Sometimes I wonder
TITS mainstreamed adventuresome
– Last Updated: Feb-07-08 8:03 PM EST –
Yes, folks like the Tsunami Rangers were out there long before TITS, but they seemed on the edges or were the elite, or the crazies of sea kayaking.
What the Tsunami Rangers were doing was clearly risky - maybe the sea kayaking equivalent of class IV-V white water. TITS showed you could have fun with sea kayaks in somewhat less harrowing situations - often the equivalent of class II-III white water.
TITS showed that sea kayaking could be fun and challenging for a goodly number of paddlers beyond the elite (or crazy).
In essence, the TITS videos mainstreamed using sea kayaks in more fun ways.
You’re right…
…I have no use for these certifications. I’m just pointing out some obvious flaws in the programs, which is one of the reasons why I have no use for them.
Me dogmatic?
Please do elaborate.
You’ve pointed out one of the other major flaws in these assessments (and assessments in general), that is that they are a snapshot in time and may have little or no bearing on one’s current abilities. For example, I’m a certified open-water diver, but I haven’t been diving in more than a decade. Would I be safe to dive now? Not a chance, yet the certification I hold allows me to do so. For that matter, my paddling skills are a bit rusty and I wouldn’t trust myself to the same degree I used to. If I held any certifications, would they reflect that? No.
I completely agree that the leadership components of these programs are valuable, arguably moreso than many of the mechanical skills. Like you, I also know 4* paddlers that I wouldn’t trust on the water. I also know a lot of uncertified paddlers that I would trust with my life without hesitation. Good judgment is not something that can be easily codified and certified.
It seems to me that the only real benefit of certifications is that for some people, they provide an incentive to get training that they should have, regardless of whether there’s an “award” for it or not. If that’s what it takes, fine, as training is good. There seems to be way to much emphasis on certification and not enough on the value of training itself.
Definitely observant
When we were doing maneuvering drills, he noticed that when I edged my Pintail to the outside, as is standard for edged turns, the edge of the aft deck actually grabbed the water, inhibiting the turn. This was something that I’d never noticed. He suggested trying an inside lean instead and we found that the boat was more maneuverable that way, not that a Pintail needs to be more maneuverable. 
Thanks, Celia
For starting this thread. Best one (and only one) I have read from start to finish in a long time. Keen insights, design knowledge, practical application, BCU/ACA/Team Zer0 - it was all good!
Scott
Thanks
I appreciate that. I was wondering how valuable some of the internal hijacks were to anyone since the mere mention of a certification on pnet starts a battle about what makes for a more useless (rather than better) paddler. But shaking my head at this stuff helps loosen up the neck from playing the violin, which is a good thing.
And spring is around the corner now anyway.
How much do you weigh? I had the same
problem in my Nordkapp and another coach had me do something different to get around it.
Dogmaticus
The Tsunami’s have a system
– Last Updated: Feb-08-08 12:36 PM EST –
and it works for them. None of them are crazy. They have been doing this since the mid-eighties. They were once filmed by National Geographic. They do not paddle in the equivalent of class 4/5 whitewater because the river and the ocean are completely different environments. Whitewater and sea kayaking are completely different sports.
TITS didn't mainstream anything. It brought the bar up higher for sea kayakers film productions. If you were just getting into kayaking around or after 2004 then you thought this set the standard. I'm not so sure. If anything it shows exactly what a cult sport sea kayaking is. In the 70's river runners occupied real band width on the show of the day, Wild World of Sports. It is still an olympic sport, along with flatwater racing kayaks. Canoeing...oh, so sorry, sea kayaking, is barely noticed. I'm not so sure that is a bad thing.
Dogmaticus
“Certification” is not the correct word
The only things you can do with assessments are to pad coaching credentials and move up to a higher level of training. There, that word, “training.” That’s all it is, that and a defined sports education theory path for coaches. Not a single person in my office knew what the hell I was talking about when I once got a (_____) .
A star test contains a syllabus the paddler performs to. If they assessed positively at whatever level They aren’t “certified” to do anything. They cannot buy compressed air with their 2. They cannot pass a drivers license test or cross a border with it. It’s just training. As I said above, I know a few people that get a little * crazy, but, almost everybody else I’ve known that does it just views it as increasing their knowledge of paddling. Should it not be ironic to you that in the lead paragraph of the iconic 5* syllabus it says that it is envisioned that the 5* is not the domain of the elite but a good standard for the average club paddler who’s paddled for around 3 years?
Dogmaticus
BNystrom says: “It seems to me that the only real benefit of certifications is that for some people, they provide an incentive to get training that they should have, regardless of whether there’s an “award” for it or not. If that’s what it takes, fine, as training is good. There seems to be way to much emphasis on certification and not enough on the value of training itself.”
“Big” versus expanding
Probably should redo that but what the heck…
While sea kayaking on the order of TITS is still a pretty niche area compared to the gazillion canoes that ply inland waters, it’s hard to think that long boating isn’t expanding via more paddlers doing things that would have seemed more risky a decade ago. Nope I have no numbers - but I know our little group around here has a core of people that are continuing to do more new things in long boats over several years ago. I am being extremely non-scientific and generalizing from what I’ve seen.
