Re: [Paddlewise] Rolling, rolling, keep them kayaks . . .

Richard Culpeper wrote:

[megasnip of an excellent analysis]

> Thus, for example, a rescue coordinator should assign someone capable of
> performing  an assisted rescue to do the actual rescue, and assign a more
> experienced paddler to round up the group and assist other paddlers in
> avoiding broaches and further dumps, [snip] If, however, you break everyone's
> skills down into categories such as situational awareness, technique, and
> leadership, and then try to find the best balance overall, you start noticing
> that **situational awareness and leadership skills are usually more scarce
> than technical skills,** [emphasis added] so if a rescue must include all
> three aspects, then you had better not sacrifice one entirely (e.g.
> situational awareness) simply because that person also has the best technical
> skills of several people who have requisite technical skills.

Wanted to isolate Richard's "situational awareness" point for emphasis.  I've
seen this problem several times when something nasty went down in a lab (I'm a
synthetic chemist):  after an accident, someone will immediately jump in and
start "doing" something, often out of sheer adrenaline, while the cooler heads
take a 5-second pause to size up the scene and **then** select an ordered
sequence to solve the problem.

Situational awareness is almost completely unteachable, I think, though one can
raise the awareness in others who naturally are bent that way.  YMMV

-- 
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR
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