Cybersecurity Newsbites: Be Careful Out There: Paddling With The Big Dogs

A quick summary: I got into kayaking a little over a year ago and quickly found I enjoyed seeing how fast I could go. That lead to entering some races, then buying another kayak, and then a few months ago yet another which was longer and faster yet. The paddler is now definitely the limiting factor, both in stability and in speed. The former I'm working on, for the latter Brian Blankinship invited me to attend a race training weekend down on the nuclear-warmed waters of Lake Anna.

This has been held for a few years now on the Thursday and Friday preceding CPA's annual SK102 kayaking training weekend. SK102 has been held on the waterfront property of a CPA member for 10 of the 12 years he has lived there - the man is a saint. I spent Wednesday night loading up my truck with two boats (the Marlin for the racing clinic and the Capella for helping out in the training classes on Saturday) and all the gear and food for three days of paddling and camping. I also had to make a quick trip out to LL Bean to replace a Thule Hullaport cradle that turned out to have a cracked base. Thursday morning I packed up the tasty fruit salad and blueberry buckle Carole made for my turn at supplying breakfast to the group(forgetting the two dozen bagels and many bricks of cream cheese I had also bought) and hit the road at about 0430, arriving down at Lake Anna at about 0645.

The cast of characters included:

Holm and Melissa, the instructors - Holm was a member of the 1988 East German Olympic team and has great stories to tell of life before the wall fell and of world class kayaking. He isn't a tall guy but has a back the size of a garage door. Melissa is also a champion-class kayaker and both of them had kayaking strokes that were impossibly strong and fluid, and they paddled a variety of kayaks, none of which were much wider than a pool cue.
Jack and Anke - an East German and Russian couple living in Florida, both looked like poster models for exercise and healthy living and paddled long, skinny telephone pole like racing boats.
Cyndi and "Cabin Boy" Dave - Cyndi paddled her Nemo and Dave entertained us with his Greenland rolls in his newly built wooden kayak and his acrobatic antics in a white-water playboat. Seeing the puzzled look on Holm's face as he looked at Dave in his "red corpuscle" tulik doing qjkilkqq rolls was worth the price of admission.
Brian and Christina - both paddled Epics but Brian had just had a few quarts of transmission fluid drained from his knee and Christina had been off the water for a while. Oh, and the sun was in their eyes.
Bill - also paddling an Epic, Bill (along with Cyndi) trains with the Washington Canoe Club and was already used to world-class coaches yelling at him.
Stephen - paddling his popsicle green Huki surfski, with a hand-made matching water bladder. All he needed was a lime-green boutonniere to finish off the outfit.
Me - paddling my brand new Marlin, I felt like the "special" kid who has been mainstreamed into the Advanced Placement class. If there had been a police lineup to pick the suspect who had killed someone by paddling very fast, no one would have ever chosen me.

(Photos from this point on courtesy of Bill Woodruff)

The first day started off with a group meeting about goals and techniques and then Holm looked at each of our paddles to maximize their configuration in relation to us and our boats. I have never feathered my paddle and Holm immediately made me set it to a 45 degree feather. That was like throwing one more ball in the air for a novice juggler - what little stroke I had completely fell apart, and by the end of the day most of the skin was gone from the most useful fingers on my left hand as I slowly learned to let the paddle rotate in that hand between strokes on that side.

We then got in the kayaks and Holm and Melissa paddled alongside each of us and gave us specific things to work on. For most people that meant sitting up straighter, or keeping the top hand higher, or raching farther forward for the catch, or rotating more, etc. For me, it basically meant all those things - when Holm first watched me paddle he pretty much had the same look on his face as he did when watching Dave do the "drowning swimmer" maneuvers on his whitewater kayak. I think at one point Melissa felt bad for me and yelled out "Great breathing, John."

They then had us do a really good drill: paddle 10 strokes on the left side only, then 10 on the right side only, repeat. This really helped me focus on trying to get each aspect of the stroke right and also pointed out how each side works a bit differently since we all tend to be stronger on one side or the other. It is also exhausting, even though you go slower. That is definitely one drill I am going to continue to force myself to do. Holm also had me move my seat and footbraces forward, which helped a lot. Thanks to Cyndi and Dave who explained how to move the footbrace, which also explained the plastic bolt that had mysteriously appeared in my cockpit one day - it was one of two plastic stops that made adjusting the footbrace impossible until they are both removed.

For the next session, Holm used a video camera to tape us while we paddled past him from both sides and then towards him and away from him. Brian also taped Melissa and Holm as they paddled by the dock so we would also have the "do be" examples. After lunch we then watched the video and Holm critiqued each of us. It is amazing (and depressing) to realize how your mind and your own eyes can fool you but the video camera doesn't fall for it. Once again, for most everyone this meant working on one or two particular flaws Holm pointed out. For me, Holm asked if I had ever considered taking up the shot-put and Melissa said "your boat is nice and shiny, John."

The final session of the first day was breaking up into groups of three and practicing paddling in vee formations where the two side boats ride the wash of the center boat. Holm partnered me with Christina and Anke, realizing that my compensating for lack of paddling skill with energetic brute force thrashing would create a nice wake for them to ride. Staying in formation, and periodically switching the leader position, added yet another variable (sit straight, lean forward, top hand high, twist right hand, stab down, oops - move left, which rudder pedal is that? - get back on the wash, yikes.) I doubt that anyone watching us would have realized we were actually paddling in any kind of formation..

That night the tasty dinners prepared by the plant-killer team (lead by Cabin Boy Dave) and the animal-killer team (lead by {well, actually completely prepared by} Brian and Christina) tasted great as we sat around and shot the breeze as the lake quieted down. Holm had all kinds of funny comments, both on the state of kayak racing leadership in the US (not tremendously positive...) and to individuals: "Stephen, your boat is too small, you are man with man-bones; Cyndi, your boat is too big; Jack, you must throw your stroke away; John, perhaps you should bring fishing pole."

The next day we started at 0800 (late by East German coaching standards) and repeated the one side drills and the vee-formation drills for a bit. We then practiced starts, and Holm did a demonstration of his race start. One second he was sitting in his needle-thin kayak talking to us, two strokes later the kayak was up in the air and mostly out of the water, and in 10 seconds he was out of sight. We all just sat there gaping. If you have ever taken swing dancing lessons it was like when, after patiently showing you how to do "step, step, backstep, step" very slowly for 30 minutes, the instructors break loose into these complicated rapid dance moves. You realize these people are from a different planet, operating under some different, more kindly form of gravity or something.

We closed out the training session by paddling continually in 1/2 mile circles practicing our strokes as Holm and Melissa individually worked with us. By then, I had covered my left hand in band-aids and I think I finally got the feathering down, but I would focus on sitting up and then I wouldn't be reaching forward enough; I'd reach forward and my top hand would drop; I get my hands up and I'd be slumping, repeat. Holm: "perhaps you try competitive lumberjacking?" Melissa: "you have made real progress in looking straight ahead."

After that, Brian and Stephen and Bill and Cyndi tried paddling the variety of pencil-thin boats Holm had brought and a variety of occasional splashes ensued, and we shut down race training operations to relax and then prepare for helping out at SK102. For me, the two days were thoroughly frustrating, as while I knew I had absolutely no overall kayaking skill I thought I at least had the basics of a decent forward stroke. However, the frustration was way outweighed by the knowledge gained and the fun I had. The few times where I actually strung four or five good strokes in a row and felt the boat leap forward (OK, totter forward) gives me hope.