#166 - Kayaks to Classrooms: Building an Expeditionary Studies Career with the Paddling Professor Steve Maynard

WEBVTT

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Welcome to Paddling the Blue. With each episode, we talk with guests from the

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Great Lakes and around the globe who are doing cool things related to sea kayaking.

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I'm your host, my name is John Chase, and let's get started paddling the blue.

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Welcome to today's episode of the Paddling the Blue podcast.

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Steve Maynard joins today's episode of the podcast, and Steve is referred to me by Alex Lalonde.

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Steve joins us today to talk about what is expeditionary studies,

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what was his path to teaching paddling at the collegiate level. Very cool.

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We break some paddling dogma and we share some favorite paddling venues.

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So look forward to bringing this one to you.

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Before we get to today's conversation with Steve, James Stevenson and Simon

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Osborne at OnlineSeaKayaking.com continue to produce great content to help you

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evolve as a paddler and as a coach.

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So thanks to Simon and Daniel for hosting me on their recent meetup.

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For those of us who also enjoy paddling whitewater boats, be sure to check out

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onlinewhitewater.com.

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of the page, and I hope to see you on the water.

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Enjoy today's interview with Steve Maynard. Welcome, Steve. Thank you for joining me today.

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Hi, John. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. Absolutely. You were referred

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to me by Alex Lalonde. You were his professor.

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That is correct. That's pretty cool.

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I'd love to get a chance to talk certainly about that process and the expeditionary

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studies program that you go through.

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But let's start with a little bit about what drew you to water.

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What drew me to water that's a

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very good question i think the the first time i

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really got in a kayak i'd i'd

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moved to scotland and was working in

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mountaineering trying to become a mountaineering instructor and

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somebody had just happened to leave an old kayak lying

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around at the base i was working from and i i guess i was just bored one afternoon

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and put it on the water and tried figuring things out and the rest is history

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yeah pretty much now when was that that would have been.

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86 or 87 i guess okay yeah now how did you uh how'd you build from there,

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Some of it was definitely an accident. I ended up having some fairly nasty knee

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and ankle sprains, that kind of thing, which meant I wasn't able to get on the hill as much.

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That kind of pushed me towards finding other things to do.

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And some of it was just opportunity. I ended up working for places that had

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other competent high-level kayak instructors.

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They introduced me to the british canoeing system and and yeah i think in a

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lot of ways i just got very lucky that i ended up in places where there was

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the opportunity to develop and there were people around who could help me with

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it all right now you've you've got a literally a boatload of,

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certifications and initials after your name and sorts of things and so as a

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as an educator i'm certain that developing your personal skills is an important

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thing to you so what was the process it's like for you to go through your personal

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education, which of course is always continuing?

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So for someone who's ended up as a college professor, I've got to admit I didn't

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do an awful lot of what you'd consider normal schooling.

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I was homeschooled from 11 years old until 16 when I left and joined the workforce, and,

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Pretty much didn't have much to do with formal education until I got the job at SUNY Plattsburgh.

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And that was purely based on professional certifications.

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And through the British Canoe Union, I got direct access to a master's in performance

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coaching at Stirling University.

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So I kind of skipped from, you know,

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in in the uk at 11 years old

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you do the 11 plus it's a it's a

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fairly major set of exams so i went from doing my 11 plus to joining a master's

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program with 30 30 or so years in between so that's uh that that's a brief brief

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summary of my formal education from that side of it all right now how about

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your paddle sports education,

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Again, a lot of it was just being in the right place at the right time.

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There was a spare place on a course that was running.

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Somebody dropped out of an assessment, so I got to take that space.

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My first official certification would

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have been the old british canoeing instructor award and

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that would have been early 90s i

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guess certainly not because i like being

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on assessments but i somehow somehow seem to keep getting talked into going

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to training and assessment courses by the mid to late 90s i'd done my level

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5c kayak coach then i moved to the states started getting a little more involved

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with American Canoe Association.

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Then opportunities came up, changes in the British canoeing system.

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So I updated, got the newer certifications there.

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The Masters at Stirling was part of the coaching diploma.

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So yeah, it's been an ongoing process.

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Looking back on it, if I could have planned it, I probably wouldn't have done much different.

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I certainly remember years ago, again, back in the 90s in the UK,

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people I were working with,

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their stated goal was to spend the next three, four, five years working on getting

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all the certifications they were ever going to need and then they'd never have

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to take an assessment again.

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And at the time that just didn't didn't seem didn't seem what I wanted to do I couldn't quite put a,

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couldn't quite put an explanation on why not it just didn't seem to be the best

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way of doing it so yeah I've I've enjoyed,

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you know I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna estimate once every three or four years at

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least I've gone and done a major update or a completely different certification since,

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Yeah, I would say trying to cram and affect all those certifications into a

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short period of time or build all that knowledge and build that skill and ability and then go use it.

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I don't know if I'd follow that approach either. I mean, you need some real-world

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experience to really test these things and find out what works and what doesn't

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and what you know and what you don't know.

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Yeah. And to be fair, the people who did that, they put in the time,

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they passed the assessments with a good standard.

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And some of them did realize that it was worth continuing the education.

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Some of them worked in the industry for a little while and then found other avenues to follow.

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I don't think anyone really took a shortcut. But I've just found that there's

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always something new to learn. Sure.

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I've been teaching a course with the same title for a number of years, probably 15 or 20 years.

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But every time I teach the course, I learn something new. Every time I teach

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the course, I'll change at least a few things in it.

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So, yeah, I don't think it's possible to know everything.

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Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We should all be learning every time we're going

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out in the water and every program that we're teaching, we have an opportunity

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to learn from our students and make the program better.

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Yeah, that's the goal. Who would you consider mentors?

