A New Change by Jack Carroll

          Hey readers it's Jack Carroll, blogging to you from Keenerville. Today I am here to tell you about one of the most eye opening experiences of my keener session. This amazing experience was the experience of demoing one of the new 2014 Jackson Rockstar smalls.

          For the past four years I have been paddling a 2010 Jackson Star, this has been by far by best boat. It has taken me down every river I have paddled. Throughout the beginning of this season I have begun to realize that I might be pushing the Star's weight limit. I have given the 2013 Jackson Star a test run on some small waves. I found this boat to be better than my current boat but mostly due to its larger size, and its ability to go bigger with loops, and blunts. however, I found no new amazing abilities of this new boat and I have been looking for a boat that is better and faster, but I have had no luck, until today...

Jack Carroll throwing a huge Air Blunt on Garb.

          Today as we were getting back on the water Claire O'hara suggested I try her boat for the second half of the day. I decided to give it a try and outfitted this 2014 Jackson Rockstar small to fit some what. Once on the water and after a few surfs I found it to be speedy, edgy, and very short in the bow. I also found it to spin like a top. This was the boat I was looking for. It had all of the new improvements a new playboat should have, and I would recommend anyone who hasn't demoed it to try it out.

          Thank you for reading, and I hope this can help you with your next playboat decision. Enjoy the water, until next time,

                                 Jack Carroll

Nicole Dannecker Week 6 Blog

Playing the game of "war" as part of a morning activity.

Hey everyone its Nicole again here with my sixth week keener blog! Its hard to believe that it is already the beginning on the last week of second session I guess its true when they say time flies when you’re having fun, especially since our amazing keener mom Anna Bruno helps us make the most of our keener experience both on and off the water by giving us solid advice and planning extra activities for us to do such as our Wal-Mart/Movies trip or taking us to the Beachburg fair this past Friday. Keeners would truly not be the same without her in the family. Then there are our amazing keener coaches Clay Wright, Tyler Curtis, Devyn Scott, Claire O’Hara and Stephen Wright, unfortunately Stephen and Claire will be leaving us this week. I for one have learned so much from them and I hope to paddle with them again one day! The coaches are one of the reasons that this program is so truly unique, they are some of the best paddlers in the world and they are able to relate to us when teaching us tricks whether it be getting a loop, or trying to get onto a wave that you can't seem to catch. They push us to strive to do our best and I have never achieved more in my kayaking career than I have this summer under their guidance and assistance.

          Though there are many challenges while in this program from the physical challenges such as paddling every day for three weeks to the mental challenges such as the Monday night speeches I could not think of a better way to spend my summer! The encouraging environment that surrounds all of us while we are here makes it easy to try new things or get up and speak in front of all of the keeners that you have only known for a couple weeks and feel comfortable and confident. The keener program is truly the experience of a life time and I am truly grateful to all of the people who made it possible for not only me but the other keeners to come and have this experience. 

Nicole Week 5

       Hey everyone its Nicole again with my weekly keener post. Its been a great week getting to know all of the new keeners who came for second session. Even though it was hard to say goodbye to the keeners from first session, I feel like this session is gonna be great and we will love it! I was really happy this week because I finally got the hang of getting my bow stall and surfing on push button!

Next week I hope to get surfs on Garb and maybe I could even get closer to getting a cartwheel on Push Button. I am really excited to meet the keeners who are arriving this weekend and I am sure that they will fit right in to our Keener family. I would like to thank all of our coaches, Anna, the WT staff, and all of the keeners who have made this possible and my parents for putting up with my endless rants on how excited i am to be here and of course giving me this amazing opportunity!

Jahn Pearson week 1

Hey guys its Jahn with the weekly post on Wednesdays. I thought instead of talking all about the paddling, I would talk about keener living. Keener living is truly amazing because you are right next to MCoy's and even better, baby face a really great wave. When you first get to keeners you will meet Anna your keener mom. Anna is a really good boater and a nice person in general.

Anna working in the Thunderdome. 

The accommodations at Keenerville are great ! You will be assigned a cabin which has 3 rooms with two beds a piece and a common area with a kitchen, couch and tv,  a bathroom and a kitchen table. I am living in Whitehouse, Yakistan belongs to the girls, and then there is Robertson's and Istanbul. Once you are here you will paddle with some of the greatest paddlers in the world. I must say that it is very humbling to paddle with such great paddlers. A side note is that no matter what, you will have an extremely hard time sleeping the first 2 nights.

On a personal note, I would like to thank my parents for allowing me to come here: dad I appreciate you.

David Aka muzzy thanks for the yo-yo and the stuff i really appreciate it.

Till next Wednesday- Jahn.

Nicole McCaw's Last Blog Post

Playing the Rock Games

     Hey everyone! This week at Keeners has been amazing as usual! From our first day on the water with our coach Clare O'Hara to Race Day, Big Water Bacon Beatdown, and Competition Friday.

   
 Unfortunately we have had to say good-bye to our amazing coaches Stephen Wright, and Clay Wright (no relation), and Clare O'Hara I am very excited to go into the next week with our new Keeners Luca, Eli and returning Keener Kira! We are also going to go on a road trip this week on Wednesday either to Lachine, or The Seven Sisters! I am really happy going into my last week of Keeners and I am looking forward to all of the new experiences that I will have! It's gonna be awesome! 

Going for Downtime at Brain Douche. 

   I am so grateful to my parents for sending me here for six weeks! This has been an experience of a lifetime and I hope that I can come back next year!

Peter- Week 2!

Hey its peter again reporting back to you after week two of keeners. The past to weeks have been full of fun and excitement, stevooo our head coach created this new game called keener hunger games. All the houses in keenervill compete against eachother in mini games everyday. At the moment my house aka robertsons is in the lead but as we all know thngs could change in a split second but that is what makes it soo much fun! Somthing that made this week special for me was that we had a guest instructor from england named Claire O'Hara and she is the womens freestyle kayak champion. What I thought was really cool was Claire was learning lots about kayaking while beiing a coach because she usually paddles smaller rivers and the Ottawa is very big. I thought it was good to see even though you might know a ton about kayaking there is still always a lot more to learn. Goodbye and see you next week.

Watching the 8 Ball Hunger Games Challenge

PURA VIDA