Freestyle Blog

Pyranha Fest, Tryweryn We arrived at the top of the Tryweryn after a very long night, after the car breaking down in Birmingham we were forced to stay the night in a hotel before getting up at half-six to continue our eventful journey to North wales. The day kicked off with some freestyle coaching from the Tom parker coaching team. This started off with us spending some time on the top whole working on cartwheels an splitwheels before heading down to the NRA to try and get some blunts going.After lunch we were informed there was going to be a Boater-X competition up by the chipper so I borrowed a demo boat from the phyraha stand. In the end however I didn't get through the first heat of the race although this did mean I got to play around on the top hole in a phyranha ammo for the rest of the day, this meant lots of massive loops thanks to all the extra volume. The Ammo is a great boat although the outfitting makes it really painful to carry on your shoulder. Nonetheless I had a great time playing on the top hole and paddling down the Tryweryn before getting of the water and headingto the Youth Hostel we were going to be staying in. The following day I was was booked on for the freestyle course again and my cartwheels and splitwheels progressed hugely throughout the 2 hours the course ran for. In the afternoon I decided to Demo a Pyranha Rev from the stand and I took that up to the top wave in the afternoon. The boat was way too bug for me however and I couln't really do much in it so I just borrowed other people's boats for the afternoon before paddling and Ammo down to the bottom. Overall it was an awe some weekend, if not a little tiring. Good job pyranha !
HPP Training Week The weather was fine as we got onto the course on a sunday afternoon and everything was looking good for a whole week of freestyle training at Holmes Pierre pont, Nottingham. Although the coaching didn't begin until Monday there were plenty of other Young Burners paddling on the course when we arrived. Having not been up at Nottingham for almost a year the first day provided a good opportunity to get used to the course and to establish some new moves we wanted to learn throughout the week. The following morning Tom the coach arrived and after a quick theory session it was time to get on the water again, straight away the focus on the session was on loops and I quickly began to progress towards getting the move. The next day we continued yesterday's work and very soon I was nailing loops for the first time, after loops we focused on some combo moves and cartwheels on the inlet gate before heading back to the campsite for some well deserved dinner. On wednesday we were joined by Ross Montanan who was going to be helping with the coaching along with some more young free stylers who were on the course for the second part of the week. By now my loops were pretty much sorted so my focus moved onto getting cartwheels going smoothly in the the inlet gate, although not perfect my cart wheeling defiantly improved. By Thursday the week was in full swing and everybody was doing noticeably better than at the beginning of the week. I continued to work on cartwheels as well as working on my back loops. At the end of the day we held a mini knockout competition to put our competition runs to the test. Annoyingly I flushed out of the hole after my first move and as a result didn't make it through the prelims. Congratulations to Adam however who came first after a close battle with Todd for the top spot. As it was the last night we all headed to the pub down the road for dinner instead of cooking back at the campsite. The following day however I decided to take the day off paddling due to me feeling ill the whole day. Nonetheless it was a brilliant week and I have learnt loads. Big thanks to Tom and Ross for the top-notch coaching and advice.
Butlers Youth Freestyle. Although the weather forecast was rubbish plenty of boaters turned up for the Bolsters event of the Youth Freestyle Series. The event was being run by the kayak team and as per usual kicked off with some coaching sessions to help prepare us for the competition. We started off by sitting in our boats on the dry land and learning about how we sit in our boats and what parts of our body we use for paddling. We then moved onto the water for a quick session on flat water cartwheels before some free practice on the weir before lunchtime. I never liked the pour over a bolsters but this year it was especially bad due to one of the gates being open creating some weird eddies that kept pushing away from the pour over Because of these difficult conditions the competition format was changed so that each contestant would have six goes in the hole without getting flushed out. At first I thought this was brilliant because I had been getting stuck in it all day. However during my competition runs this plan failed miserably and I ended up in a disappointing 9th place.
Pembroke shire After a very wet week's mountain biking in showdown we moved on to Pembroke shire for a week's surfing on white sands beach. The surf started off small but got up to six feet by the middle of the week allowing everyone to get warmed up before surfing in the big stuff. Trying not to back loop whenever you paddled through a wave was a challenge but you could get some awesome rides and big air once you started surfing them back in.
Bolsters Weir Because of the upcoming Bolsters youth freestyle event Jack was running an extra training session to help prepare us for the competition. The main focus was on getting our cartwheels going in the hole and how to make the most of quite a retentive feature. As a result I am much more confident about the competition on the 9th of August. Bring it on!