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Early on, I got very lucky. I got to work in a place called Turravellen,

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which at the time was one of the premier sea kayak schools in the country. This is UK, Wales now.

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They were also running some of the very first whitewater freestyle rodeo world championships there.

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And i think from that era a guy called steve quentin's definitely one of my mentors.

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Superb all-around athlete very humble very good at explaining things in the

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right way to the people he was

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working with and i think i think moving on from there I was very lucky.

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I worked a lot with Andy Stant and Howard Jeffs, who were, you know,

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I guess at the time they were the top sea kayak coaches in the country.

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I've just been very lucky to work with a lot of high-level practitioners.

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What's been interesting to me

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some of the people who were my

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my students when they were first getting

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into paddle sport that they've become mentors immediately thinking of john carmody

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he was he was transitioning from very experienced deep water sailor into kayaking

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and our paths Croft. He was one of my early students.

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And he's definitely become a mentor to me.

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That's great. The student becomes the mentor. Yeah, I like that cycle.

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Sterling University, performance coaching. Tell me a little bit about that program.

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So I think the approach was made by British Canoeing.

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They realized that there was a lot of very interesting, very useful sports science out there.

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Very little, if any of it, was being written about paddle sport.

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So they wanted to fast track some of that sports science research and knowledge into paddle sport.

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So they set up a

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master's program with sterling university anybody

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with british canoeing level

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five coach award or something equivalent could get

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a streamlined entry into the performance coaching master's program there i think

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i was i was probably the third cohort to go through the program I think there

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were two people with me who were working for national centers at the time,

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two people who were ex-Olympic medalists who were working for the Olympic development

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program in one way or another.

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So again, just a great opportunity to be in the company of people who've operated

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at incredibly high levels and were just continuing their education to keep Keep

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pushing the boundaries.

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So how would you say that that program has helped your coaching?

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To a certain extent, it helped me understand what I'd been doing intuitively

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or what I'd picked up on in other ways.

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It started formalizing, okay, now I know what I was doing. Now I know why it

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worked or why it didn't work.

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So it definitely helped in that way. I think as well, it gave me a lot of extra

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tools. I think mostly on the psychological side of it.

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I had a pretty good understanding of mechanics and training and nutrition,

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though certainly developed as part of the program.

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But I hadn't really found a good source for information on the sports psychology side of things.

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Just opening the door to realizing that there were concepts out there and where

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to find those concepts and apply them and understand them.

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How does one become a professor of paddle sports?

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I think certainly there's a lot of listeners who'd like to know how they could

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become a professor of paddle sports.

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It's not an uncommon question. I think it's just stuff that I could never have

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planned. I was in the right place at the right time.

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Very early 2000s, I'd come to the States as a seasonal worker to work for Main Island Kayak.

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And I think my very first day, or maybe the second day I was there,

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I briefly met this guy who was just visiting, looking for ideas,

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talking to my boss at the time.

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Several years went by. I got married. I ended up moving to the States on a more full-time basis.

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And I just got this email one day from the guy I'd met years before,

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a guy called Larry Soroka,

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and he'd been working on getting an undergraduate degree in expeditionary studies

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approved for several years.

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He'd got it approved, but he was struggling to find suitable educators for it,

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I guess, through the normal channels.

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The university was advertising all the normal

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places but wasn't getting wasn't getting

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the applicants he was looking for and he

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just reached out to anybody he could think of saying do

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you know anybody with you know a high

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level of experience and certification and adventure sport who might be available

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and interested and other things kind of fell into place I was available I was

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interested because of my lack of formal education credentials it was a little

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interesting going through the interview and the hiring process.

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They accepted my professional credentials as equivalent to a master's degree at the time, I guess.

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So there I was. All of a sudden, I'm a tenure-tracked faculty at a university.

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That's fantastic. Probably the last thing anybody was ever expecting, I think.

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Now, when did you start with that program? Fall of 2005.

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And so that's Expeditionary Studies at State University of New York, Plattsburgh.

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Correct. All right. So tell us a little bit about the program.

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I think Larry Soroka's initial vision was he realized the number of different

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elements involved in planning and executing an expedition.

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He felt that it was more than substantial enough for a degree program.

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I think he also thought it would be beneficial beyond just teaching people how

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to do stuff in the outdoors.

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I guess all the meta skills are involved, the teamwork, the leadership,

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the problem solving, the risk management.

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I think more than once I heard him describe it as a degree in planning,

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which isn't far from the truth.

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That was definitely the vision behind it.

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The general format is very similar still.

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Students come into the program, they get

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a foundation in multiple disciplines

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very strong emphasis on outdoor living

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skills a foundation in paddle sports rock climbing ice climbing and backcountry

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skiing from there they need to select one discipline that they're going to focus

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on and a secondary discipline that they'll that they'll take to at least an intermediate level.

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The capstone of the expedition, I guess this is kind of how we got in contact.

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Alex described his expedition. His capstone expedition was, I think,

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eight weeks in Nepal pack rafting.

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The capstone has two stages. They need to write a proposal, which is,

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it's a substantial document.

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With the justification for the expedition from an expedition and a cultural

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perspective, a justification that they have the skills to carry out the expedition successfully,

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a substantial risk management plan, just all the elements that we need to see

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to say, yes, they've thought about this. Yes, they have a good chance of success.

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Yes, it is substantial enough to be a capstone project.

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The second half of the process is to go and actually do the expedition,

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which of course never goes exactly to the plan, but that's part of the reason for it.

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So to complete the expedition, then to return, write up the expedition and give

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a presentation about the expedition.

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So now not everybody's expedition is eight weeks in Nepal. Well,

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not everybody's expedition is paddle sports, obviously.

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Just for example, we recently had several groups of students go down to South

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America for backcountry skiing.

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From a paddle sport perspective, some of the more,

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Some of the more exotic expeditions, I guess, we've had students do the roof of Scotland.

