Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The Right Thing

The Right Thing is a fairly obvious concept. Something, whatever it is, is clearly correct despite the fact that no a priori correct answer is known to exist. It's not 2+2=4. That's of course right. But it's not The Right Thing. The Right Thing is more about an elegant or well executed solution to a (usually) non-trivial problem that has all the witnesses of the solution pretty much nodding in agreement, "Yup, that's The Right Thing". In the paddling world it might be the leg drop.

The leg drop, in case you're unaware, is (among other things) part of edging ones boat. I was at a lake once futzing about with some folks from my club and I mentioned the leg drop, which I'd just learned, and nobody had heard of the leg drop. So I explained and everyone tried it and nodded their head. The leg drop is an instance of The Right Thing.

One of the key components of an instance of The Right Thing is the oh yah moment. Blogs are a bad place to try to convey tonality but I'll try here. Oh yah, when it comes to The Right Thing, isn't uttered like "Aha", or "I see". The Right Thing "Oh Yah" is expressed more as "Excellent" or "Ahhh". Maybe like finding your number of a sleep number bed. Or having your first 18 year old Scotch after drinking 10 year olds for a long time.

The Right Thing is not always something particularly clever or insightful (The best instance of The Right Thing I know if is in fact both, but I'd have to talk about locking overhead versus time to create a mutex and that seems a little out of place here). But The Right Thing, whenever or where ever you run across it, is definitive. It establishes a bar, or a method of operation for whatever it is being considered.

I took (and passed) my BCU Level 1 Coach class with Body Boat Blade last week. It was I think The Right Thing. Let me show you four pictures to illustrate why I think so:

Some of the boats for the class

Paddles too
This is what we all came up with as having been discussed
Bill Lozano, from New York, on the left

What do all these mean? Essentially 3 things. First, a huge amount of effort went into obtaining use of the proper amount and type of equipment for the class. I don't think there was a single instance where anyone had to sit on shore or be in a boat, or use a paddle, that wasn't exactly appropriate for the task at hand. Second, the amount of information covered was large but, as one might infer from the acronyms (I'm a big fan of acronyms) and doodles and like that, it was presented in a form that can easily be remembered, is actionable and of course relevant (the word BLOG there is for BLOG, but I think that snuck in mistakenly somehow). Third, that's Bill Lozano there on the left in the last picture. Bill was flown in from New York, and took time away from his business, in large part to ensure that Level 1 Coaches are being taught (and assessed) as similarly as possible in this country. Note please that the fee for the class did not go up because Bill was there.

I take a fair number of classes (a couple a year) and so consider myself a reasonably well educated consumer with regard to paddle sport education. I mentioned that The Right Thing often times sets a bar or a standard for something. This class really set a bar for me. The obvious effort that went into the whole thing is, and probably will for some time remain, a standard that I'll aspire to in any class I run. The whole event was professionals doing a professional job. Nothing was dialed in, half wayed, or any less good as it reasonably could have been (I'm thinking in terms of more sunshine here).

There's a lot more to say about this class, and I will over time, but I think this was the most important.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Assessment assessment

Welp, like I said before, I failed my 3 star but I thought I'd talk about the experience a bit 'cause it was, after all, pretty cool.

By way of intro the 3 star is a BCU assessment for intermediate skills. That makes sense as there are 5 stars and 3 is in the middle. Brits are nothing if not mathematically coherent I guess. The specifics are in the 3 star syllabus which you can read here (warning: PDF).  The assessors were Leon and Shawn of Body Boat Blade and Bill Lozano of Atlantic Kayak Tours in New York. Bill flown by L&S to work on the assessment and other things, but more on that in other posts.

The venue for the assessment was Obstruction Pass on Orcas Island. I've been to Obstruction Pass a few times and it is an excellent place to play around. It has currents that are easy to handle, a nice eddy line to play on and generally low consequences for errors. The weather for the day was not as nice. The prediction was 10-20kts in the AM, increasing to 15-25kts in the afternoon, with rain.

For myself I was flat out tired and it showed. This was day 6 of 6 of paddling stuff and it had taken it's toll. I will strive to not do assessments on the last day of a set of instruction days. There were some kids (twenty X year olds) in the class who were also on day 6 but they seemed in good spirits with adequate energy. Fuckers.

