About 4 or 5 years ago I found out about the Keener Program through a couple friends of mine and I thought it was one of the coolest things in the world. Therefore, I wanted to attend the Keener Program; who wouldn’t want to come to one of the greatest rivers in the world and get to learn from all these phenomenal coaches. After I found out about Keeners I asked my mom and my dad if I could go and the first response was no, I asked again, and I got a maybe. Then a couple of weeks later, some phone calls, I found out I was going to Keeners. Now, this happened four years ago, and four years later I am still at the Keener Program. Now you might ask, why keep coming back? Well, it’s because I love it so much, I learn a lot, and I get to meet some awesome people through Keeners.
I am going to start by telling you about my first time as a Keener. I flew up from my home in Alabama to Ottawa and I could not be more stoked to go kayaking on the Ottawa! At the beginning of Keeners, my biggest goal was to Macho Move. The Macho Move is a downriver trick where you pull your boat up a wave on edge and double jump over the wave onto your bow, then after that, you throw an aerial front loop over the next wave. That was my biggest goal because that is one of the coolest tricks you can do as a kayaker. I had put that on my goal sheet at Keeners to do this trick and I immediately got shut down on trying that by a coach. He asked me if I could bow stall and I said no, then he asked if I could loop and I said no, then he said you can’t Macho Move. That made me very sad, but I realized I needed to learn to bow stall and flatwater loop because that is what you need to Macho Move.
I had made bow stalling my number one goal at Keeners and after three weeks of trying it every day, coaches telling me what I am doing wrong, and what I need to do, I got a bow stall. Now, I couldn’t hold for as long as I can today, but that takes a lot of practice. Though what I learned from that session of Keeners was the basics of wave boating and getting my bow stall. After Keeners I constantly practiced my bow stall and by my second year of Keeners, I could sort of flatwater loop. Therefore, during that session of Keeners I started trying to link those two flatwater tricks together, and then maybe try it on a wave. During that session of Keeners, all the coaches were helping me link the two tricks together which would put me even closer to getting a macho move on a downstream current. At the second session, I also learned how to blunt and started getting consistent at them too.
Then a year later came my third year as a Keener, and I honestly thought this would be my last time as a Keener, but I was wrong. Anyways, this year the water level was substantially higher than the last two years, and we had Mini Bus in and I had the summer of a lifetime surfing this wave and I did not practice macho moves a lot because I spent most of my time focusing of big wave surfing and trying to learn my airscrew. Though the airscrew has been one on my list to learn for a long time and I worked my butt off in the flatwater to learn this trick. Then one day I tried to throw a pan-am and I through so hard I was able to land my first airscrew, which was one of the coolest things on the world! Through my three years of Keeners, I had been learning the basics of the airscrew and after those three years of prating and getting critiqued by the coaches I was able to throw and land my first one on minibus, which was crazy!
As you probably figured, we are now at year four, where I am supposed to tell you I am constantly blunting, air screwing, and Macho Moving, right? Well, you are sort of correct. After four years I am still at Keeners, and I am Macho Moving the heck out of the Ottawa, and almost consistent with blunts and I am now working on other tricks. Though the one trick I am still kind of bad at is the airscrew now you may be wondering what my point is. Well the point is that coming the Keeners you learn a lot, whether it be a trick, the basics of a trick, or even figure out the concept of a move, you learn a lot at keeners and I think if anyone gets the chance to come to Keeners because once you learn the basics, you can practice anywhere and maybe with a year of practice, you can come back to Keener and ace the heck out of that trick.
See you out on the water
Cat H.
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