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So basically a circumnavigation of the northern part of Scotland by sea kayak.

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One of the first sea kayak expeditions, I think, several students went and circumnavigated

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Isla Angel de la Guardia.

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I probably got that completely wrong, but I think it's the second largest island off of Baja.

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It's definitely down to the student to identify something that isn't something

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you can read a guidebook and go do, something that's notable.

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I think one of the goals is it helps them establish a name in the industry,

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so it needs to be notable on some level.

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There's certainly been things that maybe don't have quite such an extreme adventure

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sport element but create adventure in other ways another student and.

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Did an amazing expedition in Cambodia. I think they used a collapsible frame

00:19:24.269 --> 00:19:30.189
canoe to paddle down, I think, the Sripok River to the Mekong River.

00:19:31.149 --> 00:19:32.949
They were visiting a lot of villages

00:19:32.949 --> 00:19:36.889
with no road access, very little connection with the outside world.

00:19:37.149 --> 00:19:42.809
So along the way, they were handing out mosquito nets and teaching CPR to the villagers.

00:19:43.449 --> 00:19:46.529
They'd identified that the villagers

00:19:46.529 --> 00:19:49.869
are on the river that's that's their subsistence is

00:19:49.869 --> 00:19:52.829
fishing in the river none of them really learned

00:19:52.829 --> 00:19:55.549
to swim they they fall in they

00:19:55.549 --> 00:19:58.529
drown but being being fit

00:19:58.529 --> 00:20:02.529
people they're pretty good candidates for cpr so

00:20:02.529 --> 00:20:05.249
yeah that's that's just a

00:20:05.249 --> 00:20:08.069
few examples of the kind of expeditions that we've seen over

00:20:08.069 --> 00:20:13.589
the years that's interesting now that last one that you just mentioned so paddling

00:20:13.589 --> 00:20:20.069
in nepal and cpr and handing out mosquito nets there's a whole lot of things

00:20:20.069 --> 00:20:25.349
combined into that so how does how does one come up with all that combination

00:20:25.349 --> 00:20:27.009
and say that's going to be my capstone,

00:20:27.759 --> 00:20:33.939
It's something that we definitely remind them about it pretty much from day one.

00:20:35.239 --> 00:20:41.119
There's definitely a few students who get to one of their last semesters.

00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:46.399
They're just about to start the planning class, and they still really,

00:20:46.539 --> 00:20:48.159
really don't know what they're going to do.

00:20:48.379 --> 00:20:55.239
It's encouraged that they think about it years in advance, start collecting ideas.

00:20:56.279 --> 00:21:01.179
They're required to go to at least a handful of other senior expedition presentations,

00:21:01.819 --> 00:21:05.379
they're required to do a sophomore expedition which is

00:21:05.379 --> 00:21:08.379
not always but generally

00:21:08.379 --> 00:21:12.119
a lot more limited just as a a

00:21:12.119 --> 00:21:15.119
primer for you really do need to pay attention

00:21:15.119 --> 00:21:18.199
to this stuff but there is a lot of opportunity

00:21:18.199 --> 00:21:21.439
out there there's a number of classes where

00:21:21.439 --> 00:21:24.799
they will be looking at historical examples of

00:21:24.799 --> 00:21:27.999
other expeditions how indigenous

00:21:27.999 --> 00:21:33.759
cultures live in different places so so it's very much up to them to find some

00:21:33.759 --> 00:21:40.199
kind of inspiration and justify that what they want to do is i guess meets the

00:21:40.199 --> 00:21:45.459
criteria is is expeditionly enough but it's also feasible and safe,

00:21:46.304 --> 00:21:51.144
I love things like that that combine, you know, I want to do a trip and I want

00:21:51.144 --> 00:21:52.724
to be able to figure out how to do this.

00:21:52.844 --> 00:21:55.364
But then there's a big social good component in that.

00:21:55.504 --> 00:21:58.904
I love that groups have been able to combine those together.

00:22:00.044 --> 00:22:06.084
Yeah, it's definitely encouraged that unless they go into uninhabited mountains,

00:22:06.084 --> 00:22:12.404
it's encouraged that they understand the culture, that they interact with the culture that's there.

00:22:13.884 --> 00:22:16.864
Maybe understand previous cultures that have been there

00:22:16.864 --> 00:22:20.484
if it's more remote areas without

00:22:20.484 --> 00:22:27.024
such a history of of population they'd be expected to do more research into

00:22:27.024 --> 00:22:31.924
the flora and fauna the geology that kind of thing we definitely try and avoid

00:22:31.924 --> 00:22:35.684
that we're going to go in and we're going to conquer the mountain or we're going

00:22:35.684 --> 00:22:38.764
to get the first descent on the river and just ignore everything else.

00:22:39.324 --> 00:22:44.724
It's required that they have a good understanding of what's going on around it.

00:22:45.044 --> 00:22:50.904
That's excellent. Now, who enrolls in the Expeditionary Studies program? All sorts of people.

00:22:51.504 --> 00:22:59.824
I'm going to say 25% to 30% of our enrollees have done little or nothing in the outdoors before.

00:23:00.504 --> 00:23:05.924
So it's definitely not all kids who've grown up skiing, climbing,

00:23:06.124 --> 00:23:08.224
paddling. They've got outdoor parents.

00:23:08.684 --> 00:23:14.744
There's a substantial percentage who, whatever it is, something inspired them

00:23:14.744 --> 00:23:15.864
to do something different.

00:23:16.384 --> 00:23:20.024
And I guess the other extreme, probably around the same percentage,

00:23:20.444 --> 00:23:24.864
is those young people, the people who have been doing it for a long time.

