It’s day two of the Bellyak progression clinic, time to get out on the water.
We head to the French Broad River section 9. When I get back on the Bellyak I feel more comfortable and ready to learn some new skills! ! I spoke to one of the instructors after the first day about my fear of hitting rocks, he explained about reading the water and looking for the “v”‘s, which are breaks in the water that form a V shape. These are normally caused by a rock sticking above water and breaking up the current.
With this in mind, I am fully prepared to attempt to read the river to avoid hitting rocks. As the day progressed, I learned the biggest lesson of all to reading the water, and it is…drum roll….DON’T look at where you don’t want to go.
As I was floating down the river I would see a large rock and think, “OH shit, big scary rock!” I would keep my eyes on it to avoid it. Not so good. This lesson was learned while learning how to ferry (drift with the water current) over to an eddie (break in the river with no current). Adam gave the instructions to point our boats upstream at an 11 o’clock angle to head left and a one o’clock to head right; AND look where you want to go. This opened up a new world for me of avoiding rocks and maneuvering my boat.
Another skill learned today is when going through a rapid; it made sense to hold onto the convenient hand straps on either side of the front boat, but don’t do this. This is not helpful because it increases the chance to flip from not being able to balance as well as when you have your arms at each side. After practicing this tip, it helped me a lot when going through rapids and not flipping.
We also practiced how to turtle flip your boat and remount in calmer waters to become comfortable and be able to do it easily. We learned more about turning into eddies and had some fun with surfing. As we learned new skills the best tip came to me from a mother goose and her babies. Haha yes, a mother goose and her three baby goslings following her all in a line moving exactly as she did. Thinking about it as I followed my instructor Adam, I started to copy every move he made, every paddle and lean he did, I did the same as we went down the rapids and I found myself maneuvering easier and feeling more confident and comfortable.
My lesson for day two is, if you want to be successful at something, learn by following the actions of someone who has had success in it. Then from there you can put your own spin on the process.
