C-Forum

Today on the Tellico river. After running baby falls like the blue angels, one open boat after another. As we sat in the eddy, we watched a couple kids jumping off the falls. The oldest one which was 16 or 17, swam over towards us to climb back up for another jump. I called him over and said to him, you should try that in a canoe. Here you can even use my helmet and lifejacket.

To my surprise, he said, OK.

(Darn, now I have to carry the boat back up I thought to myself)

Cool, meet me at the top I said to him. When we got there, I handed him my gear and stuck him in my boat. I gave him the basic info.

Keep your hand on the T-grip.
If you swim, hold on to your gear.
If you cant paddle good, paddle hard.

I let him paddle in the pool above the drop so that he could get a feel for it, and then I showed him were to go. This kid was a very quick learner and showed no fear.

Are you ready, I said. Yeah, he replied. OK, paddle, paddle, dig, cmon.
He looked like a pro as he approached the drop and even did a no-hander. The landing however wasn't so graceful, he swam. When I got down to him, he was sitting in the eddy with the GDI gang laughing.

Cool, he got a taste of it, and maybe he'll be back for more.

Before we parted ways, I gave him the resources needed to find out more about our sport (Cboats, BT, ect.) As me and the gang ran the next rapid I glanced back and he was sitting there with his friends eagerly watching and pointing.

I dun did my good deed for the day.

Alex,
That is about the coolest thing I've seen on here. You probably got a convert and Your the first I've heard of actually put your money where your mouth is like that. Congratulations.
Bill

great

NICE!

Thumbs up!

KNeal

that is AWESOME!!!

In the last month, I've gotten four newbies into a canoe. And preached the good word to countless others.

Just out there havin fun, and doing whatever it takes to get someone in a boat.

swimingmexican wrote:In the last month, I've gotten four newbies into a canoe. And preached the good word to countless others.

Just out there havin fun, and doing whatever it takes to get someone in a boat.

Yesterday I had the Maxim on flat water at a pool / lake party for my church youth group. I had a blast watching the kids try to paddle the Maxim - most instantly flipped when they got off the shore. But there were two who did pretty good, and were interested in learning more, so it looks like I have a real flat water session lined up in the next few weeks with at least one!

and why the hades do you all act so suprised, don't you know who taught him?

This is the most spot on post I've seen so far, in terms of bringing back the sport of canoeing. If us, and vendors, want the sport to grow...we need to change the mind of not only youth non-boaters, but yakers as well.

I picked up a sticker from the BlackFly tent at cheatfest and immediately slapped it on my boat... it says "Kayaking is NOT COOL"...its big and easily seen from a decent distance. I make sure to always have the left side of my boat facing the yakers... lol

Since then, it brought up countless conversations between me, rafters, yakers, people at the gas station... ect. "why is canoeing better than kayaker?" -average joe says...and of course I can tell him why...

I figure, if I can change the mind of one person to paddle a ww canoe, instead of a yak....I've done my job, obviously i'd like to change the minds of much more than that.

It has even brought on some conversations with some yakers, that take it too seriously... If they make the mistake of getting in the 'kayaking is better than canoeing' conversation with me.... I usually call them a pansy. Tell them my grandma can kayak. And tell em "let's trade boats this next rapid" ...The conversation ends pretty quickly.

If we want the sport to grow and come back... we need to CHANGE the minds of people... 1 person at a time, 1 kayaker at a time. One of the best ways to do that....is to get sick nasty skills and let your paddling do the talking.... maybe a sticker or two could let them know your stance on things =)

Also... should think about getting involved with your local colleges and starting up "WW Canoe Clubs"... the schools provide the funding for boats(which you can use)... and funding for gas (which you can paddle on).... If a bunch of us started clubs across the country... that would boom the sport in no time, you'd have a slew of college grads that would be entering the sport on their owns by the time they got out. Might even pick up a hot college girl in the process. It's a win/win situation.

Another thing I suggest, is altering the C-Videos section....to actually have links to C-videos.... Make it way more user friendly. So you can tell a person to go to cboats, click on videos and check out what you can do in a canoe.

Then fill it with some of the most entertaining canoe videos on youtube. Dooley, oliver, openboatin in norway video, and some of danflath's wilderness ww trips would be good too...as he has incredible video skills.

Even "canoes suck" video would be good. If you haven't seen it, here it is....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Esw2pL6we_0 Watch the whole thing... it's actually pretty good. The one clip of that guy snapping into that eddy super hard, has been engraved in my memory forever.

Good job Alex !!!

Alex, I like your style.

Did you give him a Honest Louie's Used Canoes business card?