00:23:25.024 --> 00:23:30.324
They've been involved in scouting or they've had parents or other family who've

00:23:30.324 --> 00:23:37.064
been involved in the outdoors. I think it works really well we try and avoid having.

00:23:38.175 --> 00:23:42.995
The really capable group and the not so capable group. We try and mix the people

00:23:42.995 --> 00:23:45.995
with more experience with the people with less experience.

00:23:47.075 --> 00:23:52.655
They're all learning from each other. They're all getting slightly different experience.

00:23:53.015 --> 00:23:57.375
Some of them are getting more benefit from sharing their experience.

00:23:57.555 --> 00:24:03.755
Some of them are getting more benefit from receiving that experience from their classmates.

00:24:03.755 --> 00:24:06.475
But i'm i'm not sure

00:24:06.475 --> 00:24:09.815
there's a stereotypical expeditionary studies student

00:24:09.815 --> 00:24:15.295
though where do you generally see students going after uh after graduation i

00:24:15.295 --> 00:24:20.515
think most of them go into the outdoor industry for at least a short career

00:24:20.515 --> 00:24:28.915
i really couldn't tell you percentages there's there is a significant percent who like alex who,

00:24:29.443 --> 00:24:32.783
They're making a lifelong career out of being in the outdoors.

00:24:33.863 --> 00:24:39.503
We've got students who've commercially guided Everest. We've got students who

00:24:39.503 --> 00:24:42.883
are heads of ski patrol and avalanche.

00:24:43.763 --> 00:24:52.263
We've got people, I think one of our graduates recently published a couple of climbing guidebooks.

00:24:52.263 --> 00:24:55.463
And then we've got we've got

00:24:55.463 --> 00:24:58.523
a lot of students who are definitely

00:24:58.523 --> 00:25:01.263
interested in the outdoors they've gone to

00:25:01.263 --> 00:25:06.263
work in the outdoors for at least a year or two sometimes five sometimes ten

00:25:06.263 --> 00:25:10.963
years and then transferred into another profession they they all seem to have

00:25:10.963 --> 00:25:16.423
benefited a lot the the reports we hear back from them the skills they learn

00:25:16.423 --> 00:25:20.603
through expeditionary studies the dealing with stressful situations,

00:25:20.943 --> 00:25:24.123
the problem solving, the leadership, the organization.

00:25:24.943 --> 00:25:26.603
There's a lot of feedback we

00:25:26.603 --> 00:25:30.943
get that says, that's really helped me in whatever this other career is.

00:25:31.443 --> 00:25:35.563
I would absolutely agree. I mean, the leadership, decision-making,

00:25:35.763 --> 00:25:39.283
risk management, planning, stress management, problem solving,

00:25:39.403 --> 00:25:42.583
as you'd mentioned, all of those are transferable skills to any profession.

00:25:42.923 --> 00:25:45.943
How long is the program? How long is a student involved in the program?

00:25:45.943 --> 00:25:50.563
From that side, it's a very normal four-year degree path.

00:25:50.823 --> 00:25:57.403
We do seem to get a lot of transfer students, so not all of the students are with us for four years.

00:25:57.683 --> 00:26:02.903
I would say at least a third of our students, they've done a year or two at

00:26:02.903 --> 00:26:08.423
a community college, or they've done a year or two at another university somewhere,

00:26:08.703 --> 00:26:15.703
and they've got most of their general education topics out the way and they've

00:26:15.703 --> 00:26:18.363
just realized that they want to do something a little different.

00:26:19.153 --> 00:26:22.113
And about how many students would you say go through the program each year?

00:26:22.373 --> 00:26:27.753
I think we're slowly recovering from the COVID epidemic.

00:26:28.413 --> 00:26:33.913
I think pre-COVID, we'd regularly see 20-plus students entering the program.

00:26:34.633 --> 00:26:39.973
That took a big hit. But we're slowly clawing our way back.

00:26:40.273 --> 00:26:47.613
I would say we're averaging about 12 to 14 students a year at the moment.

00:26:47.613 --> 00:26:50.873
Are there other programs like this around the U.S. and around the world?

00:26:51.273 --> 00:26:53.273
This is my perspective, I guess.

00:26:53.673 --> 00:26:59.433
There are quite a lot of other programs with a vaguely similar sounding title,

00:26:59.433 --> 00:27:01.593
but they have a different focus.

00:27:01.973 --> 00:27:07.913
I think our focus is much more on becoming skilled practitioners rather than

00:27:07.913 --> 00:27:10.133
managers who manage practitioners.

00:27:10.133 --> 00:27:15.633
There's certainly a few programs in North America who do something similar,

00:27:15.853 --> 00:27:19.073
but not as many as it initially looks like.

00:27:19.802 --> 00:27:25.082
I think it's a little more common in Europe. The outdoor industry in Europe

00:27:25.082 --> 00:27:26.482
is much more established.

00:27:27.302 --> 00:27:32.802
Mounting guiding has been a respected profession in the Alps for 100 plus years.

00:27:33.302 --> 00:27:39.842
The way the national curriculum works in the UK, the activity instructor profession

00:27:39.842 --> 00:27:42.182
was much more developed, much more respected.

00:27:42.702 --> 00:27:47.102
So I think there's probably a few more programs in Europe than there are in

00:27:47.102 --> 00:27:48.162
the States at the moment.

00:27:48.402 --> 00:27:52.842
And then there's a number of teaching areas within the Expeditionary Studies

00:27:52.842 --> 00:27:54.362
program. What are your favorites?

00:27:54.762 --> 00:27:57.302
Well, my favorites are the ones that I do.

00:27:58.882 --> 00:28:05.082
I guess when I joined the program, one of the reasons I got hired was because

00:28:05.082 --> 00:28:10.602
I'd worked in the ski industry in Europe so I could teach skiing.

