Rescues should be inevitable

A couple of weekends ago I attended a rescue clinic put on by BASK, one of the local clubs in my area. The last time I tried to get to one of these I was rear ended on the way. After trading info and rest of the rigamarole that goes with getting hit I ended up missing the event so I was happy to have the chance to practice some rescues as well as meet some new people (I don't usually paddle with BASK, but that's a different story.)

The practice took place at Half Moon Bay. The plan for the morning was to be practicing/learning various rescues in the flat conditions of Pillar Point Harbor. After lunch everyone was to do a short portage over to a cove that's protected by a reef. It was a very calm day so the waves were very small and manageable by pretty much everyone. One person though did swim and I happened to be closest so I went over to offer some assistance.

As I pulled up I asked him first if he wanted any help. It was a rescue clinic after all so perhaps he wanted to cowboy back in or something. I don't recall exactly what he said but it wasn't an answer to my question. I asked him again if he wanted help and, again, got an answer that really didn't answer. Something about how the wave surprised him or something. Briefly I was concerned he was genuinely disoriented but decided to ask one more time and, finally, got my answer. Yes, he wanted some help. Whew. I'm entirely able to get someone incapacitated back into their boat, but I've never even thought about how to deal with someone in distress but actively unwilling to assist. Not to say that's where the guy was, but it crossed my mind. Something new to think about.

Anyway I ask the the guy to flip his boat over (because that's how you do a standard T-Rescue dammit) and immediately I start getting lip. He might get water in the boat. His head might go under water. I tell him it'll be fine, just flip the boat over. So he does and I grab it. He swims to the back of his boat for whatever wrong reason and proceeds to start telling me what to do. He's going to push down on the back or something and make sure I have a good hold on the boat and like that.  I realized, all of a sudden, this guy has been either incredibly poorly trained or he's never been trained at all. So I started laughing, and I tell him that, this time, I'm going to let him get away with giving orders, but the rescuer is in control of the rescue. He says ok, and then tells me to grab the boat and hold it tight he's going to do a heel hook. I asked him to wait, emptied the boat and then he heel hooks in. While he's getting sorted he tells me to not let go. I'm actually guffawing at this point because it's just funny as hell this guy is out on the ocean. Anyway, he explains that the last time this happened the rescuer didn't hang on and that caused problems and blah, blah, blah. It was hard to hear him. I was laughing.

As the world is made up of little more than a seemingly random series of coincidences (heh) a couple of days later I received the new Sea Kayak Rescues DVD put together by Body Boat Blade. (Full disclosure. Leon and Shawna are friends of mine. I'd like to think though that if I didn't like their movie I wouldn't say anything at all in public. I have no vested interest in the DVD so I'm not shilling here.) Let me digress a bit and talk about the movie.

I've watched it five times already. It is unquestionably different than the other instructional DVDs I have. For one, at about 26 minutes long (not counting some extras) it's quite compact. I have other instructional DVDs that are 3 times that long. (Interestingly the longest one I've watched twice in 4 years.) It's also not a "talking head" movie. That is it's not one of those, "Do this. Then this. Now that. But if that occurs then this." type movies. I'll be honest. The first time I watched the movie I didn't get it. It was shorted than I expected. There was less talking than I expected. A lot less talking. It didn't follow an arc I expected.

I've mentioned this before, at least indirectly, but if you can get those guys to talk about coaching (it's not hard) you sort of quickly realize that,  pedagogically, very little that they do is not planned or considered.  If you're in a class and they're doing something it's probably for a reason. To this day I will tell anyone that asks one of the best classes I ever took was one in which Leon never got in a boat, and never said more than like 10 words in a row to any of the students. If the movie was odd it likely wasn't due to a lack of consideration.

I'm not sure but I think the movie is important. Not because of the content, which is of course important because it's about rescues. Rather because, perhaps, it might change what people consider an instructional DVD to be. Notice please I said might. I'm not an expert. I am however getting something out of the movie each time I watch it. And it is certainly something to watch. Actively. Attentively. At least I think so.

Anyway, in this movie Leon says something like, if there's one word I'd use to describe our rescue philosophy it would be efficiency. Shawna uses the word simplicity.

After I watched their movie I was reflecting again on my experience with the guy in Half Moon Bay and came to my own one word summary of a rescue philosophy. As far as possible rescues should be inevitable. I wish his experiences had let him think that was true.