College Clubs and Whitewater

Irish Kayaking and Canoeing discussion forum.

Moderators:Seanie, EoinH

kmck
Posts:16
Joined:Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:12 pm
Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by kmck » Mon Dec 13, 2010 11:40 am

I like the idea of the competition for varsities but the weekend does lack the time, we toyed with the idea of bank based rescue games to keep people entertained as an option. While I think it would be a good idea and has been included by trinity in their varsities and Cork some years before that, it would be something that would need to be thought out carefully and given a few dry runs, we could always try a rescue obstacle course on new years day in Kerry on the beach.

I think you can seperate the problem into a few parts:
1. Training available to a college club and the ability to access it
2. When to hire outside assitance, when your own club needs an outsider
3. River trip choice, need to be exciting versus need to cater for the weakest member of the group
4. Group structure
5: Communication

1: there are loads of instructors around that can run courses for colleges, it is also in the colleges interest to support these courses by subsidzing members. Any weekend training course run for the clubs would invite instructors from around the country so that they could get to know people in the clubs and vice a versa. Clubs run on tradition, do something once it may not continue do something twice and it is now tradition it is the useful thing about the high turnover. I strongly doubt that anyone in UCD or Trinity know why they go to lahinch for colours? Foot and mouth meant it couldn't be run in wicklow, then the next year it returned after that it became tradition, you'd be hard pressed to convince them to move it back to wicklow.

2. When training for level four and level four assement it should be an outside person for fairness, also level 3 assesment should be an outsider. If you lack the local knowledge it would be worth having a local instructor. Failing that a local paddler willing to come along is brillant.

3. This is usually where you can trace the problem when something goes wrong. The club goes on a weekend away, guidebooks checked and rivers picked, a couple of grade 2. Weekend comes around and not enough freshers are on it or the group of fit people in the morning is reduced. Plans are changed and then choice is made to go to a different river grade 3, in the groups ability but they don't know where the get on is etc.... leading to a late start, swims leading to more swims cold wet people and walking off in the dark.
The choice of river to run is always going to be the sticking point especially when we are daylight limited in what we do, you can do dawn runs before the club shows up or ensure the club trip is run well enough to allow you to get the other river in. Clubs work really well for beginners and intermediates but can be boring for your rescue.

4. How are you organised on the river, if you hire an instructor they take care of this but doesn't that limit the rescue for independent thinking of how to set up rescue? Buddy system is great if you've a number of beginners and a number of intermediates around but once again all this can be covered by training up your rescue not just internally but sending them on courses .

5: Most important comunication, not just on the water but off. Without clear communication for what rivers you want to do and what you want to achieve you can piss off your otherwise helpful oldies.
The debrief should be at the end of all trips regardless of how well or not they run as it makes it easier to do when something does go wrong.

Doing a seperate weekend also fosters links between clubs so if one club needs people to join in for a course they just have to ring their friends over in another club.

AndrewR
Posts:57
Joined:Wed Aug 04, 2010 3:00 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by AndrewR » Mon Dec 13, 2010 1:14 pm

Reliance on people who do these courses can be dangerous.

'Oh he's done a scenario course under the best instructor in Ireland, he must be capable'

So long as thats taken into account I cant see how another training course can hurt. But for it to be set apart from other like training courses like the RSRs it must actually be on grade 3 plus rapids. None of this practice on grade 2 to be safe and apply it in real situations to grade 3 because its not the same. Not even close.

We have the means to do it with guaranteed releases on certain rivers during the year, boluisce and crana to name a couple. The groups must also be small to mimic a real river group.

Maybe like a compulsory ICU level 4 mass training day the same why there is a compulsory level 5 training weekend. Hopefully comparatively cheap college prices can be arranged with the ICU with the view that this can be a long term source of income for them.

Maybe at captains and safety's the colleges can come up with a syllabus for this? Detailing exactly what the clubs want a course like this to offer as opposed to the ICU making it themselves. This can be submitted and and approved/altered by the ICU.

Ken
Posts:49
Joined:Sat Feb 02, 2008 9:49 pm
Location:DCU
Contact:

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by Ken » Mon Dec 13, 2010 2:02 pm

Why should someone leading a club trip on the Boyne (or similar, I have no idea what ye boys out west run!) have to be of the same standard of rescue as someone who is good at doing scenarios on grade 3+?