00:28:11.102 --> 00:28:14.042
I still had a certification in rock climbing at

00:28:14.042 --> 00:28:17.222
the time and I think the initial thought

00:28:17.222 --> 00:28:20.382
was I'd teach a bit of paddle sport

00:28:20.382 --> 00:28:23.462
maybe a bit of outdoor living skills I'd also

00:28:23.462 --> 00:28:27.442
be helping with with the other disciplines I very

00:28:27.442 --> 00:28:30.182
quickly got so busy with paddle sport and

00:28:30.182 --> 00:28:33.322
outdoor living skills that I'll maybe

00:28:33.322 --> 00:28:36.202
tie onto the end of a rope and go rock climbing once every

00:28:36.202 --> 00:28:39.922
few years I ski recreationally teaching

00:28:39.922 --> 00:28:43.562
paddle sport and teaching outdoor living skills maybe a

00:28:43.562 --> 00:28:46.822
little more specifically the actual skills

00:28:46.822 --> 00:28:52.742
from both i enjoy i think what i really enjoy is teaching the leadership and

00:28:52.742 --> 00:28:58.442
the coaching elements of it giving people the tools not only to be a high level

00:28:58.442 --> 00:29:03.462
performer themselves but how do you how do you enable other people to be a high

00:29:03.462 --> 00:29:05.462
level performer As coaches,

00:29:05.642 --> 00:29:10.222
our goal is to make people independent as opposed to dependent on us. Yeah.

00:29:11.142 --> 00:29:14.822
Now, one of the teaching areas that I saw you work with is movement and balance

00:29:14.822 --> 00:29:16.922
in paddle sport. So tell me a little bit about that.

00:29:17.551 --> 00:29:23.071
Movement and balance in paddle sports, unfortunately, it's a class I don't get to teach much.

00:29:23.431 --> 00:29:29.791
It was originally designed around the campus swimming pool, which has subsequently closed.

00:29:30.451 --> 00:29:36.951
It was primarily a class taught in the swimming pool.

00:29:37.311 --> 00:29:41.291
I guess the underlying goal for most students was they'd learn to roll.

00:29:41.491 --> 00:29:46.091
So we would spend a significant part of each class working on rolling.

00:29:46.091 --> 00:29:50.791
I find you can only spend so long upside down underwater trying to figure things out.

00:29:51.711 --> 00:29:59.791
So we'd probably spend well over half of the class just breaking down the movement

00:29:59.791 --> 00:30:01.791
patterns involved in each stroke.

00:30:02.451 --> 00:30:06.431
How do we actually keep the boat upright when we want it upright?

00:30:06.711 --> 00:30:11.851
Certainly as playboats developed, it became possible to do more and more flat

00:30:11.851 --> 00:30:13.511
water playboat maneuvers.

00:30:13.511 --> 00:30:20.271
So i'd say primarily it happens in the swimming pool we do have a couple of

00:30:20.271 --> 00:30:26.451
kayak pro kayak ergs so we've got good opportunity to get on them and do some

00:30:26.451 --> 00:30:31.891
dry land training with videos and mirrors and stuff so people can improve their forward stroke,

00:30:32.990 --> 00:30:35.930
But yeah, that's the movement and balance class.

00:30:36.850 --> 00:30:43.130
What skills would you say that more paddlers are challenged with that they could develop?

00:30:43.370 --> 00:30:47.710
And whether that's hard skills in terms of the paddling itself or things like

00:30:47.710 --> 00:30:51.710
the leadership, decision-making, risk management, planning. So I guess I'll call it the soft skills.

00:30:52.150 --> 00:30:58.910
I think one of the things that I noticed quite a lot is people not allowing the boat to run.

00:30:58.910 --> 00:31:02.290
I see i see a lot of people getting into

00:31:02.290 --> 00:31:04.950
rough water sea kayaking in and

00:31:04.950 --> 00:31:08.130
around rocks that kind of thing it seems

00:31:08.130 --> 00:31:13.810
that they they just slow down which is a little counterproductive because most

00:31:13.810 --> 00:31:17.790
of the maneuvers we want to do in a sea kayak require a certain amount of speed

00:31:17.790 --> 00:31:23.990
one of the things that i like to develop is you know taking the emphasis away

00:31:23.990 --> 00:31:26.870
from the biggest wave or the closest to the rock,

00:31:27.230 --> 00:31:31.750
but into actually making it flow, actually maintaining a normal paddling speed,

00:31:32.070 --> 00:31:35.730
maybe taking advantage of a little bit of swell running along the rocks,

00:31:36.130 --> 00:31:40.690
actually allowing enough hull speed that edging and paddle strokes and things

00:31:40.690 --> 00:31:42.010
like that can actually work.

00:31:42.857 --> 00:31:46.897
How about from the soft skill standpoint? So there's a hard skill,

00:31:47.017 --> 00:31:48.477
but yeah, from the soft skill standpoint.

00:31:48.857 --> 00:31:54.377
I think one of the things that I see is wanting a formula.

00:31:55.137 --> 00:32:00.077
Working with other instructors and coaches, I sometimes see people,

00:32:00.097 --> 00:32:05.757
they'll have their formula that works for them, works for a lot of their clients.

00:32:06.837 --> 00:32:09.897
But sometimes they're not creative enough to see,

00:32:10.877 --> 00:32:17.017
this isn't working for this person how can i change it i think the counterpoint from,

00:32:17.637 --> 00:32:23.857
paddlers learning themselves or taking lessons that they're trying to follow

00:32:23.857 --> 00:32:29.297
what everybody else is doing whether it works for them or not they're comparing

00:32:29.297 --> 00:32:33.377
themselves to other paddlers rather than just am i developing is this the right

00:32:33.377 --> 00:32:37.477
path for me okay and paddling is not a mathematic equation either.

