7th/8th July level 3 canoe training

Its strange heading to North Wales to go paddle the River Dee in July with the prospect of warm weather. Thanks to the BCU for planning the end of the Level 3 Coaching scheme in July, which meant those of us who leave things to the last minute were guaranteed of a warm weather experience! Result!

Heading cross-country from Norfolk to NW, Mike, Andy and I reflect on the past year and the amazing training programme we’ve undertaken with Leo Hoare at Getafix.com.

Starting with WWSR and river leadership training (see previous Blog) and then tackling the Dee and the Tryweryn for Four Star Training our open boat skills had certainly been transformed. Our personal skills were much slicker, and Leo had us “feeling” the water better by exercises like reverse ferry gliding blindfolded!

But we decided that we couldn’t let the opportunity of becoming level 3 coaches (old scheme) pass us by, mainly for the good reason that our home county is very short of L3 open boaters and progression to three star is difficult for club paddlers without local trainers/assessors.

So back to see Leo and what could we expect this time?

Its not often you get exactly what you want and less often that what you get is what you need. Leo pitched it just right, here’s how…..

First things first – coffee and a briefing about the plan for the weekend. “Well”. says Leo, “ I reckon we done all that we need to do for river leadership and so how about we focus on Traditional skills and coaching?

“Bring it on” So we get geared for paddling solo and we’re on the Dee getting warmed up and getting the “feel” of the water. Poling first and Leo takes us through the teaching points – using half poles to start then working to a full pole; bent knees, differing feet position, pole angle, short, sharp pushing action. No problem, but then Leo notices (he always notices) that we’re edging towards the faster water and we want to be tested.

Leo shows us how. Clearly poling up-stream through shallow fast-moving water isn’t easy. Leo’s puffing but making progress up the 40m stretch of water, taking care to use the natural eddies in the water to ease passage.

Then it’s our turn and quickly our technique and fitness is tested. Its hard and without precise pole position, quick stab actions and holding strokes on the off-side we don’t make progress. We work these techniques all morning and its hard. Of all the techniques we’ve learned in open boating this has to be the hardest – one slip, one small missed placement on the river bed and you lose a lot of ground.

With aching thighs and a whole new appreciation of the art of poling we move onto tracking and setting up the 25-30m lines needed to guide a boat upstream through moving water from the bank. “Its like flying a kite” Leo informs us as he sets up the “bridle” then the boat’s away and Leo is pulling it through the fast, deep water up-stream.”

Then its our turn to work through the teaching points and set the boats up. It really is like flying a kite and the moment when the boat pulls through a small drop it looks like an engine is powering it upstream.

Techniques mastered, we drop downstream to the bottom fall at The Mill and our skills are tested in harder conditions. Then we’re onto lining boats downstream and mastering lining multiple boats down a rapid as a team.

After a session on sailing rigs we reflect on a great day of new skills and teaching points learned. Tomorrow? Well, that’s for coaching tandem…..

Day 2

Day 2 shaped up to be a full-on day and we arrived slightly nervous about what was expected. With no messing about Leo demonstrated a sequence of break-in/outs and high crosses which we then repeated. This session was all about quality coaching. Three runs each of about two minutes duration with individual feedback after each run.

First run we were like kids – too excited, not focussed, too much paddle waggling. Leo gave us feedback between the eyes – “adjust your trim, approach with a different angle, don’t go too fast at this point”

“OK Boss” – he laid it out clear and we went for Run 2 with a plan that changed our tactics at each section of the rapid.

Feedback time and this time we were met with questions. “how did that go? Talk me through it “ Now we were remembering what went well and what didn’t. Analysing our own performance and by asking leading and open/closed questions we were being forced to scrutinise our performance and come up with ways to improve it.

Run 3 – and there are dramatic improvements to our performance, we are making the difficult break-outs and nailing the high-crosses.

Feeling please with our improvement we return for our briefings ….

How did that feel ? This time the questioning focussed on what went well and forced us to reflect on how things “felt” when they worked.

We had each spent 6 minutes paddling and a few minutes more being coached and given feedback. The performance improvement was staggering

The learning points:-
Quality not quantity
Individual feedback important
Shift from directive to questioning and reflective coaching

Then it was our turn …..to coach tandem crews on the same stretch – wow!

In short …..

A fantastic two days covering both traditional skills and high performance coaching techniques. Leo understood what we needed and tailored the course to suit. His style and experience enables him to set people up for success and he’s only too willing to share his considerable knowledge.


Ian Hayward
Whitlingham OEC
Norfolk