A test of patience.

Took over a batch of kids doing 1 star on Saturday that really tested my patience. Never enjoyable to teach some kids. These kids are usually uninterested in the activity and forced to attend the course as part of the school curriculum or to get some badge for their CCA.
This time, myself and another coach identified the weaker students and I tried my best to clear those that were able to.
I ended up with a group that consisted of a boy so scared of leaving shore, he would just sit in the kayak. He turned out just fine and was just a needy kid who wanted attention on him all the time. Sometimes, it really annoys me as a coach not to be able to engage all participants.

At least it was a nice sunny day and I learnt something from a fellow coach who is now an OBS instructor. Did some research and it turned out to be The Learning Zone Model.

The Learning Zone Model from Kenneth Chan

Also got to take this photo.

NTU ODAC 1 Star Course 5-6 October 2013

Finally went back to Water-Venture Pasir Ris to conduct a 1 Star course over the weekend. Been a long.. time since I've been back there.

Was suprised to see the previously regimental and hard core group of coaches now embracing new coaching techniques, which are more fun and interesting.
Hopefully it leads them to be more open to new and/or alternative techniques of paddling instead of sticking to ridiculously outdated coaching methods.
Was pleasantly suprised when they were encouraged to wear their own PFDs and try out various kinds of paddles.

Well, back to my 1 Star course. It was a pretty small group of 6, so things went pretty smoothly. Pretty funny group, they mentioned how the kayaks reminded them of crab sticks and sausages. Never thought about the kayaks that way...

 Cheating during rafting up

Last minute coaching job

Did a last minute coaching job last Sunday, helping out with the second day of a 1 Star Course at Water-Venture (Kallang).

It was an open group with mostly adults and some dragonboaters, so the group was fairly easy to manage. Another instructor took the helm as she was with them for both days, so it was a relatively relaxed session for me :)

We even had time to teach some of them how to do a seal launch (kinda).

It was a nice sunny day to paddle out and take some pics with Marina Bay Sands and the Singapore Flyer in the background. Awesome views.

1 Star for SIM Canoeing Club

Picture by Rayyan

Taught a 1 Star group who signed up through the SIM Canoeing Club on 20-21 August. Its not often that I teach adult groups, but when I do get the chance, they tend to be more fun to teach.

Had a great weekend even though I was recovering from a runny nose.

Kind of coincidental that one of the participants is in my Buyer Behaviour class too!

Crack down

Looks like the MOE is getting serious about uncertified coaches conducting 1 Star kayaking courses. I have already conducted 2 courses where the students are retaking the course because the instructor was not certified the previous time they had taken it.
I was told that one of the operators was Camelot running out of HomeTeam NS and another was SAFYC Sembawang.

To all certified coaches out there, I'd be wary about coaching for SAFYC. They only have 10 single slaloms, 8 dancers and some doubles. You are expected to conduct the 1 Star course using a mix of doubles and singles and swap around so everyone gets a chance to use a single.
I was told it was not possible to have 22 singles for a class of 20 students and 2 instructors as they did not have enough boats. Fortunately only 12 students turned up and I was able to convince them to allow the use of the dancers which are reserved for 2 star.
All of them had no knee braces installed and some were broken at the middle where the deck is screwed down to the seat.
In addition, the PFDs they provided had missing straps and were torn with the foam exposed.

X-Current

I helped to conduct a 1 star course for X-Current for the first time last week. X-Current is part of Exponent Asia and they are based in Kallang Watersports Center where they store their own equipment.

They use a mix of Dag, RTM and Eskimo boats with Feelfree and TNP paddles.

As usual, I find having to launch and recovery from a small pontoon very inconvenient especially when you are dealing with a big group. Its such a waste of time.
I wouldnt mind taking a class there if the participants are older and the group size is limited to 20. However, I find that I have to work harder for the pay here and lunch breaks are only 30min long.

Oh well, its just another option.

Level 1 Coaching Course

Level 1 Coach Training Course (Recreational)
The Singapore Canoe Federation will be conducting a Level 1 Coach Training Course (Recreational) on 15th,16th,29th,30th JAN 2011

Venue : Kallang Water Sports Centre
Time : 9am to 4pm
Applicant(s) applying for the course, must have a 2 star personal skill qualification and able to demonstrate strong paddling skills.
Applicant(s) must be at least 18 yrs of age and have good health with no current medical condition.
For enquries,please email :hawthro@singnet.com.sg , Lim Jun Ping.

