Kayak!

This semester at U of M, part of my teaching duties is to supervise several student interns. One of them happens to be a badass sponsored Kayaker who is doing her internship at a local community center where she and her boyfriend (also a badass) teach a kayaking class. So, as part of my supervisory duties, I participated in a class.

I’m sure I made a wonderful first impression- she gave me her spray skirt to use, couldn’t get it on over my butt, and had to have help to pull it on over my head. Then, when I went to sit in the boat (also hers), we had to remove the padding from the hip area.

Hey- life’s not always easy when you’ve got one of these:
bmw_m5_v10_2

Once I was in the water, the first thing I learned was how to bail out if I got turned upside down and couldn’t right myself. I thought it was pretty easy, though I can see how it’d freak some people out. Next, I started learning the basic roll- tipping upside down then using my paddle/hips to roll rightside-up.

After a little practice and a couple of failed attempts at doing it on my own, one of the instructors noticed that I wasn’t actually getting my paddle out of the water once I was upside-down, so I wasn’t really getting the “push” from it that I needed. So, next attempt, I fixed that, and BAM! Up I went! (which also elicited few cheers from some of the other people in the pool)

I managed a couple more successful rolls before moving on to how to paddle and turn. By the end of the class, I was actually a bit worn out. It was a lot of fun, and a useful skill to add to my repertoire.

2 thoughts on “Kayak!

  1. Bummed I missed seeing you at roll class. I went to school with said badass’ fiance…small world I’ve been trying to learn to kayak but it frankly scares the crap out of me! I’m not used to removing all usage of my legs. Good job on getting a roll in on your first time in the pool!

  2. “she gave me her spray skirt to use, couldn’t get it on over my butt, and had to have help to pull it on over my head. Then, when I went to sit in the boat (also hers), we had to remove the padding from the hip area.”

    PIX OR DIDN’T HAPPEN!
    back in 5…

    :D

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