Snappy Exit

When I was 12 years old I raced in my very first National Championships.  I was 7th on the left in the back of Orenda’s Juvenile Men’s War Canoe.  The boat was filled with 16, 17 and 18year old boys - I was really little more than filler.  We were a decent crew and our coach had convinced us that even though none of us had ever dreamed of being in an actual National Championship race we had the ability to win.

I remember the race well considering it was 27 years ago.  We were out in front of all the crews near us and I felt like we were winning.  In fact, I felt so much like we were winning I spent quite a bit of time thinking about how we were winning and looking around to try and see by how much.  Unfortunately, when we crossed the line we were second by just a few inches to the Mississauga crew that was on the far side of the course.  I felt awful.  My crew mates were pretty happy to get the silver in their first ever race, and they tried to console the 12 year old boy who was crying on the dock.  What they didn’t know, and what I couldn’t tell them was that I hadn’t given everything that I had.  Yes, I was only 12 years old and may have been half the size of some of those other boys, but I knew in my heart that if I had just not looked around so much I could have made the difference and gotten us the gold.

Lesson 1 - Leave everything on the race course every time

A few years later I was racing in my first Midget C-1 race at Nationals.  I was still young and was not expecting to win.  I did expect to surprise some people and wanted to give absolutely everything I had.  The race was in Toronto on Center Island.  The course was not great, buoys only every 100m and hard to see your lane.  When I started my heat I wanted to go as hard as I could and leave everything on the race course.  So I put my head down and went for it.  By the time I looked up I had gotten a little off course and couldn’t make out which buoys were mine, or which direction the lanes went.  I went rigght when I should have gone left.  The next thing I heard was, “NUMBER 6 STOP PADDLING!” Disqualified in my heat.  I felt like an idiot.  I knew how to steer and hadn’t gone out of my lane in years.

Lesson 2 - Doing your best means using your head as well as your body

After a few years of good racing I battled my way onto many podiums.  I had a great year in 1990, battling all summer against my hero Larry Cain and winning the entry for the 1000m C-1 at the World Championship.   The following year Larry came back full force like a true Champion and again we battled back and forth all summer.  After two European races and two sets of trials we were deadlocked.  It was determined that the World Championship entry would be decided in a one-shot race off at Nationals in Ottawa.  I thought about the race for weeks.  It consumed every waking moment.  I knew that I had to beat Larry.  That was all that mattered.  If I lost I would not go to the Worlds and I would be forced to watch him race in my place.  When the day of the race came I was focused on beating Larry.  I started OK, but he started great.  When it became obvious that I couldn’t catch him, I lost all motivation and fell to 4th place.  I was devastated.  The biggest race in my life, so many people there to watch and I had failed miserably.

The race off had taken place on the Friday of Nationals.  I still had a meaningless 500m race the next day, which I was not looking forward to.  The 10000m was my specialty and I did not believe that I could win the 500.  I sulked in my room most of the night, alone.  I considered quitting altogether.  At some point during the night though I made up my mind that I was going to go out the next day and have fun.  I would focus on myself and try and just race my own best race.  I changed my race plan so that I could try something new - race as hard as I could to the 250 and then race as hard as I could to the finish.  No break, no gliding, just racing like a mad man.  Lo and behold, when I finished the race I had won.  And I had one of the funnest races of my life.

 Lesson 3 - Focus on yourself, have fun and don’t worry about the result

Finally I would direct your attention to the day I almost won the Black Trophy.  Bob Kay and his crew went hard to the finish and it paid off.

Lesson 4 - Go hard to the finish.  This is canoeing and anything can happen.

Good luck to all Canadian canoe/kayak athletes!  This week will see the World Championships,  Atlantic Pee-wee/Bantam Championships and most important for me - Atom Champs on Lake Echo.  Next week is Nationals - GO SENOBE GO!

Ten years ago, almost to the minute, I was racing toward a bronze medal in Sydney Australia.  It is a race that I remember very well (and not just because I have watched it a million times either).  I raced great and was extremely proud of myself on that day.

I remember watching some events in the lead up to mine, and seeing disappointed faces on the second and third place levels of the podium.  I said to all the other athletes in the room that if I won a medal of ANY colour I’d be so happy that I would do cartwheels onto the podium.  Of course, I can’t do a cartwheel so I chickened out, but I did jump up there pretty quick.  What surprised me though, was how fast the elation turned into pangs of dissapointment.  I was ecstatic as they hung the bronze around my neck, but by th etime the German anthem had faded away, all I could think was that I wished I had won gold.

I guess that’s the curse of being an athlete.

I have been watching young canoers for a long time.  At times I’ve been asked to give advice and  to teach technique and generally I have agreed to do so.  It is frustrating to me that so many young canoers come up through the ranks paddling with fundamentally flawed technique, and I have often wondered how that happens and what we as a sport should be doing about it.

I think that most of the problems stem from a single mistake.  We are teaching athletes to go through the motions of paddling without understanding the connection between the movements and the force being put on the paddle.

Let’s take the hips as an example.  We all know that the hips are a major source of power in the stroke.  It is necessary that we get some forward rotation and then use the rotation to get force on the paddle.  So we generally teach kids to rotate forward with the hips, assuming that they will use that rotation to propel the boat.  The problem is that most young athletes can’t transfer that power, so they rotate forward, then rotate back without transferring any power to the paddle. This causes the athlete to lose connection, usually results in the hip moving too far back, the top hand dropping down and the paddle getting stuck at the exit.  In short, the fact that the athlete does the wrong thing with his or her hip, results in a disastrous chain of events that makes it impossible to paddle well.  If you encourage the athlete to rotate without connection, you are doing more harm than good.

I propose that we would be better off teaching the athlete to push their hips forward, and hold them there throughout the stroke, so that at least they don’t lose the connection to the paddle.  Think of it as a Hypocratc Coaching Method.   If you cannot teach someone to do something properly, at least don’t make things worse, and you make it easier to learn in future because the athlete hasn’t spent hundreds of hours ‘doing it wrong.’