Sam's Blog

     So, after a few sessions in my new Level Six gear I feel now is a good time to write up a review of how I'm finding the gear! So here it goes! Here's a list of the gear I'm paddling in: Mack 2.0 dry top Hot Fuzz long sleeve thermal top Vapour short sleeve thermal top Neo lined shorts King spray skirt      To start with the top half of my gear, the Mack 2.0 is a great dry top, it allows you to move freely as well as not being loose. It's super dry and I'm actually getting off the water being dry under my gear, which is a first for a very long time! I'm using a rubber rand spray skirt for the first time ever in my paddling career and its a smooth transition other than getting used to having to put more effort into putting the skirt on. After leaving the skirt on my boat for about a week to stretch slightly it was much easier to get on and make an amazing seal with the boat due to the jagged teeth along the rand which makes great ...

    So last Saturday we had a Burners session at Lee Valley. The course had been changed so it was meant to be deep and good! When we got on the water we all played our way down the course to test each feature out to see if it was deep and good for what we were wanting to train for. As I'm wanting to train waves at the moment it wasn't great but there is a really good hole at the bottom of the Olympic! We also played on revolver for a bit. Jacko recommended trying Tricky Woos in this feature, which I was able to get one in the whole 2 hours training session.     I'd like to be able to combo better but with links like space to loop and lunar to loop. I also need to be able to keep practising my cartwheels as this will enable me to link from moves like loop and spaces to other moves like tricky woos or woo trickys.     We did  a few runs of the course and played on most of the features, near the bottom of the course there was a new wav...

Going to Heathrow getting ready to depart for my first flight ever, which was to Worlds was a hugely exciting experience. I was meant to be taking an hour break to change planes in Detroit but someone in the airplane industry decided to make my first flight exactly an hour late, allowing me to miss the connection flight by the skin of my teeth! Luckily I was put up in a posh hotel and got to see a small bit of Detroit, as well as have a proper American burger! My home for a month/paddling gear drying machine Upon my arrival in Ottawa I was told that my boat and bag had somehow been sent back to Heathrow and wouldn't be coming back till the evening. After sorting the baggage situation out I was met by Dusty, one of the Wilderness Tours staff members who was going to take me to WT. He gave me an insight of what to expect on the river and also spoke about all the other things to do in Canada! We made it to WT just in time for dinner which was great as I hadn't easte...

   On Wednesday night I headed over to lee valley for a paddle and to test the new 2016 Rockstar for Kent Canoes! The full review will be out after I've paddled it on garb. It was good to be on the water and on a wave, even though it was small and not really a proper wave. Cartwheels     The new boat was good at rotating quickly around its nose on blunts which made it easy to land in a strong recovery position! I was able to practise my blunts a lot on the wave once I'd got to the top of the pile. I feel like I need to work on switching my edges more aggressively to get a sharper angle through the air. But they are coming along despite not doing them in a few months! I also tried a K-Y which went very well and I felt like I had to proper pistol flip technique in place at the right time! Big loop on the flat     I moved down to Revolver to practise some hole moves in the new boat. In one of my first rides I was able to get a space to ...

    Yet again I was set to be spending a week up in Nottingham training for the World Championships in the coming future. As I had heard from Jamie that the course was re arranged to have some waves on I was expecting some good waves. When I arrived I found there was no inlet gate and all of the features were shallow and very hard to retain, still I had to train and make the best out of it! Going for a Loop     At the end of my first session I went away a bit dissapointed with the course and finding that I hadn't made any progression. Over the weekend Jacko was coming up for burners so I was hoping he would be able to shed some light upon my training. As Jacko was also planning on training hole moves we were all a bit lost. We all started paddling and getting used to the new set up, Jaws was the main feature we would be using as it was probably the most retainable, sort of like a really small shallow Plattling! A key thing I was trying to practise was...

    As it was half term and I had no college and Jacko was going to be in Nottingham for the weekend, I decided that I'd go up to HPP for a week just after Younguns in May! I got to Nottingham on Monday morning and went and set up my campsite. Den was up for 3 days which meant we had a great opportunity to train with him! DAY 1-Monday     We started off chatting about what I felt that I needed to be working on in both my squirt and K1 boat. We then, once everyone else had arrived got on the water and started out days training. Mainly I needed to be working on my lunars and phonics as they are extremely weak at the moment. Den pointed out that during my lunar I lean back, where I need to be leaning forward for the cartwheel end.     We then had a session on the wave above troll hole, which is really good at the moment. Nearly every move goes and sticks on there. I was able to airscrew as well as K-Y which was great for learning the movements in the wat...

    Today was the day for Younguns, I always look forward to the Nene event as it is always a good laugh and I always have fun paddling with my friends on this course! I started the day off in a JK Rockstar just to test the depth and also so that I could play in the top feature. Getting in the Jackson made me think about replacing my Jed with the new 2015 Rockstar when it gets into the UK!     After playing around in the rockstar I got into my Guigui to start training for the competition in the afternoon. The Nene pour-over is a tricky feature to do things in, this is because it's incredibly sticky and steep. I was able to get a few loops but they weren't very impressive. Mcnastys were hard for me as I kept catching my paddle blade on the feature as I'm not used to having it there! The feature was however great for phonics monkeys! You were able to get your rotation started really easily but yet again the loop was then an issue. I as ablate try the new 2015 Guig...

    Last Saturday Cardiff played host to the first GB event of the year. It was nice to be competing in a hole again and with some new faces to paddle with. As the event started later in the day I was able to get a small lay-in for some extra energy to help me get through the long day.     After registration and briefing we all got onto the water to have an hours practice on the water. I started off in my Jed just so I could test all of the features for depth to keep my Guigui from harms way! After paddling a few of the features I was happy to go swap boats, and also quite surprised of the quality of the features while on 10 cumics. Loop     While getting some practice in on the competition wave I realised that the surfers left corners was a bit of a pain to set up from but easy to paddle up into the feature from. I was able to plug fairly deep and go fairly big, but was still a bit worried about the floor as you can clearly see the blocks through...