Confidence on the River by Hank Boyd

Having been on the Ottawa River for a week now, I've learned many things about kayaking. These things include stay positive, stay safe, stay cautious, and always stay confident. Confidence can be the deciding factor between pulling your skirt and swimming after flipping and rolling back up. I've noticed that whenever you aren't confident in yourself on the river you will always fail. Yes, this is from personal experience. I came into Keeners after a long dry spell of no kayaking and wasn't very confident in my role or in my lines, but after a swim or two... or three, I realized that the reason why I wasn't very successful in my paddling was because of this lack of confidence. After acknowledging this fact, I had to make very concious decisions to stay positive and be confident in myself. While making these decisions I began to notice that my kayaking as a whole began to improve. I didn't improve because I drank some magic potion or I did a lot of push-ups, I improved because I became more confident in myself and my ability to kayak. Not only do you have to confident in yourself, but you also have to be confident in your paddling buddies. Without that external confidence, which is out of your control, you cannot learn in a safe environment which will inhibit your confidence in yourself.