Its the process, not the result

Heading to Pasir Panjang Terminal

I helped "lead" an overnight kayak expedition from West Coast Park to Pulau Hantu over the weekend. The teacher of the group was Yong Hui, who wanted his students to execute the expedition plan. Being new, there were cock ups and delays which meant we only got into the water at 4pm.
Long story short, we never made it to the island and were still paddling past sunset. Most of the students had to be put onto the powerboats and driven to the island. We only arrived at 8.30pm.

The next day we encountered a freaking storm 45min after setting off while we were crossing Sinki Fairway. With almost no visibility and ridiculously strong drift, we tied ourselves to the South Cardinal mark around Cyrene reef where we waited for about 3hrs.

The teachers

Losing sight of land

We never made it to the destination on both days, but it was one hell of an experience. I also took home a few lessons from this trip. It was nice and refreshin that the focus for this trip was the journey, rather than the destination.

1. Always study the plan beforehand
I was in Kota Tinggi when the route was released and only managed to see it the night before the expedition. I could not lead effectively because I was unsure of the route and was not familiar with the conditions.

2. Always have lights and a compass handy
My light was tucked away in my aft hatch, I could not access it when it got dark. I also didnt bring my compass. Being able to keep a bearing would have helped if we needed to continue paddling in the low viz during the thunderstorm.

3. Too many indian chiefs causes confusion
Having more than 1 person yelling instructions when there is chaos just makes things worse. Just let the 1st instructor who gives instructions take control. Having an arguement admist the chaos is not a good idea.
4. I still cant stand working with chihuahuas
People who try to have street cred, try too hard, have the sun shining out their ass or move around with some self inflicted sense of urgency like a chihuahua really bug me. The annoyance of this chihuahua effect doubles, when on the water.

Rest of the photos here

New Methods

Did 2 orientation sessions at Jurong Lake after coming back from Kota Tinggi with Charles.
As usual, his methods are a little different from what Im used to.

Here's what I mean:


Reckless or calculated risk? These sort of things are very subjective.

Kayak Orientation in Kota Tinggi

The usual antics

I went up to Kota Tinggi with a company called Asia Outdoor to run kayak orientation programmes in the Johor River last week.
While the company met industry standards, I feel that these standards could be improved upon. Each batch consisted of 60 students, there were 2 certified instructors including myself. A third person was an old bird w/o coaching certification but has conducted many orientation programmes there and has local knowledge. The 3 of us made up the core team and we had group instructors, guys who followed the kids around for all activities to back us up.
Problem was that some of the group instructors were not very proficient. I would have preferred more certified instructors present. Conducting briefings the group instructors is always necessary, but there is little a briefing can do if the group instructor's skills are lacking or if they lack the experience to identify dangers.
The company did have 2 boats following the group, which was kinda overkill for a 2-3km "expedition".

Big boat

It was tiring trying to control 30 kayaks and the $120/day rate was not really that attractive considering that work starts at 8am and ends at 5pm and I have only 10min for lunch.

We used 3 man kayaks

On the bright side, I did night paddling down the firefly tour route and managed to see many fireflies. It was really beautiful.

As usual, photos can be found here

Level 1 Coaching Checklist

Here's the L1 coaching checklist that Water-Venture uses to grade L1 trainees for all those aspiring coaches out there.

Page 1

Page 2

Weirdest 1 Star Course EVER

Had an interesting 2 days over the weekend with some students from the SIM Canoe Polo team. The weather on the first day was crap though. It would rain, then stop, then rain again. Damn annoying. Then it was bright and sunny the entire second day.
Unfortunately, one of the girls sprained her ankle on the first day and was not able to attend the 2nd day of the course. The ankle swelled quite a bit...

Newbies and old birds

Victim looks happy in the water

End of the day

More pics available here

Paper chase

Sometime back a swimming instructor got 2 young boys to touch his privates and perform oral sex on him. There was a hoohaa in the papers and parents were suggesting compulsory registration of all coaches.
At the moment, registering with the NROC is not compulsory, but recommended.
But that was how the NCAP started too right?

Knowing Singapore, anything compulsory comes with a hefty fee. A captive market is a seen as a cash cow and not sucking the people dry would be considered a crime to the people in charge. Just like how the class sizes for the NCAP doubled along with the price.
Not only is the Sports Council earning double, the number of students have doubled as well. I supposed that amounts a four-fold increase in earnings per course?

