Untitled Document

Here's a great commentary on what kayaking is all about...(found on Boatertalk)...

I'm usually not much of a message board poster (it tends to destroy any hope of productivity I have) but I do lurk on many-a-board to keep up on all sorts of topics that interest me. Strangely, I have noticed in the past several months that many of the boards that I regularly peruse that deal with paddling have gotten increasingly tense. Some are bickering about politics, some are clubs that are bickering over finances, some I just can't even begin to figure out what they're bickering about but the tension is high nonetheless. Perhaps it's the overly tense political year, perhaps the unbridled surge of adrenaline from an unusually wet East Coast fall has left some with unreleased energy. Perhaps this is just a seasonal migration of people that are used to playing in the sun to their indoor winter hibernation and that always comes with a bit of grumpiness.

Regardless of causality, I have some time on my hands today and I thought that in order to ease my tortured mind and maybe shed some brightness on this board, I would write a bit of a thesis as to why I paddle and why, when it all boils down to it, we're a tight knit community that watches out for its own regardless of political infighting and disagreements. Consider this more of a mission statement than a rant...

I will never forget the first time I crammed my thighs into a kayak to "try this kayaking thing." I was 14 years old and I had finally asked enough questions of my buddy and his family about the kayaks that lined their garage that they decided they should introduce me to their passion. As luck would have it, a small creek ran right behind their house and we decided that would be the perfect place to give it a shot. As we arrived at the river and I was secured with PFD, Spray Skirt (you want me to wear a skirt!?), helmet and paddle, my buddy looked at me, looked at the chilly late October water and said "alright get in, we're gonna flip you over." "YOU WANNA DO WHAT!?" Nobody told me that this kayking thing was going to involve me being inverted in 50 degree water, with this contraption secured to my lower half! But it did involve just that. Over and over and...over. And so it went for the next several weeks, with him successively introducing me to all of the things about this sport that I would brand as terrifying and unpleasant and me going through the paces wondering just what-in-the-hell these people found so exciting about this sport.

The boats were hung for the winter and as spring time arrived and the water warmed up, my buddy again convinced me that perhaps I should keep up with it and give it a bit more of a chance. Not one to take the subsequent challenges to my manhood lightly, I once again saddled up and headed down to the creek, determined to find out what was fun about this sport. As afternoons were spent learning things like eddy turns, ferries, peel outs and hip snaps, I was finally beginning to see the light and decide that this really could be fun. The IT happened. Everyone that loves kayaking remembers this moment as clear as any achievement they have ever had or will subsequently have. After an afternoon of hip-snaps and bow rescues, I decided it was time to man up and just go for the gold: I was going to roll up on my own. As I went over, fully expecting it to end in an embarassing swim, I set up just like the kayaking video had told me, gave a solid hap snap and...holy crap...oxgen! For the first time in my life, I HIT MY ROLL. If I can pick one moment where I realized that kayaking was to be my new passion, this would be it. I felt that I was now part of the cult...the core elite that could, as the rednecks fishing on the bank so eloquently put it, "do one of them flippy things." I was in, I was hooked and like any good junkie, I wanted more and stronger stuff and my life was about to be transformed forever.

To say that my life was transformed was an understatement. In the subsequent days and months, I learned that I had not just picked up a sport, I had joined a community. As I met more and more people that belonged to this community, I found a new and different world that I never would have expected. Most of the times in life when I found myself amongst a tight-knit group, it is as an outsider trying to penetrate the inner circle. Not so with paddling. With paddling, it was exactly the opposite. Every time I went on the river, people practically clamored over each other to give me pointers, tell me where to be for the next rapid, or just pluck my soggy butt out of the river when I swam. Not once (repeat NOT ONCE) did anyone in the paddling community treat me as an outsider or some newbie that needed to prove himself before he was worthy of their respect. As my confidence in my own paddling grew, so too did my trust and respect for all those that were teaching me and helping me to grow. It was this community that took me from my humble routes in a backyard creek to becoming a "real paddler."

This is the beauty of what we have as a group. Although I have grown and progressed as a paddler over the years and I am now in a position to myself be mentoring those just learning, I have never stopped learning from those around me. Everywhere I paddle, and everytime I am on the river, I am surrounded by phenomenal boaters that not only showcase their skills like an artform, but will not hesitate to share their wisdom to help their fellow paddler get to that point. Although I often see a friendly competitive spirit, I can honestly say that I have never seen one paddler actively seek to put another down or withhold information to ensure that they are "the best." In no other discipline have I seen this, and in no other community do I feel as comfortable as with paddlers.

To sum up what I am getting to with this writing, I think that my feelings on what we have as paddlers is best summed up in an epiphany that I had while paddling the Lower Yough this past summer. Showing up with one of my buddies, we met up with a group that was putting on at the same time and asked if we could join their trip. They, of course, said yes and we proceeded down the river. Over the course of that day, we paddled, played, conversed, joked around and acted as if we were old friends. After catching a ride on their shuttle, as I was driving back to the putin, I realized something: I knew nothing about these people. I knew some of their names, but I did not know where they were from, what they did for a living, their marital status, what their political views were, or any other of those factors which normally creates rifts in society. Likely in that group there were blue collar and white collar, christian and aetheist, republican and democrat but it DIDN'T MATTER. We were all paddlers and for that beautiful time period between putin and takeout, that was all we needed to be. This is why we're here, this is what we paddler for, and to lose sight of this is to lose sight of why we all put onto this river in the first place...