How I Got Here Nigel Hocking

Nigel Hocking
16/07/2019
Keeners Blog Week 1

                                                          How I Got Here

          I first started Kayaking last year at Wilderness Tours teen camp. After completing two sessions I knew I wanted to come back. Kayaking was just too much fun. During my time in the teen camp I had seen keeners around in their unique black shirts and hoodies, but didn't really know much about the program. At the end of my two weeks here I had asked an instructor about the keeners. She told me it was a great program for enthusiastic paddlers wanting to improve. I knew could go but i needed to practice my rolls. This was hard considering I had no kayak, gear or river near me. After looking around i found a good deal at a Toronto paddle shop for a Jackson rockstar 4.0. With in a few months I had a paddle  and had driven up to a local lake to practice.
I have only been here in the keener program for two days, mostly running the middle channel, but it has already been a blast. Here there is many opportunities to learn new tricks and paddle rapids you would not normally paddle. I am really excited to continue with the rest of the session and to progress with my paddling.

Injuries Slater Wiles

I’ve had a lot of fun kayaking these past few days, which have been very eventful, 
but some things have been holding me back from really reaching my full learning 
 potential. In the form of injuries, my knees and especially my shoulders have been 
annoying me and would frequently cause pain. I hurt my knees a few weeks ago, 
by running on a treadmill and was barely able to walk for a full week because of it. 
Affecting me while I was in my kayak, the motion of pushing down with my legs 
attempting/learning to do tricks like a bow stall, would weaken my knees. For my 
shoulders, they would bother me every once in a while, which would further prevent 
me from trying anything not wanting to risk damaging it for longer. What I have 
i knobeen doing to make the most of every single day whilst not letting my minor 
injuries become any bigger and letting them heal, I have been really paying 
attention and listening to the advice that my coaches have been giving others, 
ias well as watching my fellow keeners constantly fail and succeed. In other words, 
to try and learn from their mistakes without having to put myself at risk. As far as 
how bad the pain feels, in the morning, they (as in my knees and shoulders) aren’t 
too bad, but the more we paddle, the worse they get. Thankfully, today was a lot 
better than yesterday, but everyday I seem to get hurt in a different place on my 
body. All in all, my coaches (especially James) have been helping me overcome 
this by assigning me certain stretches, that have seemed to help in the past day. 
Foam rolling as well had helped a lot. All I can do now is make sure that I heal 
and don’t let it take anything away from my experience.

A Peruvian kayaker in keeners. By Mar Casabonne

I started learning English when I was three years old, grammar , writing , speaking , listening, everything. So my English is pretty good, or at least I thought it was , until I arrived at keeners, and I heard the first river talk of the week. I had never been more lost before. Kayaking has been my life for the past two years, but every time I  went to the river, there was at least one Spanish speaker in the water with me, so all the kayaking concepts I know are in Spanish, or at least most of them. So listening to the coaches say all this things we had to do in the water, and being so lost , made me realize that if I didn’t start practicing my river language as soon as I could , I was going to be lost for the whole session. Three days have passed now, and I have learned a lot, I’ll go back home being a bilingual kayaker. So if you have any doubts about coming to keeners and not speaking English perfectly , don’t worry, you’ll learn a bit every day, all you have to do is ask and keep asking. 

The Boat is Key Avi Patel

Avi Patel
16/07/2019
Keeners Blog Week 1

The Boat is Key

When you are kayaking the most valuable object is your boat. You want it to be an extension of you, and it has to be perfect. On the first day everyone is getting your outfitted to them, trying to get it perfect. When I getting outfitted in the small boat it felt fine boat I was small in it. I added foam and padding, but all of that only helped so much. It was still not perfect. I thought I just had to get used to the boat, but it was much more. I struggled to throw my weight around in the boat and lost confidence. It just wanted to have fun, but I was too uncomfortable. I spoke to the counselor and they understood, the next day they helped. I got a new boat and was off, it fit me perfectly, and I was confident again. Always make sure your boat fits the way you want it, and you can always ask people for help.

Arriving at Keeners - Hannah Gazzard

Arriving at Keeners on Sunday I was so nervous, I didn’t know the river, the kids, or the coaches. Basically my parents were sending me off for three weeks and I had no clue what I was doing. I did know that I was very, very scared of the Ottawa rapids. I’m now three days into my stay at keenerville and I never want to leave.  Although I am extremely sore and tired I’m learning so much and so quickly. Every day is so much fun and I’m excited to see what I can accomplish by the end of this three weeks! Anyone coming to keeners in the future has very little to be worried about and lots to be excited for.

How to improve your skills at keeners by Grey Edens

 If you just wake up each morning and paddle the Ottawa rapids hoping you’ll magically learn moves, you won’t. When you want to learn a move as fast as possible, consult with the coaches and feel free to ask them what you can do to get a certain move. If you don’t do this - for example if you are trying to learn how to loop and you plug into a hole and throw forward hoping you’ll land the loop and not even ask the coaches how you can land it like a pro, you’ll never learn how to loop during your tenure as a keener. Another example of what would happen while attempting to throw a move such as an air screw in a wave, would be like if you were just bouncing up down in a wave and trying to back deck in mid-air and landing on your face. Then you try to airscrew again and again constantly landing on your face without even asking the instructor what you are doing wrong. It is MANDATORY that you ask the instructor what you are doing wrong and how you could improve unless you want to purposely never land an airscrew and land on your face. Personally, I go to keeners to improve my kayaking and have fun. But I can only improve my kayaking if I consult with instructors. This scenario is the same with other keeners. And this is how you learn fast in keeners. (By asking instructors what you can do to improve)

Collie swim - Elliot Gougeon

Blog 

Colli 

We started by scouting collisuem and then Steve-o said that we were swimming colli. my heart dropped and I started looking at the rapid in a whole new light. I was terrified, as we started to split up into groups I had no urge to swim it. We started to walk down to the edge of the river. The first group leaped into the river and with hoots and hollers they proceeded to swim down into the maw of the river. My group was up next, we started to one by one jump out into the river swimming towards the curler. As soon as we got swimming I realized that I was far behind the other swimmers and I was going much slower than them. I punched through the first curler and then I swam hard right but I did not swim far enough. I looked forward and saw the mouth of big Kahuna open up and swallow me. I heard the walla walla walla for about 10 seconds and was able to swim up to the top but then was shoved under again. I arose from the foamy depths and did not know were I was. I tried to swim but was completely gassed , I missed the eddy and realized I was in a bad place. I tried to swim right, my back missed the eddy and swam some of dogs leg. Luckily Adrian was able to get me before I swam any further. 

I’m not that strong of a swimmer.