So.. long story short, I decided to be an early adopter. Took more than a month for the application to process and the card to arrive though.

Level 1 Coaching Course

Level 1 Coach Training Course (Recreational)
Date: 6th, 20th, 21st, 28th Feb 2010
Venue: Kallang Water Sports Centre (Singapore Canoe Federation)

Contact Lim Jun Ping, limjp@scf.org.sg for more details.

1st Failure

Results so far.
I've used the alternative capsize drill coaching technique 3 times so far.

Have since made some changes over my original idea.
I basically split the whole capsize drill into 2 parts. For the first part, I get the paddlers to capsize but stay in kayak till I flip them over.
For the second part, they do the usual capsize drill.

This is what I do.

1. Get 2 boats out in the water.
   
2. 1st boat does part 1, 2nd boat watch.
3. 2nd boat does part 1, 1st boat watch.
4. 1st boat does part 2, 2nd boat watch.
5. 1st boat goes back to shore and empty water, 2nd boat does part 2
6. 2nd boat goes back to shore, 1st boat does part 1.
7. Repeat.

This has been successful so far till today. I got the water phobia group. Out of 9 paddlers, 4 were afraid of doing the capsize. After some coaxing, I got the kids to do the capsize drill.
3 of them managed to overcome their fear and do the drill after completing part 1.
But the last boy was just too afraid of water. He couldnt even do part 1.
The first time he tried, he wet exited on his own. On the second try, he held on to the kayak with only one hand and I couldnt flip him over. During the third try, he grabbed on to my leg underwater!!!
He wouldnt even try the normal capsize drill, he only wanted to do part 1 because I would be there holding him and flipping him. Physical contact was a big factor in calming him. He needed someone to hold him.

Guess even this method is not fail proof.

Some funny things happened though. The 4 boys who were afraid of capsizing kept giving excuses. One particular excuse really took the cake.
The boy said: " I cannot do, I got block nose."
His friend replied: "Nobody can breathe underwater lah!"
Well said. Haha.

At the end of the day after washing the boats, their teacher came up to me and thanked me. She said that she knew some of them were quite "scaredy cats" and she really appreciated my patience when teaching them.

Hearing things like that are nice.
Great for the ego :)

Bleh

Just conducted a 1 Star course on Sunday and it was horrible. Didnt feel like there was much learning involved, though I tried to make the best of the situation.

An NPCC unit had signed up for the course held at Water-Venture through a company called PaddleH2O. This company is run by 2 trainers from Water-Venture, Richard Lim and Mary Zoe Lek.

So I more or less just let things happen the way Mary wanted it. This went on till I couldnt take it anymore and voiced my opinions to Mary. We then split the group and carried on coaching in smaller more condusive numbers.

Here's why:
During the split to do the capsize drill, she got her entire group to raft up and wait in the water and take turns to do the capsize. It looked all nice and organised at first, but in the end the group just ended up floating around in a mess.

It all started to go downhill when Mary started demonstrating embarking and disembarking to 28 paddlers sitting in the kayaks on the beach alongside each other. How did she expect the paddlers at the extreme ends to see her?

When I questioned her on this, she said the other instructors were supposed to teach/facilitate while she did her coaching. Whats the point? So I have to repeat everything WHILE she is talking? Who do the paddlers pay attention to then? Herself or me?

Next, she basically dispatched the whole group of 28 participants into the water at one shot. While she stood on the beach. She got them to paddle towards a pontoon abt 10m away and reverse paddle back to shore.
So there we had 28 pple floating around paddling in circles and myself and Sam had to herd them back to shore.

She did not even take a boat out into the water! Coaching a 1 Star course without getting into a boat? So you can guess the kids spent alot of time at the beach or near it.

All that techincal stuff and jargon she used didnt help facilitate learning either.

Sam also wasn't too interested in coaching. He condemned the group before they even arrived and ended up shouting most of the session. Could see that the teacher in charge was worried at this and spent most of the time hanging around his group.

Lost my watch too :( I guess one of the links came loose.
The new club manager Joyce kept coming out to the beach. Judging from her character, chacnes are she was "assessing" myself and Sam.

Quite a bad day.

But, at least 3 things brightened up my day.
1. The new capsize drill thingy worked. Got the kids all excited about capsizing. Even the non-swimmers! They found the technique fun and awesome. Saw a few smiles and heard a few screams of delight!