Of course, there is one thing that might help to confirm the effect of the TITS films on sea kayaking by cutting across gender differences, but I doubt it’s possible in a sea kayak. That would be if there were a way to get the same interest in kayaking from any part of the male anatomy as that achieved by having closeups of the two women surfing in those charming lacy bras.
3 years?
I guess those club members must have time to paddle a lot more evenings than I do if they can make a 5 star proficiency in that time.
Or I am a really slow and inept paddler.
Probably the latter.
That’s what it says…
but the devil is in the details. I think the wording is “after choosing a discipline”, meaning, I’m done with foundation strokes and I am going into kayak polo or inland or sea or whatever. How long it takes to get to that is entirely up to the person.
Dogmaticus
I think it is expanding somewhat
but next time you go to a dinner party and the guest list is all of non-paddlers try explaining exactly what it is you do on the weekends and vacations…oh, sorry, expeditions. Try the star assessments on them next, that’ll take a few beers, trust me.
People “get” river running because so many have signed on to raft trips and many rivers are visible from the road, houses are located on the bank, etc., It also enjoyed a modest bit of publicity in the mainstream some time ago and every few years in the olympics. When I go through my My Pictures file on the computer with the uninitiated they look at me like I’m from a different planet. They thought I just bobbed around in my little “canoe” on nice summer days. They had no idea why I would cut short a fine party on New Year’s eve to get up early for the Boating Season opener the next day. I’m trying not to split hairs here but I can’t think of kayaking and particularly sea kayaking, as anything but a cult sport. Golf, now that is mainstream. Nanu-nanu!
Dogmaticus
completely different sports?
“Whitewater and sea kayaking are completely different sports.” - dog
Well, that is a way of thinking. However, some of us think that ww and sea kayaking are different aspects of the same sport. Also, certain training/coaching entitites seem to feel that they are indeed very related.
A few paddlers I know who do both ww and sea informally refer to conditions in terms of ww/river ratings. It may not be ‘proper’ or precise, but it helps give some sense.
I find that the skills I use and develop in whitewater are similar or the same as I use while sea kayaking - especially in lumpy and moving water.
?
Agreed that sea kayaking doesn’t tie up much conversation at family gatherings. Houseboats do better.
But whassis? “weekends and vacations…oh, sorry, expeditions” Do you think that anyone confuses weekend day trips or easy overnights with a multi-day or multi-week expedition? I’m hard pressed to figure out how that could happen on the equipment requirements alone.
You guys are all right
and all smart enough to understand that we’re talking different craft for different purposes, and preferrences…that’s all. It’s when we get so enthralled with our own version of paddling (taste) and disregard others, that it gets silly.
Other than the spraydeck, PFD and
immersion apparel, I think they are vastly different. One of the funnest things in river running is to watch my newly river initiated sea kayaking buds get there clocks cleaned in a grade 2+ rapid and the subsequent tea saucer eyes, blown rolls and the like. The speed of the water for one thing is very different. It takes a rare tidal stream (Skooks or Okisollo, etc.,) to approach the speed of a whitewater drop. Not many sea kayakers doing skooks at 15 knots. Whitewater paddlers do it at 15 knots and call it a grade III. Which brings me to my next favorite figure of suspicion, grading ocean water in terms of whitewater, I-VI.
They are not the same things, which is why I mostly prefer not to mix up the rating system. I’m all for rating a sea kayak trip for the level of hazards it poses, I do not like confusing a rating system from a completely different environment to get there. Because, people have and will get confused about what it takes to safely paddle each environment and that is not safe.
Speaking of the Tsunami Rangers, they had an inciteful hazard rating system which tallied up a large number of points from cold water to surf, rocks, caves, swell, wind, etc. Let’s say you came up with a 50 point tally and the multiplier was divide by 10, the result was class 5. But when I look at the environments they are night and day different from ocean to river. A friend of mine who has been paddling class 3-5 WW for almost 20 years was impressed by the 50 on a coastal paddle but it was completely different than the class 5- drop I went over with him. I couldn’t have agreed more. The ocean did not prepare me for that, only working up in that environment could have.
How many threads on the necessity to roll come along here and other boards? It isn’t even debated in whitewater. I’m pretty sure I’ve read from you and Celia that you guys have popped your decks a number of times in an easy rapid that you might not have at sea. Me too. It’s a really different environment and I improved much faster when I quit associating them. One man’s opinion, have at it. ; )
Dogmaticus
I just call my multi-week trips
what they are:
vacations.
Because that is what I’m on. The fact that I’m in a kayak or underneath a pack doesn’t need the further window dressing like I’m William Clark or Alexander McKenzie. Another humble opinion.
Dogmaticus
Ah - got it
Too simple and straightforward for my brain today. See - I really do need to stop this job thing. It’s messing up my head.