This I see as part of the problem. You don’t need to be able to do difficult scenarios in order to run an "easy river" what you do need is a certain level of paddling competency (i.e. highly unlikely to take a swim) and a good head on them so they can see hazards (like the weir on the video) and avoid/protect them as appropriate. The impression that many 1st and 2nd years get that they need to be strong level 4 paddler before they can do safety cover on a club trip is why none of them bother to gain the skills and experiences that they do need to do cover. Hence the reliance on older paddlers who have probably left college.

neiltilley
Posts:13
Joined:Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:44 am

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by neiltilley » Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:00 pm

We have a life guard in our club and he continually goes own about the lifeguard rescue events where teams compete.
Personally I think this is outrageous. Rescuing someone is not a sport and shouldnt be treated as such.
Making something a sport, makes it seem fun. As anyone who has had to deal with incidents, be it a serious pin on something hairy or just a bad swim with a few cuts and bruises, will know that its not fun for the victim and is stressful for the rescuers.

Whilst its great to practice rescuing techniques and scenarios, making it an "event" to compete in belittles the point of resucing I think.

In the most extreme cases your dealing with lives, most of the time its just bruised egos, but its still not fun.

Rescuing is not a sport.

Ps: I know its slightly off the topic.

But does any other college sports council have issues with allowing paddlers to run college trips?

We have 4 level 4 paddlers who are all competent and have REC 3s, however the college insists upon us having an outside level 3 instructor at all of our events.

tiernan
Posts:139
Joined:Tue Jul 03, 2007 6:37 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by tiernan » Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:54 pm

Really great discussion. I already know of one club thinking of organising a rescue training weekend to avail of the knowledge base that is available to them (at the moment, not necessarily for ever).
Making something a sport, makes it seem fun. As anyone who has had to deal with incidents, be it a serious pin on something hairy or just a bad swim with a few cuts and bruises, will know that its not fun for the victim and is stressful for the rescuers.

Whilst its great to practice rescuing techniques and scenarios, making it an "event" to compete in belittles the point of resucing I think.
I see where you're coming from but I totally disagree with this. I think you have the wrong attitude toward rescue in kayaking. River rescue is as much a part of the sport in WW kayaking as learning to boof or even rolling. We have competitions like the varsities or collegan so as to show that we have invested in our sport by learning techniques to negotiate rivers (and in a competitive sense win). So why not also with whitewater rescue.

This would also drive others to try learn so that they might "win". This is the exact reason lifeguards do these competitions. Even if you lose the competition you'll still come away from the whole thing better off.

Infact, I for one quite like setting up rescue and I very much enjoy when I manage to rescue someone... i'm also ecstatic when some one rescues me - so I do think that there is alot that could be gained from a competitive style weekend (lets call it "Serious Fun").

kmck
Posts:16
Joined:Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:12 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by kmck » Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:57 pm

To the off topic part yes we've had that problem for years since 2001 we've had to hire level 3 instructors. At first it's hard because you've none in club after a while you can train up people especially if they see it as a means of making a few squid. The reason for it is purely a cover your ass policy by your college. They don't really care about the students becoming competent paddlers rather that someone is there to take the blame should something go wrong.
Having instructors is good in one way but it does hinder the development of peer groups going off doing their own thing because they feel less confident in running the river by themselves. On trips you've to make the point of calling up your second years and asking them to set up rescue or tell you were to put people and why.

On using rescue skills in competition while I understand the revulsion in making a life saving technique into a competion. I can also see the benifit in practicing techniques under pressure, while in a scenario you rarely have the feeling of urgency you can take your time to think, something you rarely have in reality. The idea of pitting pairs against each other may reduce the seriousness of the technique but does create urgency which you just can't do with a scenario without putting it against the clock.

As far as syalbus goes I know Benny has one just for this purpose. It's more a matter of location and time. August has advantages because college hasn't started but it's main disadvantage is that it is still summer season regarding accomadation. You could take a day in kerry around new years where you try to do it, disadvantage to this is that it is a holiday for most of us. No water and it has it's own traditions which make it hard to change. Early April would also work as it is not exam time and there are no weekends away as far as I know.

conor_b
Posts:3
Joined:Sun Dec 12, 2010 4:19 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by conor_b » Mon Dec 13, 2010 5:20 pm

neiltilley wrote:Whilst its great to practice rescuing techniques and scenarios, making it an "event" to compete in belittles the point of resucing I think.