Ne ne Whitewater Centre The youth freestyle series continued with the ne ne competition, although the weather was far from desirable the british grand prix traffic turned out not to be too much of a problem as we made it to the Centrex well of time. The day kicked off with training on the course. I used the opportunity to get plenty of practice in pool A for the competition later that day. After an hours practice we swapped around and took part in the bungee races that were being held on the flat part of the river, surprisingly I managed to get to the final of that but did rubbish against the winners of all the other heats. In the afternoon it was time for the competition. After watching my brother do his runs with great style I had to wait for ages until it was time for my run. Overall I thought they went reasonably well although after injuring my back my roll was a bit dodgy. However I managed to achieve 7th place in the 15 and under's with 100 points and 16th place overall. Looking forward to the next event at bolsters on the 9th of august.
River Wye The time had come again for North Avon Canoe Club's Annual summer training weekend at Biblins, just below symonds yat on the wye. Just to make things complicated however, my mum and dad had been put in charge of towing the boat trailer and catering for almost fifty people! I was to help coach on the 1 star course which was quite interesting as I hadn't been thought the basics for a longtime.On the Sunday we paddled down from kern bridge down to biblins before packing up and heading home again.
Teesside Time for the second of the youth freestyle series competitions which was to be held at teesside whitewater course near middlesbourough. For us this was a four and a quarter hour journey. After staying with relatives overnight we moved on down to the whitewater course. The competition kicked off with a quick briefing and sorting into groups before we hastily got in our boats and paddled off down the course. This was my first time on the course and I was pleasantly surprised by it. There were lots of different features to play on as we made are way down the course. The muncher and valentines, two of the many stoppers on the course were great for playing apart from the shallow bottom you'd hit every time you went for a move. In the afternoon the competition proved an excellent opportunity for everyone to strut their stuff on the happy eater and the muncher. I thought my runs were alright, especially the second one where I magically only managed to flush off the feature once! After this were the boaterX races. Now that I had moved up to the 15 and under category we got to do something a bit more fun which involved sliding down a hill backwards without a spray deck, hand paddling to our paddles and racing to the bottom of the course. Overall it was a really good day, especially as I picked up a spot prize for my extreme swimming in the bottom hole!
Tryweryn We went up to the Tryweryn for the weekend because some of the coaches in our club were on a safety course so the club booked a bunkhouse and we got to spend the whole weekend paddling on the Tryweryn, on saturday we paddled the upper section 3 times in total. On sunday we help lead some of the other members o our club down the upper section, this was carnage. We had 2 swims on the graveyard, 1 on the ski jump, pretty much everyone on Mrs davis' bridge along with one dislocated shoulder and then 1 more swim through the NRA wave and Chapel falls. After this we did one more quick run of the upper section before finishing the weekend on the lower section.
Hurley Last of the Hurley sessions for the season and this time we were focusing on the competition element of freestyle doing 45 second competition runs and trying to do a scoring move every 5 seconds, this was much harder than usual, as you could never get the perfect positioning for each move and therefore just had to go for the move no where you where on the wave.
Llangollen First of the 2008 youth freestyle events and thankfully this year there was plenty of water for paddling in, in the morning we went upriver to the serpents tail to paddle down a section of the river Dee, it was great fun as there were lots of big standing waves and a muncher-style wave to get trashed in. Like last year the event was spread over 3 features along the slalom course. Out of these your top two scores were added together , sadly I managed to screw up my first run but was really happy with 7th place in the 15 and under category.
Hurley This session was mainly focused on cart wheeling and getting controlled ends on the wave, although I was struggling a bit with positioning on the wave I really loved my new boat as it was so much faster on the wave than my old 2fun. Hurley was on 3 gates so the middle gate was also perfect for blunts and other wave moves.
Hurley First time out in my new boat but unfortunately I managed to pull a muscle in my back and so ended up watching the others in the group for the session.
Got my new freestyle boat from Outdoor Active, a yellow wavesport project 45. It looks awesome!
Hurley Back to Hurley for another training session with kayak It was quite hard work because the wave would flush you out all to often. Had a great paddle nonetheless and the talk from Tim and Diane Ward (parents of Alan Ward) was really interesting.
Hurley This time just down for some fun, josh had just got a new boat - a jackson star and was eager to try it out, the weir was down to 2 gates but still got some good roundhouses and one proper blunt!!!
Ne ne whitewater centrex Due to the dart trip being cancelled with not enough water the club trip was moved to the mighty ne ne! We decided to take with us our club's topolino duo, this turned out to be great fun and a great confidence builder for everyone. Sadly however george used up all the hot water in the showers so they freezing! Never mind...
Hurley weir 3 gates again, starting to get some good roundhouses and low-angle blunts.
