Tyrone Slothrop
I can cook for six people with my eyes closed and one hand tied behind my back.
But I’ve totally forgotten how to cook for just one person.
*borps*
Good morning from sunny #Slovenia!
Had a quiet night in the tent, got woken up by a cuckoo.
I’ll have to move my tent again - accidentally set it up next to where the group tent / social hub of the kayak school will be. I’m happy to chat with people, but I don’t need *that* much social life.
I’m camped next to a couple with a toddler, and I’ll say that small kids waking up early in the morning are totally fine for me, as long as I’m not the one who’s supposed to look after them 🤗
MOTD
„ Ich sitze still und lasse mich bescheinen
und ruh von meinem Vaterlande aus.“
- Kurt Tucholsky, Park Monceau
https://www.zgedichte.de/kurt-tucholsky/park-monceau.html
My body tells me it needs some rest. My mind is a hamster running in a little wheel, shouting “when do we go out on the water? When, when, when?”
So I’m making a compromise: another paddler is doing a short, playful run, and I’m joining him.
Ok, this was a long-ish play run. Very chill.
The Soča river is stunningly beautiful, as always. So good to be here.
I’ve booked a “play the river” course for the week, where we’ll be practicing pirouettes, rock splats and the like.
It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for years- but it will be exhausting 😅
Friends.
If you play djembe
And you ever go camping
DO NOT BRING THE FUCKING DJEMBE
Today is break day on the kayak course. The road out from the campground is blocked for resurfacing, and there’s thunderstorms predicted.
We’d happily paddle in the rain, since we get wet anyway, but lightning strikes are a risk when you’re the highest thing on a flat water surface.
Yesterday’s run was super nice, and humbling: we’re training doing basic eddy maneuvers in exactly the wrong ways.
Every whitewater kayaker learns: when you exit the eddy, raise the upper edge. If you’re in danger of tipping over, support yourself with the paddle.
We practice keeping the boat flat, lowering the upper edge (the thing you must normally not do, ever), and rather tip and roll than support 😬
kayakpatrick@slothrop I always find this so hard. My body is trained to protect that upstream edge. It takes a ridiculous amount of focus and will to do it "wrong" after so many years.
@kayakpatrick Yes! And even worse:
This whole set of movements is totally counterintuitive to an experienced whitewater kayaker. You have to build a whole additional set of reflexes, and learn to deploy it at will.
Good thing we started on an absolutely undemanding section. We used maybe six eddy lines, where we spent four hours practicing.
@slothrop I'm glad to hear it's not just me that trouble with stern squirts. The class sounds awesome, even with the dreary weather.
@kayakpatrick oh, it is! The coach and her husband been running this kayaking school for 20+ years, and they’re really good at it.
They’re very focused on teaching good technique. Repeat customers like myself know they’re not signing up for an “experience”; we want to be taught how to do it right.
In practice, that means running the same eddy line 30 times in a row, each time hearing “your stroke was a tiny bit late, and you need to lean forward a little more”
@kayakpatrick in yesterday’s feedback round, the coach asked whether we had minded all the repetitive exercise and direct feedback.
I told her that I had gotten exactly what I signed up for 😊
@slothrop So much of kayaking, in my opinion, is muscle memory. You want things to be second nature and not something you have to think about. Doing something over and over until you get it right is such a great way to learn long-lasting skills.
@kayakpatrick yes, exactly.
In whitewater kayaking, the difference between “knowing how to do it” and “ability to execute” is especially stark.
The water doesn’t stop to wait.