In the most extreme cases your dealing with lives, most of the time its just bruised egos, but its still not fun.

Rescuing is not a sport.
The point of making it a sport is not just to make fun of the act of rescuing, which in a real scenario is a pressurized and stressful situation for everyone, but to force people to think over all the possible things which might occur and then act as a team efficiently executing a plan. there a lot of developments in sport that filter into daily life and the same goes for surf lifesaving and potentially kayaking, thinking of both techniques and equipment. it does no harm to practice rescue techniques in a simulated pressurised environment, such that of a competition, which will be similar to the pressure of a real scenario. It would surely serve better than learning how you react to the pressure when your friend is getting recirculated in a hole or pinned on a rock.

It could be said that driving a bus is a serius business but bus racing exists and from that we have better bus drivers who get us where we're going faster! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh7fQz4xzW4

kmck
Posts:16
Joined:Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:12 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by kmck » Mon Dec 13, 2010 6:00 pm

Noticed that Seanie had changed the video to a different link, so I got to see the original video. Scary to watch, good for training anyway.

[Derek]
Posts:28
Joined:Fri Sep 11, 2009 3:36 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by [Derek] » Tue Dec 14, 2010 11:17 pm

We have a life guard in our club and he continually goes own about the lifeguard rescue events where teams compete.
Personally I think this is outrageous. Rescuing someone is not a sport and shouldnt be treated as such.
Making something a sport, makes it seem fun. As anyone who has had to deal with incidents, be it a serious pin on something hairy or just a bad swim with a few cuts and bruises, will know that its not fun for the victim and is stressful for the rescuers.

Whilst its great to practice rescuing techniques and scenarios, making it an "event" to compete in belittles the point of resucing I think.

In the most extreme cases your dealing with lives, most of the time its just bruised egos, but its still not fun.

Rescuing is not a sport.
I'm a lifesaving Instructor when I am in the country. How can you possibly say that competition belittles the point of rescuing..
Haven't you ever heard of
Proper
Preparation
Prevents
Poor
Performance

Thats probably the main concern that I would have for the clubs.. How many kayakers do you know that practice they're throw bag skills or systems at home??? or even with their club on the river??
I remember Benny mentioning on the Level 3 instructor how he used to practice his throw bag skills everyday before his assessment. Marking out 10-15 metres and aiming for a bike.

Its probably a good thing that this incident happened to that club.. Wake them up.. bit of a kick up the backside!

canned
Posts:83
Joined:Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:37 am

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by canned » Thu Dec 16, 2010 1:58 pm

Fking hell! Can't believe I missed this one when it originally came out! Absolutely shocking.... And tbh I haven't read every word of the replies so forgive me if I duplicate.

A few points I have seen in reading through some of the thread kind of sting a little for me.
First - I'm an OFB in that I'm 34, fat and a bastard. However, I'm now at college so am I?!
Second - I don't get to paddle as much as I'd like. But we can't all afford to spend summers in Uganda, Canada and have te time to head off to Kerry etc the moment it starts to rain. People that do that either have understanding bosses, are unemployed or have failed college because of it. I have however paddled as much as paddling's been available with the weather.
Third - I'm very uncomfortable with Jim's post - I know he's not SAYING that OFB = all talk no action but he's obviously had experience with someone (or more) in that regard and that comes through in his reply. I read it and wondered who he was talking about.

Next - Like I said, I'm now back at college and am coming to the end of my time as Captain of ULKC. In that time I haven't really had to think about developing safety stuff because we first of all started with a very strong safety base and that continued with a succession of excellent safety training and development officers.

Incidents will of course happen. And yes we should learn from mistakes BUT mistakes should not be about fucking up in terms of safety. Safety in terms of kayaking is about assessing the risk and taking steps toward reducing that risk to an acceptable level - to me, that's end of story....