So, how was the assessment? Pretty good overall. We were certainly on the highest end of the environmental conditions for a 3 star assessment. I do wonder if I'll feel like I cheated if I do this again (probably) and the conditions are rather more benign. There were several moments where the process felt sort of boot campy to me (yes, I was in boot camp once).

After lunch, still on the beach, it was announced we were going to have a friendly race, which was not something I wanted to hear. I was tired. The twenty-Xers were semi-chomping at the bit, trading small jokes and like that. Fuckers. Anyhow, Shawna tells us the Leon has a gash in his head, Bill has a hole in his boat, Allen (another guy/story) was cold, and she needed to make contact with the outside world. Run to your boat and bring back what you have to solve those problems. As fast as you can! And off goes everyone else. I trudged over got my crap and brought it back. Last.

Why was that a race? I'm well (well) past the age where I'm going to move quickly at the behest of anyone without understanding pretty much exactly why I should. Not that I mind moving quickly, but arbitrary and unnecessary are some of the fastest ways for me to get to derision and dismissal.

Similarly, on the water, there were frequent (endless?) admonished to keep up with the leader. Calls to stay together, don't get strung out. Frequently. A lot. Often. Now I get this one at some level. You can't have communication if you're not close enough to hear what's said, this level of paddling is about being a competent group member, etc. Makes sense. But I swear a little more of that and there'd have been boats ablaze. I just wasn't in the mood.

Outside of that it was a pretty good experience. Most importantly for me it was a complete assessment. That is, unlike the last time I did this, it didn't get stopped at lunch. We went all day, covered all of the syllabus and I got feedback on all of it. So I know what I need to work on, what I'm up to par on, and that stuff. You know, assessed.

And I'd be remiss if I did not mention Bill Lozano as a truly chill and pragmatic guy on the water. 2 examples and then I'm done.

We're doing eskimo rescues. It was a little bouncy and I'm upside down, sweeping hands back and forth, back and forth, as you do. Back and forth, back and forth...so it's been a while. Not long, just longer than normal. Finally I feel a boat hull and start grabbing for the bow. Turns out the rescuer sort of missed and I grab not a bow but a chunk of coaming and spray deck. But there's no way I'm letting go so I sort of drag myself up, he's doing a semi hand-of-divine-being-of-your-choice thing and I come up. The rescuer guy sort of starts explaining what went wrong to Bill who just says something like, They're not gonna just take a bow, they'll grab anything they can. As long as they get up. And next. Just like no big deal.

We're on the beach. I think it was after lunch. Leon is saying something about doing something that was gonna be a real pain in the ass for me (the twenty-Xers seemed unconcerned of course. Fuckers). Head to some beach or something that involved paddling into some strong ass winds and getting admonished (read:yelled at) to keep together forcing me to have to set fire to boats (see above). But I'm tired and cold, and I'm totally not in the mood to set boats on fire, despite the prospect of warmth and entertainment. But Bill, bless him, says quietly "I don't think we need to do that", and voila!, we didn't. Thanks Bill.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

I'm a BCU level 1 coach!

Fairly quick update this one. I'm a level 1 coach in the BCU. I failed my BCU 3 star about 40 minutes ago. It's been a spectacular several days.

More later, I need a beer right now.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

What next?

This Level 1 coaching class I'm taking is much on my mind these days. I'm not entirely sure where this train is heading but I'm happy to be getting on board. But, I guess like any trip into the unknown, it creates some real concerns. One of my larger concerns is all of the things that I'm not anticipating. 'lemme 'splain.

I was talking to a friend of mine who happens to be a coach and he told me a story I don't think I could have made up. They're in a class doing what turned out to be a 2 mile crossing. Evidently the conditions were fairly benign, which makes sense since the class is geared towards the improving beginner side of things. Anyway half way into the crossing, a mile from land on both sides, one of the students stops paddling. Just stops and announces, "That's it, I can't go on." Some discussion ensues (surprise) and the student breaks out the "Well, I hurt myself" card. The hurt card of course trumps anything when you're coaching (that whole duty of care thing) so the student had to be towed a mile. Of course the hurt miraculously disappeared and the student was fine for lifting boats, and the next day of the class, etc.

