Coaching with Paul Bull Day 2: The Leven, South Lakes

Paddlers:  Dom, Schneids, Spud. Ruth was meant to be there but unfortunately was in the wrong country.

Coaches: Paul and his mate Gary, another coach who came along for a nice scenic paddle. A very good value coach:student ratio!

Walking down Smithdown to meet Dom at the fairly civilised time of 7.10am, I realised that it was snowing and dreaded another epic 10 hour drive to the Lakes. However, this time our delays were caused by traffic and not extreme weather! Dom picked up me and a rather woebegone Spudley – all kayaked out after a weekend on the Dee and the Mawddach plus having flu. My continual encouragements of “it’s good practice for Scotland!” were not particularly well-received.

We reached the Leven in cold sunshine and got changed – I discovered the joys of owning a cag that is not an XS i.e. I can put it on by myself without suffocating or dislocating a shoulder. Our pre-river briefing included a great talk from Paul on leadership including group kit, responsibilities, CLAP (if you don’t know this, look it up! :p) and how one could go about getting to know the group they were leading. The coaching on leadership principles continued throughout the day, fitting in nicely with our personal skills development. During this briefing it also transpired that Paul had never done the Leven before – this made us think a lot harder about our leading…

The first rapid was a weir leading into a drop on the left of an island. Although it drops suddenly it’s quite friendly and going left either spits you into an eddy or in Dom’s case onto a rock and into a roll. We ran it a couple of times to experiment with angle of entry and using timed power strokes to get to close eddies at the bottom. This was good to make us think about using only necessary paddle strokes to the best effect without wasting energy paddling hard at the centre of everything! Brute strength and speed is not a substitute for technique. The next weir was broken down with several green tongues available, so we ran that many times trying to get various ribbon eddies rather than just picking the easiest route down.

Next stop was a boulder garden, grade 3 at the top running into grade 2. I don’t think I have ever caught so many eddies in 100metres, probably dozens. Paul and Gary set us objectives each time we ran it so by the end we were breaking down the rapid nearly rock by rock so we could get to whatever position of most usefulness we wanted to be in. We felt we had earned our lunch by this point and fished it out of Dom’s boat. After another flat section we came to the weir before Backbarrow Bridge. Avoiding the swans, we scraped down the right hand side of the main weir and carried on to Backbarrow, where we quickly portaged to carry on with our coaching session on the next section of river. I still have an appointment with that rapid…

A natural triple drop weir below Death Weir in the sunshine started us off on the lower Leven which I had never done before. We reached another grade 3ish boulder garden and our eddyhopping began again in earnest. This one seemed more challenging, highlighted by the mine and Spud’s simultaneous pinning. I very slowly shuffled around my boulder (self rescue is the best rescue!) while Spud was getting too friendly with a tree branch in a small eddy. Dom, in the same eddy, just sat there having decided that Spud was not in mortal danger and he couldn’t do anything useful (a fair assessment). Gary, however, took pity on her and came and rescued her. I believe this is a technical.

Next came a huge water slide weir which Spud and I ran side by side. We stopped short of the duo high five as she nearly binned me at the bottom. The last rapid was a blind bend around an island, which put our leadership coaching into perspective. I missed the main eddy at the top and ended up going first around the corner, it was exciting but quite friendly and I caught the next eddy although I had lost line of sight.

Some more sunny flat water brought us to the get out. Once shuttling and racking etc was complete we trooped into the hotel at the get-in to have a hot drink and a cosy debrief with Spud’s lemon cakes. We felt a bit out of place in the hotel as it looked a bit posh for thermals and wellies. To Spud’s dismay she had to change out of her pyjama bottoms.

Once again we had a great day with Paul and Gary – thanks a lot to Paul for the excellent coaching and Gary for providing amusing comments and a helping hand. The lucky chaps are off paddling for another few days, but there should be some photos appearing on Paul’s facebook page soon. Thank you Dom for driving as well.

Schn

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