Final week on the road in the US, more good karma

August 22, 2007

By Jez

What an amazing trip it has been. My trip to the USA was all about throwing good Karma out there and let me say mission accomplished. A huge traveling tour to many places, teaching, paddling, getting on rivers and having an awesome time. Clinics clinics everywhere. 6-7 different locations a week, teaching and having fun in the summer. Did I mention that this is my 9th year having an endless summer? Following it between Australia and USA, I got to be happy with that! That’s about 20 summers in a row.

So to end things off this week I headed to a few camps once again just to complete a few relaxed clinics and say my farewells. I also managed to fire up a few things myself including the Green, a few slides on the Toxaway and a possible first decent in Brevard. Thanks to Tom for the awesome pictures.

All in all it was an amazing summer, I managed to instruct to a stack of kids. Show some amazing paddling films to a bunch of people and basically throw out good karma to as many people as possible. Now I am catching a plane via some random stops on my way back home to Sydney. I just looked at my ticket and it’s over 30 hours of travel time. Sure I’ll need a month to get over the jet lag but at least the plane ticket was cheap.

Stay safe
jez
Jackson Kayak Coordinator of Karma

Lauren writes in about her clinics

Today is July 22 we went to camp Greystone an all girls camp. It was so cool because I’d never been to camp before and everybody was so nice. All of the girls had alot of fun and loved doing just doing wet exits. We had a race 360 competition and played sharks and minnows. Good luck to all of the girls at camp Greystone. July 23rd we went to camp Highrocks an all boys camp. More than half the kids learned to roll. All of the kids were so determined to learn something new. A lot of the kids were there most of the day. I’ so glad that kids are getting into a sport that is challenging and so much fun.
July 24th we went to Highlander a coed camp. Most kids were learning to roll. A few kids got there roll. One of the kids was learning to cartwheel, and was getting really close.After all of the campers were done, the councilors had a cookout. There is this thing at camps called a blob. And since I’d never been to camp I’d never blobbed. So the councilors let me blob. It was it was really cool. Good luck camp Highlander. July 25th we went to camp Arrowhead an all boys camp. It was a lot of fun and very crazy. We took a few of the campers down the Pigeon we had a few swims but we did really good they were catching eddys and doing small ferries. I think everybody had a lot of fun. I’m sure they’ll be on the Ocoee soon. SYOTR

July 26th we went to Falling Creek camp an all boys camp. We were working on wet exits with one class, paddle strokes and rolls with a another class. So we had a pretty big variety it was very cool. All of the kids were progressing very fast. It was a lot of fun because everybody was wanting to learn something new. I think just about everybody was or did learn something new. Keep kayaking Falling Creek camp. July 27th we went to camp Green Cove an all girls camp. Green Cove was very advanced camp and it was cool because they were all girls. I think all of the girls got there back deck roll. And we were working on cartwheels and getting pretty close. Nice to see girls paddling.Going to all these camps was so much fun. I hope they all keep paddling and progressing. Good luck. SYOTR