Last weekend it was time to get back in my boat! We unfortunately couldn't paddle at Hurley as the water had dropped and it was no longer working. This mean it was the 150 mile drive up to Nottingham for some hole paddling!! I was really looking forward to this after paddling waves all winter apart from the Lee Valley hole, which is shallow and not that good.
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| Space Godzilla |
We started off with a few run to get back into out hole boating shoes and getting used to continuously throwing moves. Out of no where I was starting to link and combo a few moves like: loop to mcnasty and loop the phonics. Jacko said it would be good to try linking 3 moves together and only have a 5 second break in-between these sets of moves. Starting off this was a challenge to think of 3 moves I could fit together. After opening my imagination a bit I thought of loop, mcnasty to lunar which worked as long as I was super sharp with my boat. After doing 2 sets of this I was starting to get tired already and achey due to not moving in this way all winter, but, it was so good to plug deep and go huge!
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| Loop |
After lunch we moved down to twin waves which has been changed to a really powerless small hole. This was such a disappointment s back in the summer it was such a great feature to play in. Charlie and I realised that if we went over to the other eddy we could paddle back up and do more entry moves. This was good because I really need to work on them. I was also working on my mcnasty entry move. I was also trying to keep my links going, but it was hard because there wasn't any power to keep you in the feature. This meant you were having to be very careful with the recovery of every move.
Jacko mentioned a move to me called the butterfly. This is where you start a cartwheel, loop across the hole, cartwheel on the other side then loop back across the hole the other way. I gave this a try as it would be a high scoring trophy move! It took a few attempts till I was able to get the first loop, but as I was landing the loop to then cartwheel meant I had to paddle back into the hole.
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| Loop to phonics |
We went back up to the Inlet gate for the last bit of the day. We also did some competition rides there. For my first ride which I felt went terrible I managed to score 650 which I though was amazing even though I knew I can do so much better. After finishing the comp rides I started to work on crazy fun moves like Bren Orton has been inventing. Harry and I had out check list as to what we wanted to try! We first tried the front loop to back loop entry move which I managed to do first time! Next was the space jam. As I struggle to get my bow down after a space this became a big learning curve for me!
I went back for an evening session after everyone had gone home as I was staying up for the weekend. Here I was aiming to have fun and try some new crazy things I hadn't done before. I started off with the loop and then throwing my paddle upstream while looping. I landed the loop but missed my paddle which then floated off downstream. After doing a few no paddle loops my paddle was given back to me! I then tried it again but managed to get my paddle back.
It was really good to be back in a hole and throwing different moves! I also feel like i made lots of progress with the moves I already knew as well as the ones I'm starting to learn!!
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| One handed loop |
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| Looking for the last end of the Tricky Woo |
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