It’s a truly unique opportunity for paddlers and industry leaders alike to exchange ideas about trends in programs, promotion, equipment, and technique. For the benefit of the paddling public and club members in particular, the 2010 Symposium will provide an all-inclusive package of on-water instruction, dry-land seminars, film presentations, and roundtable discussions targeting many more of the “in-demand” topics most noted by past participants,

We’ve listened to attendee feedback over the years, from which we’ve created a fresh new series of topics addressing some of the more common themes of interest to our audiences. New to the Symposium this year is a dedicated 3-track session schedule that aims to emphasize specific topics in the areas of whitewater oriented business, program development, and paddler enthusiasm.

The Business Track will include presentations by astute market leaders like Andy Zimmerman from Legacy, and Darren Bush, whose company Rutabaga is the largest paddle sports retailer in North America. Discussions will incorporate perspectives on topics like “How to boost sales”, “Effective Marketing”, and “Connecting with Customers”. If you make your living in the paddlesports industry, you won’t want to miss the broad range of forward thinking discussions in the house.

The Development Track is geared towards educational programs, instruction, and club activities. These sessions will center around the most innovative thinking being applied to everything from equipment design, to program building and approaches to teaching, training and paddling technique. Key Speaker Chris Fanning, along with a plethora of acclaimed instructors like Anna LeVesque and swiftwater rescue guru Mike Mather, bring their years of experience to interactive presentations of important topics. This is an unparalleled opportunity to be part of the conversation, as many of today’s top ambassadors of paddlesports weigh in on a whitewater vision for the future.

The Paddler Track will be a chance to connect with some of the hottest personalities in paddlesports and learn about the most cutting edge whitewater pursuits happening around the world. Participate in on-water clinics with the likes of freestyle champion Eric Jackson and Olympic gold medalist Joe Jacobi. Get up to speed on specifics like paddling performance, running creeks, improving your mental game, river safety, whitewater film making, and playboating skills … and find out how many of today’s most successful paddlers are striving to make a difference through programs you might find yourself wanting to explore further.

Whether you’re looking to improve your on-water skills, boat with world class paddlers, connect with other whitewater enthusiasts and business leaders, grow your business, market your product, or learn about service project opportunities, this year’s Whitewater Symposium offers something for everyone through a dynamically diverse program held over a single weekend at one of the world’s premier whitewater destinations …. Hope to see you there! For more program, schedule, and registration information, check out http://WWSymposium.com

World Kayak’s kayakeducation.com was built to support a global conversation and exchange between educators, aimed at helping EVERY educator have a resource for cutting edge teaching tools and techniques.  This system is part social network for educator exchange, part instructional support tool and part marketing tool.  Schools, clubs and instructors can read tips, video instructional videos, post up recommendations, join forums all in the name of supporting their teaching.  These tools also allow them to post upcoming classes and contact information.  This will then be posted to World Kayak’s regional portal (regions.worldkayak.com) and to its blogging and community portals www.worldkayakblogs.com … exposing their regional classes to the tens of thousands of visitors monthly throughout the seasons.

Apply today!

Missoula, MT – The future of freestyle kayaking looks bright if results from the US National Freestyle Kayak Team Trials are an indicator. Kayaking’s version of the ratpack, teens Jason Craig, Dane Jackson  Jordan Poffenberger and Lauren Burress all turned in impressive performances as they battled in various divisions for the chance to represent the US at World Championships in Germany next summer.

Jackson, 16, not only qualified but outright topped the winner’s stand in three classes, OC-1, C1 and Junior Men. In fact, Jackson’s rides in the junior men’s events were among the top-scoring rides of the entire competition. A flurry of McNasty’s and Space Godzillas both ways in addition to a barrage of loops, lunar orbits and more scored 1250.

Jackson said that coming into the event he had hoped to make all three teams but surprised even himself by being the first place finisher in all three classes.  Jackson also won top honors in all three classes in the USA Freestyle Kayak Point Series translating into three national crowns.

