Boring...

Yesterday's KOP was boring to say the least.
First of all the participants got lost and only came slightly before 3pm. Next, there was supposed to be 20 plus participants but only 11 turned up, so two instructors took on 11 of them.
What's more, they weren't a confident bunch and wanted to go on doubles. Meaning a total of 5 doubles plus one single kayak went on the water that day.

6 boats and 2 instructors? Overkill man...

They weren't too excited about kayaking and the standard stand in the kayak game wasn't received with enthusiasm. One kid even blamed not being able to play because he had asthma. WTF?! Left that bugger alone.

2 boats capsized after during the game and one huge girl abt twice my size was afraid of the water and clung on to her partner. Thank goodness I didnt need to knock her unconscious to prevent her from panicking.

After that, I just left them to paddle around for about 15min on their own teaching them how to splash water with the paddle.
Well, that was it for the very short orientation programme.

Polar Opposites

Had my second session with the Hua Yi group yesterday. Stanley was replaced by Bernard.
It was interesting to see the 2 extremes in coaching techniques. On one hand, Bernard was like an army CSM shouting commands while uncle Lau was just sitting around pretty much letting the kids run amok.

Uncle Lau speaks very slowly and calmly while Bernard rattles off like a machine gun. Could see uncle Lau was annoyed by him.

I still need to work on being calm and controlled. Find myself speaking too fast when I get nervous. After coaching more than 20 sessions I am still having this problem, will really need to work on this.
In the end, I need to be less anti-social and more compassionate at the same time. Gaining more confidence would be a good thing both for real life situations and in coaching.

Allowance increase!

Water-Venture is increasing the trainers' allowance by $10! Yay!
Realised something quite weird though. You get the same allowance irregardless of whether you coach for a full day or half day.
So, coaching half day sessions at Water-Venture is actually very worth it!

Lack of practice

After a month without practicing my skills, I have lost the ability to do a hand roll on my left side.
However, I discovered something interesting when I went to practice yesterday. I managed to do a one hand roll very slowly.
I ended up in a semi balance brace position, which I feel is essential for doing the strait jacket roll. I'll be testing it out farther the next time I go down to practice and hopefully discover the secret of the strait jacket roll soon.

However, I still need to work on the flexibility of my left side. When I lean out into a balance brace position on my right side, the coaming is pressing below my pelvic bone, around the hip. But on the left side the coaming is pressing at my waist.

School...

I have lectures in school on Saturdays from 0930hrs to 1230hrs. This means I cannot coach on Saturdays anymore! Argh... And I thought I could coach at Water-Venture more often after starting school.
Since most 1 Star courses are held on the Saturday and Sunday over one weekend, its gonna be hard for me to clock my 6 sessions per year.
This also means lesser opportunities for coaching till I graduate because my timetable is gonna be like this for the next 15 months!

BLEH ):