00:32:38.157 --> 00:32:43.937
Well, I think bits of it can be, but no, there's a lot of variables.

00:32:45.697 --> 00:32:49.837
Certainly. So there's also a lot of dogma in paddling.

00:32:50.237 --> 00:32:54.117
And I know that one of the things that you've been working on was kind of a

00:32:54.117 --> 00:32:55.737
publicly busting dogma.

00:32:56.457 --> 00:32:58.417
Where did that rumor come out?

00:32:59.657 --> 00:33:03.617
I might've seen it on a website somewhere. yeah possibly

00:33:03.617 --> 00:33:06.977
yeah i'm definitely guilty

00:33:06.977 --> 00:33:10.037
of it as well i i know that

00:33:10.037 --> 00:33:12.817
there were things that i was told back in the 80s and

00:33:12.817 --> 00:33:15.757
90s that you know because of the person who

00:33:15.757 --> 00:33:20.877
told it to me because because everybody else was doing it like that i just stopped

00:33:20.877 --> 00:33:27.257
questioning it and you know then all of a sudden something happens and you've

00:33:27.257 --> 00:33:32.397
got to question it yeah it's an interesting process You published something

00:33:32.397 --> 00:33:34.237
about the bang three times.

00:33:35.070 --> 00:33:41.350
Yeah, I vaguely remember. That was a while ago. Yeah, I think I was getting frustrated.

00:33:41.950 --> 00:33:48.170
It was a fail point on certain assessments I observed.

00:33:48.670 --> 00:33:53.110
Someone had capsized and didn't bang three times before they came out to their boat.

00:33:53.630 --> 00:34:00.410
My understanding is the banging three times, it's got several possible functions.

00:34:01.470 --> 00:34:04.950
It proves that you're not panicking underwater

00:34:04.950 --> 00:34:08.130
that you're thinking that you're you're calm

00:34:08.130 --> 00:34:13.170
and rational might also be alerting people around you i think there's a lot

00:34:13.170 --> 00:34:18.310
of better ways of showing that you're not panicking underwater and i'm not convinced

00:34:18.310 --> 00:34:23.710
that if if the people around me haven't noticed that i've capsized i'm not sure

00:34:23.710 --> 00:34:26.950
that banging on the hull of the boat three times is going to make them notice.

00:34:27.450 --> 00:34:30.890
Yeah. I kind of want to paddle like you. I want to paddle with people who've

00:34:30.890 --> 00:34:33.570
recognized that something has happened. Yeah.

00:34:34.170 --> 00:34:39.270
I think as well, banging three times on the bottom of the boat,

00:34:39.450 --> 00:34:41.890
three of anything was an emergency signal.

00:34:42.290 --> 00:34:48.610
To me, that means the person's upside down and thinking, but something's happened, they're stuck.

00:34:48.610 --> 00:34:52.350
So I need to get in and do some different kind of rescue.

00:34:52.350 --> 00:34:55.150
You i i would much rather

00:34:55.150 --> 00:35:00.430
see someone making a quick safe wet exit from the boat before their head gets

00:35:00.430 --> 00:35:04.210
bumped on the rock or something rather than taking the extra second or two to

00:35:04.210 --> 00:35:08.990
bang three times that that might be that critical is this going to turn into

00:35:08.990 --> 00:35:13.090
a real rescue or is this just going to be a bit of a swim and put someone back in the boat.

00:35:14.257 --> 00:35:19.837
Agreed. Are there other pieces of dogma that you've thought, why are we doing this?

00:35:20.637 --> 00:35:27.777
Yeah, I think another one that maybe I question is the use of tow lines,

00:35:27.997 --> 00:35:29.237
hooking up the tandem tow.

00:35:30.317 --> 00:35:34.077
I'm not even sure if it's still a thing, but for a while there was this dogma

00:35:34.077 --> 00:35:39.877
that if you were hooking up two boats for a tandem tow, you had to go under

00:35:39.877 --> 00:35:43.617
the deck line on this boat and onto the deck line on that boat.

00:35:44.257 --> 00:35:50.157
And it was all justified because it allowed the more capable person in the raft

00:35:50.157 --> 00:35:53.257
to release themselves if they needed to release themselves.

00:35:53.857 --> 00:35:59.577
I guess one thing that concerns me with that, I tried it multiple times and

00:35:59.577 --> 00:36:02.917
it never created a smooth release.

00:36:03.037 --> 00:36:08.257
More often, it ended up with the total opposite of the intended purpose.

00:36:09.277 --> 00:36:13.277
The person who was trying to extract themselves from the raft got snagged on

00:36:13.277 --> 00:36:17.057
the tow line and got pulled away from the person that they were meant to be

00:36:17.057 --> 00:36:20.177
supporting, who's now left drifting in the ocean by themselves.

00:36:21.057 --> 00:36:25.477
I think it's a great idea. If you can remember which way around to do it, it's great.

00:36:25.617 --> 00:36:30.377
But I just saw so many people hesitate trying to remember which way to do it

00:36:30.377 --> 00:36:33.417
rather than just a quick, neat hook the tow line up.

00:36:34.437 --> 00:36:38.817
And from my perspective, getting a tow line on and getting people moving,

00:36:39.737 --> 00:36:44.097
sometimes just managing that a second or two quicker can make a big difference. Thank you.

00:36:44.505 --> 00:36:48.025
Until you put those things into practice and you try them in different ways,

00:36:48.405 --> 00:36:52.185
you try the way that was the commonly accepted wisdom, maybe try the other way,

00:36:52.325 --> 00:36:56.485
see what works, see what turns into a big mess on the water and what doesn't.

00:36:56.665 --> 00:36:59.885
How about personal paddling experiences? Any favorites you'd like to share?

00:37:00.405 --> 00:37:06.825
I think I will always have a soft spot for southwest Wales.

