Headline

July 22, 2005

Dear Mom and Dad,

Today was an awesome day. I had the morning off
after some incredible french toast and berries and then spent it helping
the Bear Paw staff understand how to use and outfit the boats. After that
I watched Anna teach with the owner Jamee and talked about technique and
boats. After watching Anna I felt all pumped up to go teach my clinic
which was from 1-4 but it ended up being 2-6 which was super cool because
we got an extra hour!

For the first hour we talked about where people
were with their rolls and they each took turns showing me their role and
a couple attempted roles… then we focused on head and body positioning
most people were shocked about being on the back deck and asked me why
Ii would do it that way while exposing myself to the rocks while a c to
c role I would be safely leaning forward.

After a 30 minute conversation on where your
head should be, people seemed to finally understand that. After that their
roles were almost there except for the head part. Almost all the students
(9 of them) had troubles with their head more then anything. Once everyone
got it except for one person who I called Strawberry because that was
her favorite flavor ice cream, I decided to try something. I took the
little bit of duck tape off my paddle…hehe and tied her helmet to her
life vest, after one try with the duck tape on she didnt miss a role after
that. So now instead of strawberry her name is "Duckie."

Another girl who was having trouble with her
head needed the duck treament but sadly i was out of duck tape. Then I
came up with the idea to buckle her helmet through her life vest strap…
this worked quite well and she didn’t lift her head after that!

In the end more then half the class was trying
hand rolls and we had Katie who was in a 2 Fun get her first hand roll
ever on the first try. Several other people we getting so close to their
hand rolls that I almost had them stay for another hour. Other girls were
getting back deck rolls, off side rolls and were bombing through the vertical
paddle drills. We were also very lucky to be in the company of Stephanie
who is 9 years old and in a demo Fun 1. Stephanie was getting very close
to her rolls by the end of the day thanks to Angie who spent most of her
time with her. Stephanie’s Mom was also getting better by the minute!

That was it for today and I got the rest of the
weekend to teach other clinics. I even get to have a private clinic with
the owner of Bear Paw, Jamee. I am looking forward to it!

Well better go there is a camp fire starting!
Keep It Up!

Em