Jackson’s best friend and fellow 16-year-old Jason Craig has an automatic entry into World Championships by virtue of being reigning junior men’s world champ. Since this event also served as the final event of national point series, Craig competed here in the senior men’s division where he stunned the crowd with a 1265-point ride to finish second in the event. He also earned second in the senior men’s point series. Craig rescinded his seat on the senior men’s team in order to defend his junior men’s world title next summer, which allows men’s sixth-place finisher Bryan Kirk to claim the fifth spot on the senior men’s national team. Kirk won the point series making him this year’s National champ.

Jason said he didn’t have any specific goals coming into the event other than to paddle his best and said he was pleased with his results.

Dominating the junior women’s division was 14-year-old Lauren Burress whose top scores in both rounds of competition were more than double that of the second-place finisher. Burress’s prelim round ride of 440 would have qualified her for the senior women’s finals.

Despite a cool, overcast day in Missoula, the men’s final round rides were scorching hot, as scores ratcheted progressively higher climaxing with Stephen Wright first-place 1380-point ride.

Wright said he was inspired to throw down the sick ride by Dustin Urban who immediately preceded Wright in today’s start order. Wright said though Urban had started slow in his third-round ride “he just kept rapid-firing tricks all the way through the buzzer” to tally 1250 points which landed him in third place at this event.

Wright predicted it will be scores like those seen here today, if not higher, that will determine the next champion at the International Canoe Federation Freestyle Kayak World Championships in Plattling Germany next June. Wright noted that at home in Reno, NV he and others have been practicing three- and four-move combos and while none were thrown this week, he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see them next season in even higher-scoring rides.

Also on the team again is four-time world champ Eric Jackson who commented that the depth of field on this year’s team in all the divisions was really impressive.

Jackson noted the US team is among the hardest of any national team to earn a spot.

Day 3 Finals Results – US Freestyle Kayak Team Trails

MENS C1 (US Team members in italic)

1. Dane Jackson – 700 (Point series National Champ)
   
2. Jordan Poffenberger – 620
3. Seth Chappelle – 590
4. Eric Jackson – 220
5. Brad McMillan – 200

JR Women (US Team members in italic)

1. Lauren Burress – 240 (Point series National Champ)
2. Hannah Kertesz – 125
3. Emery Tillman – 40
4. Brooke Hess-Homeier – 15
5. Taylor Cote – 0

JR Men (US Team members in italic + Jason Craig, world champ)

1. Dane Jackson – 1240 (Point series National Champ)
2. Will Rudisill – 405 (too old for jr team in 2011)
3. Nico Tonozzi – 380
4. Eric Bartl – 290
5. Jordan Poffenberger – 220
6. JP Griffith – 150

SR Women (US Team members in italic)

1. Emily Jackson – 470
2. Jessie Stone – 310
3. Erin Clancey – 260
4. Haley Mills – 215 (Point series National Champ)
5. Kat Levett – 205

SR Men (US Team members in italic)

1. Stephen Wright – 1380
2. Jason Craig – 1265 (on JR team for worlds)
3. Dustin Urban – 1250
4. Eric Jackson – 1030
5. Clay Wright – 780
6. Bryan Kirk (not competing today – Point series National Champ)

The World Kayak coverage was blemmed a bit by a faulty wifi router and a better quality camera that refused to cooperate, but by the end of the day the wifi was good to go and the cam will be fixed for tomorrow’s action.

Starts at 2 pm Mountain time… live at worldkayak.com

1. Dane Jackson – 105 points
2. Jordan Poffenberger – 80 points
3. Brad McMillian – 45 points
4. Jeremy Laucks – 35 points
5. Eli Helbert – 25 points
6. Jeff Campbell – 10 points
7. Jake Ament – 0 points

Women’s K1

1. Emily Jackson – 600 points
2. Devon Barker – 470 points
3. Jessie Stone – 460 points
4. Erin Clancey – 335 points
5. Haley Mills – 300 points
6. Kat Levitt 295 points
7. Alley Fontenot – 260 points
8. Nicole Mansfield – 250 points
9. Amy Jimmerson – 200 points
10. Jessica Yurtinus – 190 points
11. Elaine Campbell – 190 points
12. Cheyenne Rogers – 75 points
13. Nathalie Kramer – 50 points
14. Karen Mann – 15 points

