Cancelled

Unfortunatley we have had to cancel the Leo Hoare talk this evening, but he will be returning in the New year to give his talk then. If you would like further information on Leo, please visit his website Getafix.com

Apologies for the late notice.

Chris

Evening Talk

The Riverside Shop is please to announce that:
Leo Hoare
will be giving a talk on his Greenland adventures
‘Fresh Fish and Icebergs’ on
Wednesday 21st October 2009
At 7.30pm

Cost of the talk will be £4.00 (adult) and £1.00 (Young People) with all proceeds going towards the Young people at the Riverside Centre.

Tickets available from the Riverside Shop or to reserve a place email:
riversidecentre2@btconnect.com


Back then slalom was the thing to do. Leo competed to a high level and represented Great Britain for 6 years. In those years he raced and trained all over the world, achieved a fourth place in the junior worlds, a place in the squad for the Barcelona Olympics and many wins at junior internationals. He finished chasing sticks in 1992 after appearing on the programme "Paddles Up", and being ranked in the top 10 UK seniors. From 1992 to 1994 he coached the Welsh junior and senior squads and the British intermediate slalom teams.
The seed had been planted to see and experience other places and cultures at an early age and discovering the open canoe and sea kayak has allowed him to go on some amazing adventures: A solo circumnavigation of Easter Island in a 10-year-old White water boat, the Rio Grande in Mexico, kayak safaris in Africa and expeditions to S.E Greenland, Norway and New Zealand is just some of the adventures he has had.
Leo loves people; That's why he feels that coaching is the best job in the world, and paddling is and always will be in his blood.
Leo has contributed chapters to the BCU Canoe Kayak Handbook and the BCU Coaching Handbook, and made smaller contributions to the books Top Tips for Coaches and Canoe Games. Recently Leo has been involved with the development of the new UKCC coaching awards, producing resources, running pilots and fine tuning the structure.
Leo co-directed and produced the DVD Sea Kayak Safety with paddling partner Olly Sanders.
Before setting up his own paddling company Getafix he worked for Plas Y Brenin for 7 years and freelanced for centres country wide providing staff training.

Hurley is NOT open.

But I made a video ages ago - when Hurley was open.



6 Months ago.

Finn

Finn & Hugh go to 'The' Uganda

"Oh look a danger sign I can take a photo of! How original am I?!"

Ah yes, another post - documenting what can only be described as a momentously messy trip to Uganda. If you want to know what Uganda is all about read either Hugh or Matt's posts from earlier this year; I feel they do a great job of summing up something that I can't be bothered to sum up again!


Hugh going Clean!

Finn going Clean!


The River running is 'grand so'

Relaxing, maxing all cool at Eden Rock

Queued up for Club wave

Nile Special wave was also 'Grand so'



In order: Finn Killin' it, Finn Killin' it some more, Hugh... not so much.

Heading out for another days paddling


Uganda is amazing - go before the best bits are gone... (The top section of the white Nile, not bits of Uganda itself. Don't worry.)

Jump on that 'safety assured' van! No, not insured, assured.

Ok, so the trip in one sentance...

Amazing kayaking lifestyle with a drop of confusion, stumbling about, adrenaline and Japati.

"Oooh ah ah ah ah!"

Take it easy,
Finn & Hughberry


P.S. Expect the video to be up in the next few weeks, there have been some major set backs...

Hi just a wee post to say thanks to Sam for all of his hard work over the past couple of months and to also wish him the best at Uni. I have rearranged the shop slightly... More soon.

Chris

Youth Freestyle Nottingham

The Queue during the mornings coaching at "The Tardis"

Finn went up to compete in the last of the Youth Freestyle events in Nottingham, so I decided to tag along!

Have to say it was a very cool, very well organised event, with coaching in the morning, combined with a ball hit slalom in the middle part of the course- Dave bainbridge, fresh from his win at the worlds, showed everyone how it was done, hitting pretty much every ball with the boat in his example run!



Throwing the mc Nasty in the tardis



The crowd at the inlet gate

The comp itself was held on the inlet wave, with a novice event held further down the course. This was composed on 2 45 second runs that you could take whenever you liked. There was a big range in ability, but that didnt stop everyone pushing themselves to get the best possible score they could manage.



Busting out a stratospheric loop



Touchdown

I was really impressed by the level the top juniors were displaying- cartwheels, cleans and supercleans both ways, mc nasties, phonixes, tricky whus and lunar orbits all went down, with the top guys hitting back to front loop combos, paddleswitch and paddle throw loops.



Paddlethrow loop



Finn mid loop



Egged on by the crowd ever more silly things were attempted (the standing up in the playboat game is always a crowd-pleaser!). Next up on the calendar is the British Champs- guess i will see you all there!

Summer paddling and a new tricks vid

Well after the last couple of summers its back to the normal Thames Valley Paddling routine of Abingdon, Boulters and Chertsey.

Been spending a lot of time at Chertsey, a great little spot where just about any hole move goes- really good for learning new stuff in. Hector has joined me on a few occasion recently and is progressing quickly, throwing phonix monkies and mc nasties and getting close to tricky woo's.

I spent the first bit of the summer figuring out Tricky woos and have been giving Lunar Orbits a try in the last couple of sessions, with varying degrees of success!
The following is the next tricks vid, filmed at Chertsey on how to Mc nasty- enjoy!



Matt