Well, I have been hoping that some other ACA certified instructors are in the wings ready to answer some questions, but...maybe they are waiting for someone else to start! Since I recently publicized a course on this list, I guess I should rise to the bait. Teaching kayaking has gone from a full-time job/activity for me to 1/3 to half time in recent years (age?, who knows). I got my first certification for whitewater in about 1989 while in Idaho from a woman named Dana Olson-Elle. I really learned a lot in the course - not only in terms of peer review but just in terms of seeing how other people teach and picking up different tricks for my own bag. I found her to be very responsible and concerned with high standards. Rob Lesser sat in on the class as he was also concerned about standards. I re-certified a few years ago with Mary and Phil DeReimer and found their standards to be very strict - but also oriented towards performance. In the few years I had been away, many new nuances in technique had been developed. Also, they had taught in the southeast and brought some new ideas to the northwest. Because of these experiences, and for a few other reasons, I brought Cathy Piffath and Jeff Cooper to Washington for the coastal cert. I had the same experiences over again - while I've been teaching since 1984-ish, I stretched my bag of tricks, got great peer and instructor review and learned updated paddling techniques. One of the things the ACA focuses is on is teaching the different learning styles of students (thinkers, feelers, watchers, doers) and how to address them - like "deliver, demonstrate, do". Much focus is on "modeling" strokes for students and to this end much time is spent on strokes - not only doing them efficiently without wasted motion, but showing them. For this we use video review. The classic thing that comes out with the video, for example, is problems in the forward stroke. We've all heard to use more torso rotation, letting the stroke move through the body, utilizing the feet and thus use bigger more powerful muscles and not just the little arms. How many people have you seen tell you this, but not show any torso movement? Or if you point out "your torso isn't moving" they say things like - "oh yes it it, you just can't tell because my lifejacket is hiding the movement". The video, along with one-on-one coaching, is great for this. I actually had the pleasure of being invited to a USCKT coaching clinic for flatwater. We followed the athletes in the little motor boats while they did the forward stroke and I shot pictures of torsos in various stages of rotation just to see the the accentuated movement. With those athletes, you can also see the degree to which their legs are really pumping. At any rate, I found teaching people to teach great fun, and when working with Perception on dealer training and kid's clinics organized a ACA cert for dealers in Florida using Tim Bates from the Univ. of Minn at Diluth (coastal kayaking). Tim and Randy Carlson have developed a very sensible approach to teaching instructors. It does include a power forward as well as touring forward storke, all the braces, draws rescues and whatnot. While it is hard to assess common sense and judgement, trip planning, navigation, and on water leadership are incorporated. The goal is to satisy three areas to 80% (including showing three rolls in succesion) in order to be competent teaching beginners. So I have been working towards an IT status in Coastal Kayaking. It has been a long process and probably still will be. I've worked with and co-taught with maybe nine different IT's and have learned from all of them. I've found that what really seems to be the case in the ACA is that a lot of sharing goes on around the US (with trickles coming in from the BCU) so that if instructors branch out and audit other courses the technique base is always updated. Two other points to address - last spring two BCU coaches sat down with Randy at a course here in Washington and compared notes and found the two systems had a lot in common. Also, the ACA is introducing "modules" now that one can add-on to a cert - such as sufing, etc. This addresses regional differences in needs and conditions. Well, I hope I don't get flamed! But any constructive conversation is certainly welcome. If you would like to see the curriculum of the upcoming IDW, it is posted at http://www.viewit.com/KIX/ACA_Coastal_Kayak2.html ( put up a quick-and-dirty web page using an export program). Talk about rambling! Thanks, Andree | Hurley Design Communications-Web Site Creation and Implementation | | Bainbridge Island, ahurley_at_viewit.com -> http://www.viewit.com/HDC/| |New: http://www.kayakproshop.com/ - http://www.goanimal.com/ | | http://www.windridernw.com - http://www.viewit.com/OIWC/ | *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Oct 05 1998 - 09:37:47 PDT
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