>> instructors will sell "greenland" classes, banking heavily on the name to encourage people to take the classes, but in reality, the skills being taught may not be anything like what the natives use. as nick pointed out, the name sells ... people are making money claiming to teach something they really aren't teaching. mark >> I doubt that this Greenland certification thing came about from a desire to make money; rather, I suspect it came about because kayakers who had bought something called a Greenland paddle wanted instruction in how to use it, and many of the instructors they asked to teach them knew they knew very little about it, so they turned to the ACA. At least twice, instructors have said to me: "I don't know how this applies to a Greenland paddle...." If there weren't a demand, there would be little point in the instructors going to the time and expense of getting certified. But I think the demand probably came first. I also suspect that some ACA instructors who had learned as much as possible about Greenland technique on their own became alarmed at the number of paddlers who were using poor or inappropriate technique with their Greenland paddles, and wanted to set up a program that would help ACA instructors to at least give them the basics. I know that Doug Van Doren is one of those who started teaching the Greenland forward stroke -- or at least, his version of the Greenland forward stroke -- for this reason. Chuck Holst *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Jul 09 1999 - 10:49:20 PDT
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