On Fri, Sep 08, 2000 at 09:09:31AM -0400, EdSchramko_at_aol.com wrote: > By making kayaking appear to be dangerous, demanding, risky, > equipment-intensive, and needing extensive instruction from "trained" or > "certified" paddlers serves to inflate the macho image of the sport and the > egos of the participants. I think you're being a bit too tough on people who -- if anything -- are the antithesis of ego-driven macho types. Sure, kayaking on a calm bay or a class I river in mid-summer isn't that hard. You don't need much equipment; you don't need much instruction; and your chances of getting hurt are pretty minimal. But running near-floodstage class IV rivers in February (in the US northeast) is another matter entirely. Without adequate equipment, skill, and experience, the risks of mishap are pretty high -- which is not to say that this is a guaranteed recipe for disaster, or to say that having all the right gear/skill will guarantee success. It's just a statement about relative levels of risk. Personally, I like minimizing my risk to the extent possible given what I'm trying to do and what conditions I'm going to encounter. To me, that includes getting training from people who are better at this than I am, learning what equipment is best used, and so on. I don't see this from the cynical viewpoint you express above; I see this as people helping me shift the odds more and more in my favor. If anything, I'm often overwhelmed by the generosity of other people who willingly share their knowledge without compensation (or with very little compensation, certain far less than what it's worth). *Are there* macho people in the sport? Yup. *Are there* people who are using it to feed their egos? Yup. But happily, as far as I can tell, not many. In fact, they're a tiny minority, and I've noticed that many of them tend not to stay with it all that long. I think that may be (at least in the case of whitewater paddling) because rivers don't care whether you're macho or how your ego works -- they'll beat the stuffing out of you regardless. ----Rsk *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced/forwarded outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Fri Sep 08 2000 - 09:53:34 PDT
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