Taking a break

To all the folks who visit my blog regularly, there wont be any updates because Im 1200m above sea level in Switzerland.
Im high and dry and wont be back till next year.

More press on the River Clean-Up

SIM Canoeing Club was featured in Gaia Discovery, an online lifestyle magazine dedicated to give people around the world an insight into sustainable development and tourism.

You can read the article here

Canoe Polo!

Joined the SIM Canoe Polo club for their training session today. The newbies (thats us) train separately, so the whole group was basically a bunch of newbies led by one experienced player.
I found it quite tough to do so many things simultaneously. Not only do I have to paddle, there's the added element of the ball.
The boat was so easy to roll I managed an elbow roll with no difficulty. Since I could easily roll the boat, I can concentrate on other skills such as ball handling.

One of the newbies just got his 1 star a month ago and is on his way towards a hand roll. Im quite interested in how rolling is taught. Seems they have been taught the hand roll without first learning the C-to-C or Sweep style eskimo rolls. I suppose boat design has got something to do with it, but I've got to give some credit to the teaching methods. Almost all of them can hand roll while holding the paddle blade to give additional support.

Paddling down the Singapore River

The SIM Canoeing Club organised a freshman orientation camp over the weekend. I only joined in from Saturday onwards due to some prior commitments.
One of the highlights for the camp was the river clean up on the final day. All of us got into kayaks and paddled into the Singapore River. As we paddled along, we collected rubbish that we could find in the river.

Apparently this was the first social responsibility event ever organised by a sports club in SIM. We created SIM history!

Yet another 1 Star course for SIM

There was yet another 1 Star course for SIM held over the weekend and it was their biggest one yet with a total of 28 participants!
Couldnt really clique with the group this time so it wasnt that enjoyable for me.
As usual, we have the obligatory Singapore Flyer pics.


Rest of them can be found here

Sabotaged!

I recieved an SMS from Eddy regarding a coaching assignment on the 22nd and 29th of August for NJC. I then checked my calendar and realised I was free and accepted the assignment.
So yesterday I left my phone in the living room while I was busy playing some computer game for practically the whole day. My phone started to ring at about 3.20pm and when I answered it, Eddy asked where was I. It seems he gave me the wrong date. It was supposed to be 22 and 29 JULY instead of August.
Rushed down to Macritchie on my bike and reached there to find a bunch of unmotivated Sec 1 students carrying boats. These kids were totally uninterested! They moved slowly and the only thing they did in the water was raft up and chit chat or day dream. Not being that experienced, I couldnt really motivate them in such a short time span so I made them demonstrate the skills to me individually.
After 50min we had to end the session because there have been feedback from parents that the students are coming home very late. Honestly, if they moved faster, they can be dismissed earlier.
It took 1 hour to move all the equipment back. Some of them would carry a boat back and hide somewhere. When there was 2 boats left, Eddy and myself decided to carry the boats back to save time because the kids were no where to be found. On the way to the storage shed we saw a few loitering around and when they saw us, they ran away. The worse thing was that as we were carrying the 2 boats back, 6 kids sneaked off.
Goodness. Cant help but feel disappointed that this is the standard of our future leaders.

Ignoramus

Just did a kayak orientation at Water-Venture Kallang on Sunday with 2 other trainers. Quite unhappy with the way things went.
One of the instructors is a trainee who has been putting off taking his assessment since he did the L1 coaching course in 2007 and the other trainer is ignorant and proud of it. The trainee established his presence from the beginning and took charge. He began the session by getting the participants to carry all the equipment to the beach.
This was the trainee's 1st KOP and he wanted to do the theory part so after carrying stuff around he gave a theory session that lasted 30 minutes! There was constant use of jargon, talk about hull shapes, etc. Being 6 hours long, this KOP session is twice as long as usual but I dont see the need for so much talk. He also gave the usual ill informed canoe vs kayak explanation.

That wasn't the main issue though. When discussing about teaching rescues, I suggested showing the participants a rafted TX rescue. I was then treated like a blasphemer. The trainee went on to say how its almost impossible to do a rafted TX rescue with a tandem kayak and how we should use the H rescue. Was then told by the other trainer that a TX rescue will snap the boat in half.
From past experience, the "H" rescue usually ends up as a "N" or "Z" rescue after the boats get pushed around by wind and waves. Also annoying how the 2 rescuers are fighting against each other as they try to pull the victims bow/stern onto their respective decks.
Later on, while actually demonstrating the rescue, he told the rescuers to do a "see-saw" motion after lifting the victims kayak. From my understanding, in a "H" rescue you just lift up the capsized kayak and water flows out on its own due to the boat design. No need to do a "see-saw".

Later on as the session was ending, the other 2 trainers talked to the participants about the certification courses and told them the usual PA Water-Venture propaganda. No rentals without 1 star, no crossing of channels without 2 star, etc.
The one that really took the cake was the trainee telling them that if you're 1 star certified, you do the rafted TX rescue and only 2 star certified paddlers do the TX rescue.