Hurley Weir First time on the legendary 3 gates at Hurley, it's awesome! Although there was ice in our boats when we were getting on it quickly warmed up and working on some blunts in Gate 2, I have to say they're a lot more complex than I'd first thought. After 2 hours on the water we headed back to Jack's house for tea, biscuits and some video analysis on our runs.
Mapledurham weir 26/1/08 Starting to get used to the waking up at 5:30 on a saturday morning, after the huge amounts of rain England has been having hurley was running on a very high 4 gates so the decision was to go to mapledurham instead. Disappointingly the water level had fallen overnight so the wave flushed you straight out as soon as you paddled onto it. Instead we worked on some flatwater cartwheels and eddy-line stuff. Afterwards Dennis gave us a session on mental rehearsal and going through moves in your head.
Hurley Went to the first of the Kayako Jack Training sessions at Hurley. After lots of rain Hurley weir was on 4 gates but was much nicer than I had been expecting. Jack was having us doing crossovers and lots of work on positioning on the wave which I was starting to get the hang of by the end. Some of the whirlpools below the wave were pretty exciting at times and I often found myself rolling up and quickly having my back-end sucked back down again. After that we headed to Jack's house to talk about doing SWOT analysis and setting ourselves goals for the future...
Middle Wye After the very dry white water weekend a number of us decided that a paddling trip was in order after the rain that had fallen over the past week. The river had lots of small waves and holes to play on and the sun was shining all day. The highlight was Hell Hole, a grade 3 rapid with a nice play wave on the left of the river.
NACC White Water Weekend Every year the club hold a whitewater training weekend in the Brecon Beacons. This time I was booked on for the 4 star training course. For the first day of the weekend we were scheduled to take a trip down the Rhondda, although I had never done the whole river trip I had paddled the Heritage centrex section the previous summer and was really looking forward to it. Sadly however due to the lack of rain recently It turned out that it would probably have been quicker to walk down the riverbed than to scrape our way down using whatever water we could find. In the end the trip was abandoned at about half way. The highlight of the day was definitely running through the town in our paddling kit in the search for the play wave we had been told about, in the end we found it, a tiny ripple underneath a bridge in the centrex of town. Day2 and we all agreed to paddle the Usk. Here we managed to cover a bit more of the 4 star syllabus and have some fun as well. We all had great fun in the stopper at the get out with some interesting moments for some of the members of the group.
Scotland Young Burners Went on the young burners trip to the Fort William area in Scotland. For the first day's paddling we did a warm up run on the Spean and practiced flares and boofs at the fairy steps before moving on down the river and putting in a quick run on the Arkaig. Day 2 started off with a long hard hike up the side of Glen Etive, what we found at the top however was well worth it, a little gem known as the Alt Mheraun. Although the water level was low, the rockslides and drops were wicked fun! Day three we headed over to the Alt a Cohurrangn and lots of steep, shallow rock slides. Did my first grade 5, pinball, backwards. After this the group headed to Right Angle falls, our first proper waterfall. We had all been taking turns at going first and it just happened to be my turn to run the fall, it was very, very scary. After a rest day on the Wednesday it was time to take a visit to Triple falls on the Etive before going back to Right Angle falls, I borrowed a liquid logic Jefe Chico For the day and loved every minute of it. On the Friday we got to choose where we wanted to go and what rivers we were going to paddle, we started off with a visit back to the Alt Mheuran before running the Etive. It was raining for most of the day so by the time we arrived at Right angle falls the coaches wouldn't let us run it. After that we raced over to the river Coe For a quick run. The gorge section was amazing with lots of meaty surface stoppers in quick succession.
Bolsters weir At last, the grand final. The weather was fine and the weir was flowing. Having annoyingly left my buoyancy aid at home I asked around and luckily was lent one from one of the coaches before the training commenced. The day kicked off with the Kayak team checking over our boats and kit, this was followed by a frantic warm up and us being taught how to loop and cartwheel on dry land. Interesting... After that it was time to test our skills on the feature itself. Compared with last year the hole was definitely more sticky, nevertheless everyone took turns in the stopper with cartwheels, splitwheels, phonix monkeys being some of the moves of the day When the competition began the girls were up first followed by the 12 and under's, 15 and under's and finally the 18 and under's At the prize giving I was over the moon to find out that the scoring system had been changed to one similar to that of the formula 1 style. I was presented my 1st place trophy by the one and only Shaun Baker and went home with a big smile on my face.
HPP, Nottingham Competed in the youth freestyle competition. Had a great day and my first decent surf in the Muncher. Boater X was hilarious fun with people hand-paddling and swimming all over the place. At the prize giving I was over the moon with my first place result and to be back in the running to take the 1st place trophy at the finals on Bolsters weir.