Keeners as well as some really experienced new arrivals.  While all the kids are great people, I especially enjoy the novelty of coaching more advanced techniques and pushing the challenges of boat control on this higher level.   New to the Team are the ''french connection:''  Lea and Claire - two very talented junior slalom racers who are taking an interest in freestyle and river running, and the Kellog Show:  Grady, Brody and Katy Kellog who are top-notch junior freestyle paddlers from the same very large traveling family.   It's been really fun to see these french girls take 1st place in the races (beating out the boys) and now the Kellog's are forcing Kalob, Tim, Jordan and everyone else to really step up their game.

Today was beatdown Thursday and we focused on some strategies:
1. Visualize Success
2. Look for opportunities
3. MAKE opportunities happen.

These points can be used in all sorts of kayaking but also school, dating, job interviews, and the rest of life.  To test their grasp on these points we surfed some of the biggest holes in the river and the lesson seems to have paid off - only 5 swims in spite of more ''right side phil's'' surfs than I've ever seen!  I was really impressed with the kids' ability to keep focused in the face of utter chaos and proud of the tremendous gain the returning Keeners have made in terms of control and panic management since just last week.

  That's all for this blog report, thanks for listening and hope to see you on a river.

Clay Wright