After school, instead of going on the river, we all piled into Wilderness Tours Auditorium. I gave a lecture covering such things as, trust on the river and how that is a fragile gift as well as how to maintain it, how to identify different safety situations on the river and fallowing the assessment how to react. We covered the fact that we are such a big group on the water that we need to constantly be watching out for each other on and off the water. I firmly believe building a strong happens as much off the water as on and that I expect people to treat each other with this in mind, even if there are personal conflicts. There were other subjects mixed into all of this but the last one we covered was how to use a very powerful tool on the river, a throw rope.
After a long instructional on how and when to use a throw rope we went outside and spent the rest of the afternoon practicing the different types of throws. The Side Arm, Over Hand, and Under Hand. During this period we also practiced the rethrow, which will allow you to still get your rope to someone if you miss him or her on your first toss.
So after this great intensive on safety, we’ve been paddling everyday and working on new moves. Its awesome to see everybody stepping up and really helping themselves progress as much as possible with the instruction from David Spiegel and I. The thing that really gets me excited is to see how safety conscious everyone is. Great decisions are being made on the water and people are so on top of looking out for each other that the other day I saw someone wait in line for 10 minutes to surf a wave but when he saw that someone was in the water swimming he paddled right out of the line with four other guys from the school to help their fellow class mate. Pretty awesome to see! Hope everyone back home having fun and getting some beautiful end of summer weather.
Paddle Hard,
Coach Tino Specht
Tino demonstrating how to pack a throw rope correctly
Emery and Tracy practicing their technique