00:37:07.505 --> 00:37:11.925
I think Anglesey is definitely a little better known. There's some excellent

00:37:11.925 --> 00:37:14.085
paddling in Anglesey in north Wales.

00:37:14.505 --> 00:37:21.565
But I think just the environment in South Wales, it's a little more open to the open ocean.

00:37:22.245 --> 00:37:26.665
There's just as significant tides and tide races going on.

00:37:27.045 --> 00:37:29.665
Yeah, I think my favorite paddle

00:37:29.665 --> 00:37:35.105
would be a circumnavigation of Ramsey and Scomar Island in South Wales.

00:37:35.885 --> 00:37:40.525
What is it about those that are special to you? I think just...

00:37:41.543 --> 00:37:47.903
The environment is so dynamic, very large tidal flow, pretty much guaranteed

00:37:47.903 --> 00:37:52.003
to find rough water in certain places, even if the ocean's flat, calm.

00:37:52.663 --> 00:37:57.083
Very good chance of having some big ocean swell coming in as well.

00:37:57.663 --> 00:38:02.843
Very important nesting ground for a lot of seabirds, breeding grounds for seals.

00:38:03.323 --> 00:38:04.963
So there's the natural element.

00:38:05.483 --> 00:38:09.323
Yeah, it's just a very special place all around.

00:38:09.983 --> 00:38:13.143
What's one place that you would love to paddle but have not paddled yet?

00:38:13.543 --> 00:38:16.583
The one that keeps getting away from me.

00:38:16.703 --> 00:38:20.643
I've done a lot of paddling on the west coast of Scotland. I spent a couple

00:38:20.643 --> 00:38:22.563
of years working on the Outer Hebrides.

00:38:22.923 --> 00:38:28.463
So I've paddled some amazing places there. But every time I try and paddle Cape

00:38:28.463 --> 00:38:33.763
Roth, I just get skunked by the weather or the military have got the firing range open.

00:38:33.763 --> 00:38:39.383
Again it's it's a uk location but i would i would really love to paddle that

00:38:39.383 --> 00:38:44.423
that northwest corner of the mainland of scotland i guess those two things the

00:38:44.423 --> 00:38:50.003
weather and firing range would certainly scare you off yeah it makes it a little tricky.

00:38:50.983 --> 00:38:55.843
So how about uh one place in the u.s that you've uh you've really enjoyed paddling most,

00:38:56.604 --> 00:39:01.304
I think my favorite place in the U.S. would be down east Maine.

00:39:01.864 --> 00:39:07.204
So from the Canadian border back to Mount Desert Island, maybe.

00:39:07.984 --> 00:39:13.184
So that far eastern stretch of the Maine coast. And what is it that the captive edge of there?

00:39:13.504 --> 00:39:16.604
I think the wildness of it.

00:39:16.944 --> 00:39:23.024
As you start getting that far down the coast, there's fewer and fewer towns, fewer and fewer houses.

00:39:23.704 --> 00:39:26.664
It's called the Bold Coast. the rumor

00:39:26.664 --> 00:39:29.304
is that it's unlandable which is is a bit of

00:39:29.304 --> 00:39:32.284
a myth but but there's some long stretches there

00:39:32.284 --> 00:39:35.064
that you probably wouldn't want to probably wouldn't want

00:39:35.064 --> 00:39:41.224
to try and land anything bigger than the kayak and and again there's there's

00:39:41.224 --> 00:39:46.864
good tidal flow along the coast it's it's certainly possible to get two or three

00:39:46.864 --> 00:39:53.704
knots of tidal tidal assistance i i think what i enjoy about that is it allows me to do longer trips.

00:39:54.344 --> 00:40:02.344
I've certainly done 30 or 40 mile there and back trips, which would be possible

00:40:02.344 --> 00:40:06.804
without the tide, but it's certainly a lot easier with two or three knots of tide helping you.

00:40:08.184 --> 00:40:13.584
And when you say down east, so to make sure that we're understanding the language and the direction.

00:40:13.784 --> 00:40:17.924
So if I'm not mistaken, down east, when I think down, I think heading south,

00:40:18.224 --> 00:40:22.684
but down east is further north out the coast toward Canada. Is that correct?

00:40:23.476 --> 00:40:30.796
It's actually not that much. It might be very slightly further north, but the main coast,

00:40:31.016 --> 00:40:37.536
initially it runs north-south around Portland, and then it runs more or less

00:40:37.536 --> 00:40:40.556
east and maybe a little bit of north in it.

00:40:41.176 --> 00:40:49.276
I think the term down east, I think it comes from the good old days of sailing

00:40:49.276 --> 00:40:51.896
boats where it was downwind.

00:40:51.896 --> 00:40:55.956
Favorite conditions to paddle in any anywhere

00:40:55.956 --> 00:40:59.536
that i can be offshore with a good

00:40:59.536 --> 00:41:02.676
long period ocean swell just just enough

00:41:02.676 --> 00:41:06.596
wind over the current to start getting some white caps but

00:41:06.596 --> 00:41:13.556
nice nice long smooth waves to get to get some assistance from big enough that

00:41:13.556 --> 00:41:17.256
you're going to have to be careful getting getting back to shore picking away

00:41:17.256 --> 00:41:22.676
back into a harbor or something so So something that forces me to pay attention.

00:41:23.156 --> 00:41:25.016
Okay. Makes you feel alive a little bit.

00:41:25.536 --> 00:41:28.536
Yeah, exactly. Excellent. Well, Steve, this has been great.

00:41:28.596 --> 00:41:31.976
I really appreciate the opportunity to connect with you, learning about you,

00:41:32.156 --> 00:41:35.876
learning about your expeditionary studies program at State University in New

00:41:35.876 --> 00:41:40.996
York in Plattsburgh, and how you got your start both as a paddler and as an educator.

