Sam's Blog

    On Sunday we had the Olympic course for an hour shared with 2 trainee raft guide courses which meant the queues were short and you could have as many rides as you wanted.     I started off in my Jed planning to switch to my Guigui for the second hour to see which boat I paddle best at that spot. After about 30 minutes I decided to switch early to the Guigui as I was really struggling with the Jed. I found it had to stick spins and even set up for blunts as the tail is really catchy. Getting in the the Guigui, my first ride was amazing! I did a roundhouse, back stab and an air screw, which wasn't very aerial. This was the best ride I had all day. Trying for the Air Screw     For the rest of my time I found it really hard to get onto the wave, this could be because I was breaking in right below the top wave and dropping onto the wave, a posed to surfing onto the shoulder. I feel that this would work better and would set me up for a move straight away. Getting the

    On Saturday it was time for the GB team to be selected through an event at Beeston Weir up in Nottingham. This mean getting up at 5 o'clock to leave home for 6 o'clock. Luckily Mum and Dad were coming to watch me compete so Dad drove us up in the van which meant I could catch up on my sleep!     Having never been to Beeston and only seeing the seam line a few times in various different videos, I didn't know what to expect. We first met at HPP, which was unfortunately closed for cleaning. We followed Ben from HPP to Beeston. After speaking about what might be happing out at worlds depending on making the team I motivated myself for the freezing cold selections.     It was about a 10 minute walk down to the water which seemed longer with a boat and kit weighing me down. When we got there, it looked like there was a really good powerful seam line to go down in. After our briefing I went for a quick warm up like I would always do when training with Burners, so I was t

Burners on Wednesday:     As it is half term Jacko suggested an afternoon session at Hurley. Before we got onto the water we were all discussing selections and how it might pan out. We then spoke about how some of us find the second session in the day to be a better session in terms of performance. So, after warming up we got on and did some training, leaving the competition to later in the day.         After feeling all warmed up and ready to go we all got off of the water to decide how the competition would run. The girls went first so all of us boys went and stood on the bridge trying to re-enact a crowd situation. After the girls had their rides it was time for us to go get ready for our rides. My first 2 rides went really bad, after either flushing or catching edges or just not going big enough. Once Emma told me to go big I realised that I was trying to rush my moves again and stopped paying attention to each move. The 3rd ride was my best, I landed an air screw, back pan am

On Saturday night there was a pool session with the local scouts. I took my squirt boat along so that I can have some extra training before selections next week. Again I was working on my switch wheels and going over my whole run.     I started to find it fun to paddle this boat again just slowly going from end to end and spinning about on the end of the boat.     I've started to get some success which the switch wheel out of my tricky woo which makes that move 160 points.     Without squirt sticks I'm struggling to fit switch wheels into my routine as my blades are always the wrong way to get any power or stability from them. It's been a good challenge leaning to screw around as it first seemed impossible to me. When Sam helped me to finish them off at Euros my angles on the boat were super close to the water, just how the Americans do it. Clair O' suggested to me to raise them up about so that in choppier water its clear what I'm doing. Iv'e finally been

    Arriving to find the car park at Hurley was a good feeling for the day ahead, hoping that the wave would be fairly quite. After getting changed and heading down to the river, Jacko took us through some mental preparation of which we can use for mentally getting ready for our competitions. We did things like noticing which things are the same around us so that on competition day we don't treat it as any different to a training paddle. We then got on with our own warm ups individually before getting onto the water for three competition rides.     Dropping onto the wave for my first ride, I had it all planned out... Two spins, blunt, back pan am and an air screw. I nailed my spins and linked one of them into a blunt which got a link bonus. The back pan am I actually landed and stuck! And unfortunately I missed the air screw. The second ride I caught my edge doing the first spin and the third run I landed my airscrew but flushed on the back pan am. Half way through an Air

    Today was time to bring the Guigui out after splitting the nose. Hearing from Emma that it was on a green 3 was a worry for me because it meant that it was a low 3 gates, meaning I could end up hitting the floor again.     It was really nice to have the sun shining over the session! It brought a positive attitude and made the water seem warmer which made me want to try more tricks! I was mainly wanting to work on airscrews so that there can't be a repeat of hitting the floor which is still haunting me. It took a lot for me to try and get over it and throw one.     I started of messing about doing some old school moves like paddle spins and the air guitar for fun! Charlie and I also had a duo ride in the middle gate and did a high 5. Then I thought it would be fun to throw my paddle in the air and clap, which ended in me not catching the paddle and hand surfing! I then throw a blunt and was surprised that I landed and stuck it! Then I tried one on the other side which didn

    Saturday evening I had a pool session where I just wanted to go and have fun after my Lee Valley session. It was really nice to be in a warm pool instead of a cold river or course! I used my Jed again as my Guigui was waiting to go and shred at Hurley on Sunday.     I didn't have any goals for the pool session other than to have some fun! I did all of my usual thing like loops, cartwheels, spaces' and mcnastys.     I decided that I'd take my 2007 Star along with me which was the first freestyle boat I was bought back in 2010 for christmas! It was as fun blast from the past and something different. It was nice to think I was doing moves I used to dream of doing in the boat that started me out!     I also did some squirt boat training. I was working on my switching, which is where you do cartwheels but the paddle stays in the same position in the water. You move your hands around the paddle while going end to end! I need to work on this because when doing your

    On Saturday it was decided that I'd go have a session at Lee Valley to keep on adjusting to the selection feature. As usual it was a negative session from my point of view.     I stared off the session trying to stick things like roundhouses and spins. For some reason the back of my boat kept on catching. This could have been because the feature is quite steep for a wave or the fact I was in my Jed which I don't paddle much. I tried to work through getting flushed off the wave every ride and see a positive note, which was hard to do.     I tried an airscrew but yet again managed to hit the bottom, but luckily it was my plastic boat taking the beating! Still sucks though. Overall in my session I realised during selections I will have to start off with really easy moves in my rides and then progress from there as to what I throw and stick!

    All of the materials and things I needed to repair my boat had arrived Tuesday in the post. I decided that I'd start the repair Wednesday after college as it was only meant to take about 10 minutes to do. I started off by setting everything I needed up in the garden with my boat and on a table so I could have a better view of what I was doing.     I start by taking off as much as the old damaged seam as possible before the new kevlar was put on. This was to ensure there couldn't be any tufts or bumps on the new seam.   It was then time to mix the resin I'd be using to stick the kevlar to the boat. I decided to use my fibreglass resin which I use for repairing my squirt boat, thinking it would be good enough for my GuiGui. Mixing the resin is always a guess of if there is enough or not enough hardener in with the resin. I used just an old stick which I found in the garage to mix the resin and hardener throughly.     Next I put some of the resin over t