Mens’ K1

1. Eric Jackson – 1825 points
2. Bryan Kirk, 1500 points
3. Dustin Urban, 1460 points
4. Stephen Wright, 1300 points
5. Clay Wright, 1160 points
6. Jason Craig, 965 points
7. Jud Keiser, 960 points
8. Michael Patterson, 815 points
9. Shawn Byron, 780 points
10. Craig Kleckner, 780 points
11. Shane Groves, 600 points
12. Karl Moser, 550 points
13. Scott Dougherty, 550 points
14. Quinton Barnett, 530 points
15. Ben Kinsella, 520 points
16. KB Kevin Brown 520 points
17. Chris Wing, 480 points
18. Jones Cochran, 445 points
19. Luke Reiker, 430 points
20. Dave Fusilli, 425
21. Jason Shreder, 410 points
22. Eli Spiegel, 385points
23. David Levitt, 380 points
24. Jared Seiler 355 points
25. David Gorski 340 points
26. Jeremy Laucks 330 points
27. Leif Anderson 330 points
28. Billy Malesky, 320 points
29. Tommy Hehnen 320 points
30. chad Addleman 240 points
31. Graham Seiler 200 points
32. Eddie Hake 160 points
33. Drew Classon 120 points
34. Doug Shapee 60 points
35. Jack Pickhardt 55 points

Schedule of Coverage
(Official schedule coming soon as currently in flux – Broadcast will typically start a bit before)

- June 30, 11 am MT – Prelims (All day)
- July 1, 11 am MT – Prelims contd
- July 2, 11am MT – Final rounds

This summer World Kayak will be in Missoula, MT as this fun town plays host to the 2010 USA Freestyle Kayaking Team Trials. Our coverage will be via an online stream hooked directly to the event’s MC and include interviews from the field and as much footage as we can get.

When the dust settles the best kayakers will be crowned National Champions and selected to represent the United States at the 2011 World Championships.

The feed will be found on a number of sites, including worldkayak.com, worldkayakblogs.com/throwdown and at some of our partner sites across the kayak-web map.

Come back here June 30th where we will be set up to cover the Prelims in their entirety.  Bring headphones to your office as we have a full slate of events during the week!

It’s hot in Washington, DC. Real hot. Seven out of the last 10 days, the temperature has been 95 degrees and higher. And since DC is built on a swamp, the humidity is high too–so sweat just sits on your skin.

Luckily the Potomac River flows through DC, and luckily we know how to kayak. So at least we can get wet and play in the water.

Last Thursday we gathered for the June edition of the MD Chute Out Freestyle series, part of the Hometown Throwdown series from World Kayak. Once again stormy weather threatened, but once again we had clear skies and sun for the competition. We had a new top scorer for the first time in a long time when Danny Stock crushed the rest of the A class by a factor of 2 or more. And we had a new B class competitor who also won the class AND took home a great pair of Smith sunglasses in the raffle aferward.

Here’s how the rest of us fared:

K-1A

1. Danny Stock – 328 pts
2. Jim Buley – 168
3. James Sneeringer – 117
4. Milan Rusnak – 101

K1-B

1. Tim Madison – 75 pts
2. Howard Morland – 54
3. Chris Davis – 48
4. Ron Ray – 34

K-1W

1. Shelby Stine – 59
2. Ilde Rusnak – 18
3. Maria Stine – 12

K-1Jr

1. Ocoee Chapelle – 25 pts

C-1

1. Seth Chapelle – 217 pts
2. Ocoee Chapelle – 29

 I have been working to get representataion in WV since the begining of WK, and now finaly after a number of years we are on.  A great group of stoaked boaters has taken the reigns and hosted a fantastic event.  keep your eyes set on the new WV region at WK for all that these guys have to offer.  Thanks a bunch guys and great job.  Here is what the WV Boys have to say about their first event. 

