Kayak Pool Lessons Berrien Paddler’s Club

Lori Stegmier and I had a great pool session with the Berrien Paddler’s Club. We had a full pool doing rolling and rescues. We had some old friends in the pool, John Anderson, and Mary Jo Isbrecht, Carolyn, and John from South Haven, but along with them a host of new students.

It’s always great to have a group of new students alongside old students. John Anderson was working on a re-enter and roll without a paddlefloat on his own, which he swore he’d never be able to do last year. I saw him nail it repeatedly. Further, Carolyn is working on a roll with a paddle float, which she also swore she’d never do. Mary Jo is soooo close on nailing her paddle float re-enter and roll. I have to admit my biggest sense of accomplishment isn’t teaching somebody to do something they want to do. I’ve really gotten a kick out of slowly pushing someone beyond their comfort zone to master a skill they never thought they could even attempt. My work in the pool this year has primarily been working with my core group of students on this set of skills.

The exercise has been well worth it as everyone has made huge progress. And I think I’ve learned a lot about different types of students approach different types of skills. I’ll be posting more of this article later this winter.

The new students in the pool were amazing, we had two students working on a high brace progression and nearly rolling in the first lesson, we had three other students developing healthy hip snaps and working towards the high brace progression.

We hope to work with this club again soon on further kayaking skill sessions.

A big thank you to Frank Eichenlaub and his wife for organizing and orchestrating the pool session. We need more of this type of support for South West Michigan Paddlers.