K. Whilden wrote: > > Okay, > Here's something I've been pondering for a while. Why is it so hard to > teach an SO how to kayak? I've experienced numerous instances of > minor relationship difficulties when teach my various SO's how to eskimo > roll or paddle whitewater or sea. Or how to ski, snowboard, flyfish, sail, or climb. Probably everything except maybe ballroom dancing! In your position as an instructor, your students are coming to you, soliciting your advice. SO's probably see it as unsolicited advice and they see you saying to them "you're not as good as me, here's what you need to do!" This is probably an oversimplification, but having your friends teach them would eliminate the relationship hassles. So was this person already an ex-SO when you took them on the whitewater trip? It would definitely go a long way toward proving a hypothesis!! I'm hoping to get my wife into cross-country skiing this winter. I just found out that one of her best friends is an XC nut and she used to race in high school! I know my wife will learn to ski more willingly from her than me, so I'll just facilitate it and encourage her friend to join us as much as possible. An interesting aside: the friend's boyfriend is also learning to ski, so I'll probably take on teaching him, and save her the relationship hassles of teaching! Shawn >I teach kayaking professionally, and one > might expect that it would be easy for me to teach an SO. But not so, I > have just as much difficulty as anyone else. Small correctional comments > and tips that are well received by my students are instead met with > defensiveness or animosity. And one really interesting thing happened this > past summer. I took a recently ex-SO along on a whitewater class, and > after the class she said, and I quote, "wow, I never realized before that > you were such a good instructor". We had dated for a year and paddled > together lots, although I had given up trying to teach her whitewater, and > instead relied on friends to teach her. > > I think it's a physical law of the universe that you can't teach kayaking > to your SO. > > Cheers, > Kevin -- Shawn W. Baker 0 46°53'N © 1999 ____©/______ 114°06'W ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^\ ,/ /~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^ baker_at_montana.com 0 http://www.missoulaconcrete.com/shawn/ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Nov 05 1999 - 08:11:11 PST
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