2. The teacher in charge was cute. Really cute :)

3. I got an exciting trip home, cycling in the rain.

Fear of Capsize

It seems that the most feared thing during the 1 Star course is the capsize drill.
Sometimes I feel that the only thing thats on the participant's mind is getting out of the kayak. I often see them dropping out of the kayak before it even turns upside down. Sometimes I see the capsized boat shaking violently from the violent kicking and trashing from a panicked participant.

I've had ideas of getting the participants to capsize and stay in the boat for as long as possible, but "as long as possible" could only mean 1 second to a panicked person.

For those who are really panicky I usually get them to hug the kayak, telling them to hug the kayak until they hear a loud thud from my banging on the hull. I then flip the kayak over, count to 5 before banging the hull.
There have been few successes with this method, but I've been using this as a last option.
Should I use this method from the start? A stepping stone leading up to an actual capsize?
Kinda feels like too much hand holding from the start though. Not really my style and it would take up quite a bit of time.

Good Day.

Today was the 2nd day of the 1 star course that I am conducting for SIM. There were 16 participants and when we split up the group during the first day, I ended up with the older group, everyone in the group was older than me. Except of my younger sis.
The other group consisted of all girls, 21yrs old and below. Lucky I didnt get them, they didnt seem to motivated.

Quickly settled the TX rescue and went on to do other fun stuff like the all-in rescue, went for an early lunch afterwards.
Did a leisure paddle around Kallang and brought them out to the Singapore Flyer. As usual, functioning like a tour guide, stopping at certain places to take pics. All in all a good day

Went for makan at Lau Pat Sat after the course and pigged out on satay, sting ray and nasi briyani. Ended the meal with a mango ice dessert too!

Different Methods

Coached a 1 Star course under Asian Detours today. This was my first time coaching for them and I have a feeling my teaching methods are quite different from theirs.

1st, the other instructor tried demonstrating a TX rescue to 18 students while they were not rafted up. On the 2nd try, the raft was so wide those at the ends could hardly see whats going on.

We split up after the demonstration and I took 9 kids with me. Unsure if they saw how the victim was supposed to re-enter the kayak, I did a demonstration again. I split them up into 3 groups and we started on the rescues.
My teaching style is to allow the kids to suffer a bit and experiment with what works instead of just telling them what to do from the start which would eliminate any authority on the rescuers part.
As you can guess, this might take some time...
Well, the other instructor managed to finish everything with her grp by the time I finished my first rotation.
The other instructor helped out with my group after she was done with hers. Perhaps with good intentions. But I felt it kinda messes things up and adds chaos. Especially when she just left her group hanging around.

I noticed the other instructor got the kids to demonstrate the skills one by one. I tried this once during my attachment and found that kids didnt like waiting for their turn to demonstrate the skill. Not only is it boring, it feels alot like school.

Maybe my teaching style is too casual and laidback. Its quite obvious I have a more lassier faire of coaching compared to most other coaches. Probably look like I couldnt care less. But I feel that it should be a chance for the kids to experiment. Most times the kids will tell me they cant do a TX rescue, but leave them alone long enough and they end up emptying the boat of water and performing the rescue.

Well, at the end of the day. Im glad the reluctant boy who didnt want to capsize and found 101 excuses to go back to shore had fun. And its also quite hard to forget the boy that cant stop singing and randomly spouting verses from songs like "baby, come back!"
So I guess there are some redeeming qualities about today.

Round 1 Fight!

Helped Cher to coach the first session of a 1 Star course for Bukit Panjang Govt High. The kids were a handful. They consisted of a bunch of Sec 1 boys trying to get into the school canoeing team and 6 NCC boys.
During the swim test, Cher got the boys to take off the lifevest and swim. Higher standard for future competitive canoeists? Non-swimmers were told to stay on shore and weak swimmers were identified and given until the next session to at least be able to swim a short distance.
This is the first time I have seen anyone do a swim test without lifevest. Heard of another incident with Mary when teaching a bunch of future canoe polo players.
Well, I guess it makes sense. These people would be a liability to their team if they cannot swim.

During the lunch break, Cher got me to bring the kids to lunch and there were fights between 2 pairs of boys. Go to lunch also must fight.
There was this annoying boy, most likely a 小霸王 . Who pissed off another boy and got a punch in return.
Then another 2 NCC boys started grabbing each other and I had to pull them apart. All this while walking to the food center in full view of public. So paiseh.