00:41:41.116 --> 00:41:43.996
And this has been great. I appreciate you spending some time with me.

00:41:44.721 --> 00:41:47.801
Well, thank you. Yeah. So how can listeners connect with you?

00:41:49.461 --> 00:41:56.061
I do have a website that I'll be honest, I don't maintain it as well as I should.

00:41:56.261 --> 00:42:05.561
But my website is stevemckayak, fully spelled out, S-E-A-K-A-Y-K dot com.

00:42:06.841 --> 00:42:09.041
My contact information is on there.

00:42:09.041 --> 00:42:15.621
Or if you wanted information about the Expeditionary Studies Program,

00:42:16.581 --> 00:42:24.861
my email there is maynars at plattsburg.edu.

00:42:25.101 --> 00:42:29.101
All right. And I will make sure I put links in the show notes so people can

00:42:29.101 --> 00:42:31.921
connect with you and we'll put a link in there to the Expeditionary Studies

00:42:31.921 --> 00:42:36.601
Program at Plattsburg as well so folks can check that out. So thank you.

00:42:37.201 --> 00:42:40.101
One final question that i have for you steve who else would

00:42:40.101 --> 00:42:44.321
you like to hear as a future guest on paddling the blue well he's

00:42:44.321 --> 00:42:47.261
he's a little elusive but if you could

00:42:47.261 --> 00:42:51.401
coax him if you could coax him out of whatever expedition

00:42:51.401 --> 00:42:55.161
he's on at the moment i would love to hear john carmody super

00:42:55.161 --> 00:42:58.941
i would love to talk with john carmody so we'll work

00:42:58.941 --> 00:43:04.141
on making that happen i think john would be a an excellent guest yeah i'll uh

00:43:04.141 --> 00:43:07.981
i'll put in a good word for you i'll i'll see if i can see if i can help you

00:43:07.981 --> 00:43:12.001
track him down i appreciate that he's been a quite an influence on the sport

00:43:12.001 --> 00:43:18.141
and i think he could uh really talk about how how we can continue to grow the sport that we all love,

00:43:19.221 --> 00:43:23.241
definitely well steve again thank you very much i appreciate your time thank you.

00:43:24.709 --> 00:43:28.229
If you want to be a stronger and more efficient paddler, Power to the Paddle

00:43:28.229 --> 00:43:31.869
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00:43:31.869 --> 00:43:36.289
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00:43:36.429 --> 00:43:40.289
The concept and exercises in this book have helped me become a better paddler,

00:43:40.369 --> 00:43:41.949
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00:43:45.889 --> 00:43:50.469
low back, use the power of your torso to create leverage and use less energy with each stroke,

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use force generated from your lower body to make your paddling strokes more

00:43:54.169 --> 00:43:57.249
efficient, have the endurance to handle long days in the boat,

00:43:57.569 --> 00:43:59.409
drive through the toughest waves or white water,

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00:44:04.489 --> 00:44:09.629
And who wouldn't mind that? So visit paddlingexercises.com to get the book and companion DVD.

00:44:10.389 --> 00:44:13.669
Steve's a really interesting guy with a great, highly varied background,

00:44:14.129 --> 00:44:17.149
and he's got the career that many of us didn't even know existed.

00:44:17.789 --> 00:44:20.809
Personally, I found the paddling dogma discussion interesting as well.

00:44:21.189 --> 00:44:24.889
I tripped across something he wrote online that led me to open that conversation.

00:44:25.109 --> 00:44:28.609
And it's really interesting that in any activity, there's something that we

00:44:28.609 --> 00:44:31.829
do or we teach, and sometimes we just don't know why.

00:44:32.049 --> 00:44:34.789
And it's really good to apply critical thinking to those things.

00:44:35.149 --> 00:44:39.189
I would be interested in hearing from you on what you feel is a bit of paddling

00:44:39.189 --> 00:44:41.469
dogma and why. And here's how you can do that.

00:44:41.689 --> 00:44:46.069
Go to paddlingtheblue.com. You can click the send me a voicemail tab that appears

00:44:46.069 --> 00:44:50.529
on the right hand side of the page, or go to the contact page and send me an email.

00:44:50.709 --> 00:44:53.969
I'd love to hear from you and see what you have to say on that topic.

00:44:54.939 --> 00:44:59.599
Visit the show notes for this episode at paddlingtheblue.com slash 166,

00:44:59.759 --> 00:45:03.719
where you'll find links to Steve's website and the State University of New York

00:45:03.719 --> 00:45:05.879
Plattsburgh Expeditionary Studies Program.

00:45:06.439 --> 00:45:10.499
And as a reminder, you can find programming and trips from me at paddlingtheblue.com.

00:45:10.599 --> 00:45:11.779
I hope to see you on the water.

00:45:12.019 --> 00:45:16.759
And if you're not already a subscriber to onlineseacayaking.com or onlinewhitewater.com,

00:45:17.219 --> 00:45:21.879
use that coupon code PTBpodcast to check out, and you'll get 10% off just for

00:45:21.879 --> 00:45:23.599
being a member of the Paddling the Blue community.

00:45:23.599 --> 00:45:27.299
Thank you as always for listening, and I look forward to bringing you the next

00:45:27.299 --> 00:45:29.239
episode of Paddling the Blue.

00:45:30.179 --> 00:45:33.739
Thank you for listening to Paddling the Blue. You can subscribe to Paddling

00:45:33.739 --> 00:45:37.899
the Blue on Apple Music, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

00:45:38.119 --> 00:45:41.059
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00:45:41.219 --> 00:45:42.899
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00:45:43.079 --> 00:45:46.339
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00:45:46.499 --> 00:45:52.099
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00:45:52.099 --> 00:45:55.379
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