Thinking for Yourself- Green River Narrows- Unlimited Style

One of the most common mistakes that everyone makes is subconsciously following “the pack”. Naturally, if everyone is doing it, it feels like the safe thing to do. Because no one will say anything to you for following them. Therefore it is very easy to not think things through completely for yourself, and to follow the common practice. Kayaking has taught me many lessons over the years and this is one of the biggest: be yourself. Just because everyone is walking or running a rapid, doesn’t mean you should or shouldn’t. There’s not a right or wrong answer but if you are walking or running something, without identifying the reason why, then you aren’t really learning much about yourself or kayaking.

Most people walk around Gorilla when it’s low like this…. But turns out there’s an equally clean line if you think you can hit it. What was going on in my head when I first tried out this line was: “I see this line and really want to try it… but if I mess it up, I’m going to look pretty dumb in front of a lot of people…” so that being my thought process, if I decided not to run it, it would be because I’m worried about what everyone will think if I mess up. And if I do run it, it will be because I want to see in my analysis of the line I saw would work. So the right thing to do on that day was to try.

The line can be pretty gray sometimes but the challenge for today: Think for Yourself! 🙂 See ya out there! Check out this short video of low water Gorilla, Christopher Columbus line!

-Hunt Jennings

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/105478250[/vimeo]