Freestyle Friday by Ava Christensen

Every friday at keeners is also known as funky, fresh, french toast, freestyle friday. This is where we practice rides and learn tricks all morning. After lunch we do two competition rides. After this we paddle down the rest of the river run then head back to keenerville where the keeners and coaches do video review and score our rides. Video review is good because it allows us to see what our kayaking really looks from a third person view, this allows us to critique our tricks so we can improve on them.  We also learn from watching the everyone else's rides. Lots of keeners are working on similar tricks so by slowing down a video and watching a trick in slow motion can help everyone see what makes the trick go bigger and what doesn't. This day teaches us many skills. One of them includes kayaking under pressure. Lots of people in the group don't do as well in the competition as they do in there practice rides.  The more we practice under pressure the better we do in further circumastances. This doesn't always have to relate to freestyle. For example, if you are on a creek run and see a log coming up and need to get to an eddy quickly or if a friend is in danger you have to help them as soon as possible. It would come in handy to not be affect as much by the pressure of the situation.