A great paddling day!

I had the chance to bring my students out for a very short kayaking program last Friday, and am glad I really made full use of it. The challenge was to fully utilise a 3 hour session with 42 kids, which will also have to include the shifting and fitting of all equipments from storage to the water, and back again after a washup of course.

It took 45 minutes to get eveyone into the water, with each sec 1 kids paired up with a senior. I wanted the session to be one whereby the newbies get some informal training from their seniors and an introduction to the water before their star course. And it turned out real good! I send them out in their boats without teaching a single thing, and from the first dip of the paddle each senior was busying themselves teaching basic paddling skills to the juniors. They raft up, and I just reinforced the learning points briefly.

Next, sometime I never tried before - I got the group in a raft about 30-40m facing the shore, teach the sec 1s how to disembark from their boats to get into the water, and then tell them they are to jump in from there one by one and swim to the shore, with their senior trailing in the kayak behind them. It was an exciting challenge that I think excited the seniors more than the swimmers, but all of them did the swim perfectly, with constant encouragement from the paddlers.

With a little bit of coaching about reverse paddling and seating position/boat control, it was time for the capsize drill. The seniors felt sort of deprived that they couldn't go swimming under the hot sun, and was clamouring to go in. When I told them that I'm going to grant them their wish, all went shouting "Yay! Capsize drill!!" Again, their enthusiasm rubbed onto the juniors all the capsize drill for the 21 kayaks was over in 5 minutes.

Water drained from the boats on shore, they hopped back in and proceeded back to the pontoon and the centre. With everything done, they reached the bus at 1815 - not bad at all!

Have a good feeling about the coming star course!