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!

Reaching Your Goals

Everyone needs to set goals in order to improve. Without them, learning can be very difficult and

dysfunctional. This especially applies with kayaking, because without any direction, progress can

become slow and exasperating.


I often set goals that seem to be unrealistic and unattainable. I quickly become frustrated and give

up, so here are some of the simple steps I use to reach them.


1. Set your long term goal. This can be anything from being able to do a blunt, an airscrew, or even just a bow stall.

2. Set a few smaller goals that are easier to attain and will bring you closer to achieving your overall, long term goal. A few smaller goals can be spinning on a wave, learning a backdeck roll, or a simple double pump.


3. Set daily goals. This can simply be doing three double pumps on each side every day.


4. RECORD YOUR PROGRESS! This will be much more rewarding and will keep your focus on your long term goal. You can simply write it down, or even just talk to a paddling buddy.


5. Keep trying! Don't forget to never give up on your goals. Once you've learned something, it can stay with you forever.


One of my biggest goals for this session of keeners is to get a loop on a wave. But in order to do
this, I am constantly practicing my flat water skills, because if I can't do something on flat water,
than how could I hope to do it on a wave. Though this can often be demotivating because flat
water skills are not nearly as fun to practice, by using the above techniques I am making constant
progress and not losing sight of my overall goal.

paddling hard for race day wednesday