Why Keeners Is The Greatest Program Out There! - Willem von Schilling

Why Keeners Is The Greatest Program Out There! - Willem von Schilling

After Session 1 ended, I travelled back home to Toronto to no one telling me what to do. My days went unplanned and mostly empty. I had no idea of what to do with no rivers around. I felt sad that I decided not to stay for Session 2. I could not wait to come back for Session 3.
The first couple of days in Session 3 were amazing and exceeded my expectation. I could not believe that my experiences from Session 1 were beat by Session 3 in just a couple of days! The people here were just simply amazing and fun. Keeners has taken my love for kayaking further.

          I think that the weekends are what make Keeners just absolutely amazing. The fact that we can just go and surf for an hour and relax on the rocks with music is unbelievable. We have the perfect combination of freedom and training. No other program in the world, kayaking or not, has this available. The combination of these two allow for loads of training without getting tired of the sport. I believe that enjoying the sport is the most important concept Keeners teaches us. If you can't enjoy the sport, I think you shouldn't be paddling. Paddling without enjoyment or motivation is pointless. You cant achieve anything without adequate motivation, if you want to succeed you must paddle towards goals you'd like to achieve. That is another thing that Keeners teaches us, goal setting.

         Goal setting is how you improve in anything wether it be cooking, school, paddling or just life. If you have no goals, how do you measure progress? Claire O'Hara is a perfect example of why goals are so important. Our Keener Coach uses her goal sheets to measure her consistency and track progress on learning new tricks. By using these goal sheets, she can measure how far she has come from any point in time. This may or may not be why she is 2x world freestyle champion, 3x world squirt boating champion and 2 time mystery world champion. She has inspired me to set short-term, long-term and realistic goals for myself. Thank you Claire, if you are reading this, for teaching all of the session three Keeners the most valuable lesson we have learned yet and a great life lesson.
       
Goal setting is just one of many great lessons Keeners and our coaches have taught us. The lessons I have learned in Keeners will most definitely last me a lifetime. Lots of thanks to all of my Keener coaches, you have changed lives! I don't know what I would do without Keeners!

Paddling With My Hero

I watched a couple, *cough* hundred *cough*, kayaking movies, edits or clips before I came to Keeners. This week I have already been able to paddle with four of my kayaking idols, Joel, Kalob, Stephen and Thomas. Before coming to Keeners, I never would have thought that I would get to paddle with the athletes in those videos and of that caliber. I look up to these guys when I go out on surf, try and think of what they would do. I feel so privileged to get influenced by such great and amazing athletes! I would love to syphon as much information from them in the next two weeks as I can because I may never get the chance to paddle with these athletes, the pioneers of modern day play boating, ever again. I’m going to make sure I am in prime condition to maximize time on the water to improve at the rate I currently am until the last day!

Thanks Joel, Kalob, Stephen and Thomas!

How to get the shot ferda boys!

Step 1:  Get the a Go Pro. If you do not have accesses to one, find the biggest DSLR camera you can find. The bigger the camera, the more professional you are (Am I right?). 

Step 2 : Convince your friends to throw down the biggest trick, even if it means they flush right away.

Step 3 : Take out at the top of the rapid so you do not have to run it. If you swim, all gear will be lost and you will have to go back to step 1.

Step 4 : Find the angle that makes the feature look gigantic and dangerous

Step 5 : If the feature you are shooting at is a small hole, get as far out into the current with a camera paddle without falling. This technique is just as good as a drone, I promise. If the feature is a large wave, climbed a tree to get the best angle, if you do it right, people will think that you are an expert drone pilot.

Step 6 : Brag about how great your shot was and how you are gonna get a gig at RedBull Media. 

Step 7 : Hop in your boat and paddle ahead to the next rapid and repeat steps 1 to 6.

Step 8 : Upload all of you footage, spend days making an edit. Order boxes upon boxes of pizza  and drink RedBull until the edit is done. Play a fast paced electronic song and match downbeats with cuts.

Step 9 : Upload the edit to YouTube. Then promote your channel and videos to everyone you meet, because every view counts!

 - Willem von Schilling