To illustrate the point - let's look at the video:
Girl doesn't paddle through weir - and doesn't take the tongue through
Girl swims
Girl has horrible time
Rescue slow to react
Communication poor between rescue and main group

On review, rescue will have a hard hard time taking on their part of the girl's horrible experience - they will have trouble accepting it and therefore trouble in keeping their mind open to the available learning.
The girl herself will most likely be taking a different lesson than "paddle the tongue" - anyone with a normal disposition in beginner's shoes will more likely learn that kayaking is fundamentally unsafe and bow out of the sport completely.

Point is; you do NOT have to experience failure to learn from it, though you will experience failure.

For college clubs; I think there are 2 fundamental problems
1 - money available to do the training that people should get. Lots of clubs look at ability and experience without looking at the imperfect curriculum that is available to us. I would argue that while it is imperfect, the proficiency system linked with quality instructors and experience is a perfect mix (and hopefully the corrct future changes to the curriculum)
2 - peer paddling - early on in your paddling career this seems to be idealised as a point in ability where you are seen as someone people like to paddle with - seen as capable, reliable etc. The other side of this is negative though - when people are in clubs they find it difficult to advise someone to stay off something or pass on a negative comment. Someone could insist that they be allowed run something and to avoid a sulk someone might just decide to let them go ahead and learn from their mistakes - how bad will the mistake be though?

One thing is for sure, ever college club should definitely have a long term safety plan. I know ours includes subsidising for all levels and every year we make sure that people get the kind of training that is not just about proficiency (REC 3 etc). This year, we hope to repeat an event that we did 2 years ago with a new group. Going out a week early to Italy (before the main group arrives) for 3 days of leadership training so that the group has fresh faces in leadership roles.

Lots of colleges simply don't have the budget for such things though - we're in no doubt that we're extremely lucky in that regard.

Tony

neiltilley
Posts:13
Joined:Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:44 am

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by neiltilley » Wed Dec 22, 2010 1:25 am

In response to those who disagree with my statment about a rescue event at Varsities trivialisng rescues:

1st: I never once said that rescue work shouldnt be done as one person seemed to claim I said.
My home club regularly practices throwbagging/rescue work with our juniors. Senior paddlers in the club take turns to do it. This however is obviously different from the college club where resources, time and effort are far scarcer.

2ndly: I whole heartedly agree with the person who said that rescuing is as integral as boofing, edging, etc.... however, I just dont see the benefit in running a competitive event instead of a training weekend with qualified instructors.

3rdly: The person who says they enjoy doing rescues proves my point. I can see what they mean, it is a mad rush when you in the heat of the rescue but thats not the point of rescuing. Its about taking people out of dangerous/harmful/annoying situations. Not about having "serious fun" as they said.

4th: Can anyone point out the benefit of doing a competiton where most participants wont have been properly trained (or trained at all) instead of a training weekend(s) when the issue is that people are undertrained?

The issue is under training and lack of rescue knowledge/experince on the part of college clubs.

So why does competition like the Varsities come into a training issue?

kmck
Posts:16
Joined:Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:12 pm

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by kmck » Wed Dec 22, 2010 4:06 pm

Second largest paddling competition in the country and the largest multi-discipline, it is also one of the best chances to get as many students together as possible. Any competition/event/training booth would have to designed to support best practice, any plan would be made to do the same and it is an opportunity to see different ways of doing the same task. Just as we have the equipment shops having stalls at the events the instructors could set up stalls showing skills that can be taught, it could be as simple as having different type of throw bags to try out which one suits you best.

You would try to provide a general rescue weekend focused on second and third year club members to develop safety ethos and knowledge, this as Seanie has said could be coerced from college funding on the basis that they need it for safety. It could be argued that if college clubs got more from canoeing Ireland in the form of a weekend that their subscription to Canoeing Ireland could be increased to take account of this. The second way to get money from colleges is the idea of competitions that they can brag about winning it helps get that all important alumni funding, remeber college don't just screw you for money while you attend them they also ring you up and guilt you into giving money when you've graduated.

neiltilley
Posts:13
Joined:Sun Apr 04, 2010 9:44 am

Re: College Clubs and Whitewater

Post by neiltilley » Thu Dec 23, 2010 1:08 am

kmck wrote:Just as we have the equipment shops having stalls at the events the instructors could set up stalls showing skills that can be taught, it could be as simple as having different type of throw bags to try out which one suits you best.

Thats a very good idea. Hope somoene proposes that at the captains meeting thing.

What other people were proposing was very very very different.

Post Reply