Jesse Coombs sends in this from his College Tour with Sam Drevo…cool!

By Jesse Coombs

Hi EJ,

I joined the eNRG Kayaking College Tour the last two nights with Team WaveSport global team member Sam Drevo, and "Crazy" Dave Hoffman from the Valley Mill Hood- at Oregon State University in my home town and it went very well. Tuesday was a presentation on AW and showing of films. Wednesday, last night, we had over 30 people in the pool trying boats and having a blast. The turn out was so strong that we had to dig up more boats and gear from every source possible. One person especially stuck out in my mind. There is a hot tub in the same area as the pool, and Sam and I invited the people in the hot tub to come over and try kayaking if they wanted. Several were interested, and one person especially, Adam Powell, didn’t waste a second. I helped him get a skirt, paddle and a 4Fun and he was cautiously in the water getting his balance. About three minutes later he comes over to the side of the pool asking me how to do a roll. I laughed and told him that we usually teach the roll in a one-on-one setting with some time allotted for it, and I would be happy to help him next week when I wasn’t distracted coordinating boats and gear for everyone. He didn’t seem satisfied with that answer, so I offered him a couple verbal pointers on how to do the roll. Seriously not more than 10 minutes later I look over and he is rolling. I could not believe my eyes. I called over to Adam and cheered for his success with great surprise. He told me that Kate Howell, a local friend of ours from England, had taught him the roll. So Adam takes a few verbal tips from me, and a few minutes of hands on help from Kate, and he is rolling like a champ! I mean he is hitting his roll pretty much every time he tries. Sam and I were jumping up and down and awarded him with a box of Cliff bars for his accomplishment. I really don’t think Adam had any notion that rolling would be difficult to learn, he just applied himself and obviously is a very quick learner. Of course being in the always easy to roll Jackson Kayak also helped him. Sam just laughed when he saw that Adam had done all of this in a Jackson Kayak and said it was fitting. Later in the pool session I saw Adam making a couple classic mistakes with his roll, and again by giving him a couple verbal pointers he had those corrected immediately and was rolling effortlessly. When the pool session was over he gave me a big thanks and smile for helping him and said he was DEFINITELY coming back next week. I am excited to say that Adam is hooked on kayaking for sure and will be joining us on the river right away!

I also want to say thank you to Dave Hoffman, Sam Drevo and eNRG for putting this event and tour together. It is a great promotion for paddle sports and definitely great for Oregon State University and our community.
Best

Jesse

Jesse and Adam at pool