A week of improvements

Photo courtesy of Kayakojacko

3 things have happened this week that seem to have hugely improved my boating:

1. Hurley on a perfect 3-gates.

Hurley can be a really depressing place to be after returning from the big, fast waves of the Nile, but after 4 weeks of not a lot of boating (due to too much water - and incorrect timing of arriving at the weirs), it is a fantastic place to be - renewed enthusiasm having not really been in a boat for a while, and although it is not a fast wave it is a great place for refining technique.

2. A new boat.

I have finally got hold of a Dagger Agent - unfortunately just the prototype and not the production model, and I'm not sure yet what the differences are to the production version. However, this prototype boat is much faster than the Kingpin, although not as fast as the Crazy, which in my view is a good thing - I found the Crazy too fast, and not very easy to control, especially on smaller British waves. The biggest advantage though is the ease/speed at which it releases for blunts, enabling my blunts to be bigger and faster. It also releases well for all the oververt/upside down manoeuvres (I stuck a couple of helixes - well, felixes - at Hurley for the first time last week, a difficult feature to complete them on). The back end is also much improved from the Crazy, more rocker meaning back surfing won't always end in unintentional upside down manoeuvres.

3. A Kayakojacko lesson.

I took a 3 hour 'video session' with Kayakojacko's coach Dennis. Most of the moves I do, have been learnt by picking up a few tips here and there from friends in the eddy. However, it makes a huge difference when someone is there just to watch you and give you advice. It was fantastic.

After just a 5 minute warm-up Dennis had already spotted a number of ways of improving my blunts - some of which I already knew, but didn't know how to put them into practice (and get rid of my old, bad habits). He took me through each technique required for blunts and back stabs/blunts and told me how to mentally and physically rehearse the moves both in the eddy and out of the boat, and most importantly for me - what I needed to be telling myself when I was on the wave (normally I'm thinking of too many things which always results in big wipe-outs, or going back to bad habits). I put some of the tips into practice there and then - and was then videoed doing a number of moves that I was working on, which we later reviewed at Jacko's house over a nice cuppa. I left with a number of tips for the moves I was trying and what to concentrate on when rehearsing the moves, so over the following few days I was able to work on changes to my blunts and back stabs. Excellent.

So, wave + new boat + tips learnt from Kayakojacko has resulted in the fastest, biggest blunts and pan-ams that I've done at Hurley; landing back stabs (although quite often falling over with surprise at the end); nearly sorting out helixes on Hurley (although I've landed a couple, I'm still struggling to get them all the way round consistently); and getting closer with donkey flips (which should hopefully be working on a wave where I can get more air to help me). I'm hoping that at least a few of the techniques I've perfected this week will transfer onto the bigger, faster wave that is buseater.