easy
"beginners" are just that…people starting out with little or no skills.
“Intermediate” is most people on here.
“Advanced” is people that can actually show intermediate people something.
“God-like” is reserved for myself.
I just paddle…
…but my favorite was meeting some one in a guide training class who announced she was an intermediate and had been paddling for six years.
For some strange reason, though, she didn’t know how to do a rescue…
I’m not as good as I once was
experienced
Depends much on where you live. Can’t very well expect that a person that lives say in Kansas will have the open ocean experience that a person that lives on the coast has. Those on a coast may someday have to try a very large lake and see that their skills may not have prepared them for these waters either. Don’t be so quick to judge those that only paddle lakes.
Bill H.
context
Agreed context is important especially if using simple terms such as beginner, novice, intermediate, and advanced. This part of why both the ACA and the BCU often designate type or environment.
However, some paddling skills are the same and most skills transfer well. A major incentive when we started paddling and training in ww was to hone our skills for coastal kayaking.
what I paddle is rivers
1)beginner) total yard sale after a swim, swim being caused by losing control, and plowing into a canoe playing in a hole, that does not move, because they’re playing in a hole.
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intermediate) likes to play in holes, doesn’t get flustered when beginner plows into them, simply continues playing, lets beginner have their yard sale.
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advanced)does not bother playing in holes 'cuz they’re too busy running the gnar, gnar being
Expertise is always a scale that compares one paddlers to some other paddler or group of paddlers.
In my time with the US Marines I learned about responsibility for any given level of expertise. If it were to spill over into the world of kayaking the USMC would probably describe them this way:
Beginner.
When paddling with a friend or group of friends you are not to blame.
Intermediate.
When paddling with a friend or group of friends you are partly to blame.
Advanced.
When paddling with a friend or group of friends you are mostly to blame.
Expert.
When paddling with a friend or group of friends ---- It’s all your fault.
Humor aside, skills are learned and held-onto by practice, but no one knows what they don’t know. So titles are given by others.
What those titles TRULY mean varies person to person, so any group of 10 people who all have the same title are still going to have varied depths of skills and abilities.
How we can truly know what someone does or doesn’t know is based on what they can do and if they are also instructors it’s also based on how well they can communicate their own skills for absorption by less learned students.
On two scales of 1-10, ------ a solid 6 in kayaking skill who is a 10 in teaching ability is likely to be of more value to a new student then a solid 10 in kayaking skills who is a 3 at teaching those skills
Titles are an “umbrella” over the subject matter, but the true value in any leader is their ability to help others more then their ability to do what their students can’t do.
That said, it’s still awe inspiring to watch skill levels that are so elevated that they are captivating, even if you are not learning from them all that much.
As with the rest of life, in kayaking , good judgement come from valuable experience, but unfortunately the most valuable experience’s comes from a bad judgement.
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My definition of “good” skiing or paddling is efficiency. Both should be effortless AND powerful. Of course you need movement analysis skills to assess.
I say this as an instructor, IT, and / or ITE for multiple disciplines, a sprint athlete who trained under several national team coaches, a PSIA certified alpine ski instructor, and a USSS licensed alpine race coach.
The beginner / intermediate realm… it can and is highly dependent on local conditions.
However in the upper realms… having trained with and coached athletes who are on the world stage, very, very few recreational people ever reach the status of being a true “expert”. Often those who are true experts have national team experience. And I think you will find that the best would ever define themselves as “expert “.
“Experienced”, as the OP referred to, means nothing to me. I’ve had “experienced” instructor candidates who were absolute shit shows. Zero technical ability. Zero MA ability. And I have had second year paddlers who crushed the examine, because they surrounded themselves with extraordinarily knowledgeable paddlers who took them under their wings.