When I heard this I laughed (a lot). But then I got to thinking. If anyone asked me to write down a complete list of things that might go wrong when paddling I'm pretty sure "a student gives up just because" would not be on the list. I mean sure, I'd write down "student becomes exhausted", "student chooses not to participate", hell even "student (really) gets hurt and can't go on". But "give up just because"? UhUh. And what I realized is that if I'm going to actually do this coaching thing I'm going to be faced with this sort of stuff.

If I can used terms I'm used to, essentially I have to be more or less prepared to deal with the set of outputs of autonomous non-linear systems. To be sure the set is bounded. I'm probably never going to have to deal with some student spontaneously combusting seated in their boat (although the solution there is easy. Roll! Roll!).  But really, the surface area of the problem space here is pretty damned large. And really there are two components to this. The first is what should I reasonably be prepared for? The second is what am I reasonably responsible for?

An example. I've got a group on the water with no convenient outs (I said convenient, not easy) and one of the students starts complaining about being too hungry to go on and they have no food. What do? On the one hand, I really don't feel like it's my responsibility to provide food for this person. On the other hand, carrying a snack or snacks in my day hatch is a pretty reasonable preparation I can make (perhaps interestingly, that preparation is to support the other students in the class, not the hungry one). I'm guessing that as I think more about and do more of this coaching stuff more and more of this kind of thing will come up.

When I start considering all of this some of the proscriptions that the BCU coaching scheme has makes sense. Like, strictly, as a level 1 coach the BCU says I can't work on my own except for "taster" sessions on protected waters. Having the time to gain the experience to understand the problem space, at least to an order of magnitude, seems rather useful.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Ya gotta get wet to stay dry

I'm heading up to Body Boat Blade in a few days for, among other things, my 3 star assessment. This is actually my second go at this. I'm still fairly bitter about the last time I did this so I won't talk about it too much but, to be clear, I'm not bitter because I failed (I sort of expected to). Rather because how the assessment was run. Anyway...

I think my bracing is my weakest skill. Like I suspect most people I don't get out on the water enough or as much as I'd like. Work, family, etc all conspire to provide me ample opportunity to stay off the water. And then when I get out one of the last things I want to spend my few hours on the water doing is practicing, say, bracing. I want to go see stuff, enjoy being outside,  all of that. Which I think is a somewhat long way of saying I don't have enough discipline.

So today I went out to the nearbyish lake to do some bracing. It's about 20 minutes away and, this being California with a budget crisis, it costs $8 bucks to touch boat to water. I could drive 40 minutes or so to get to free water but that's too much time out of a work day so $8 a throw it is.

For some reason I always get nervous when I'm going to get wet. But then, when I am wet, I'm fine. Weird. Today I was going through a pretty simple exercise. Lean, low brace, fail, high brace, up. Or that was the plan. I've done this thing a fair bunch of times so no big deal. But today it was lean, low brace, fail, high brace, fail, surprise, roll up. Tried it again. Same thing. It's supposed to be lean, fail, up. I was getting lean, fail, fail, up. That's an extra fail.

In learning to do this high brace stuff my normal coach (normal as in regular or routine. Any other presumed meaning is potentially specious) gave me a great progression to work through. What's nice about it is that I had the tools at hand to sort of start from scratch and figure out what was causing the extra fail. Thankfully, after about 10 minutes, I was back to normal (normal as in regular or routine. Any other presumed meaning is potentially specious). Well, not entirely. I decided today to stick entirely to might right side. I know this is wrong, I should work on both sides, but I pretty well flipped out that I'd lost my high brace and wanted the entire rest of the day to be successful. Tomorrow I'm going back and I'll work on either my left side exclusively or both. Depends. I still have quite a way to go with my braces. I use the paddle too much, I don't have the control to do it as slowly as I've seen it done and like that. But I go all the way over until my back hit's the water and reliably come up. I think (hope) that's good enough for what's coming up. And it's certainly something I can work with.

But all of this is sort of beside the point. I've come to believe that getting wet in controlled conditions is the single best way of staying dry in real world conditions. Believing you can brace up, roll up, cowboy back in, re-enter and roll, etc gives you the confidence that keeps you relaxed and loose in the real world. And being relaxed and loose is pretty important if you want to stay upright in jobbly water. What I need to do is get out more and practice. Pretty much like most people I'd guess.