Monday brought the first in a series of World Kayak Hometown Throwdowns to the Southern WV region. Paddlers from the local rafting companies, including videoboaters and their families, descended into the New River Gorge for a laid back downriver competition through Fayette Station. This first event boasted a turnout of twenty-three participants, armed with countless different river craft. Creek boats, play boats, long boats, river boards, and inflatable pool toys cycled through the rapid displaying only the most artful downriver techniques. From the elusive shutter rudder, to the mysterious beat down, and even the well known carp roll, all those involved threw down the most impressive move within their arsenal.

Jeremy and his two kids put on a good show with a family ducky run down the rapid. A brief out of boat experience at the top progressed into big wave hits and paddle twirls, not to mention a few good laughs. Marcus had the best ride on the top wave in his C1, throwing a few roundhouses and a back loop to leave him with the best ride of the event. Charlie, Evan, and Steve showed what video boating is all about, with big wave wheels, kick flips, and lots of imaginative splats. Lil’ Perkins got the best carnage, wheeling off into the big pour over for a brief but brutal ride. All skill levels were represented, with Kyle getting his first run down a rapid ever.

We ended the day with a cookout provided by Jeremy and his family, sharing stories about the day and eagerly awaiting the events of the future. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude all of those who participated and made this event a great success. Stay tuned for more information on future events.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When stepping back over the past 3 years to look at our sport, World Kayak has slowly developed a snapshot of a successful sport.  It is from that snapshot we continue to develop, introducing what we feel is missing from our paddling community.  To do this, a good number of folks got involved in research; research that took us to other successful sports to seek out the common denominators of their success.  Once our research was done, we took those common denominators and applied it over our sport.  The findings were very interesting and helped us map out the paths to come in our World Kayak programming.

So, here’s what WK would like to see of our sport:

The Try, Learn, Play, Compete Model
In all successful sports a model has appeared as the perfect growth catalyst… Try, Learn, Play, Compete.  In all these sports there are governing bodies focused on all four of these key elements.  Initiatives aimed at getting as many people trying the sport possible are continually being looked into and improved on.  Focus never wains in the educational process as most successful sports always continue to finance and build upon the best practice of their sport’s educational delivery.  Every enthusiast must have the means to learn in a professional environment.  Learning must also afford the athlete the means to learn all disciplines of their sport.  Each leading sport provides the means for ALL their enthusiasts to play and try new skills.  Competition breeds skills progression and can lead to elite athlete potential.  Competition needs to be available at all moments in an athlete’s life… from beginner to advanced… and every successful sport has a means to monitor the progression of each competitor… something that encourages skills progression and helps with ranking when at the elite levels.

So, how does our sport currently do all this?

Well, it doesn’t… at least not in a nice neat process.  All sports that have shown continual growth have accomplished this by making sure there’s a clear backbone to their sports… a backbone that follows this model.  All these sports ensure that the entire lifeline of an athlete is clear and guided.  A swimmer, for example, will always go to the local pool to start their swimming progression… ask any parent, “where do you go to start your kid swimming?”  Their answer will most likely be “at the pool”.   At the end of the day, very few swimmers don’t start at the same place and once in the pool programs, they are guided through their progression in an organized manner.  Once the athlete starts the progression, they are helped to get to a light-intermediate level and then introduced to the diversity of that sport… for swimmers that means life-guarding, diving, water polo, instruction etc.  Those with competitive drive are also introduced to coaching at this level … all through the same seamless process.  Those showing progress in their sport are then easily spotted and encouraged through to the elite ranks.  At the elite levels, the sports count heavily on marketing and the public visibility of that sport to encourage growth… getting more and more people in at the entry level.  An interview with a ski professional from Canada told me that “our schools are filled during Olympic years”.

This is the circle of life for a successful sport.

What does a successful whitewater industry look like then?
Well, like this:

World Kayak sees an industry where a growing number of Gateway programs bring non-paddlers into our sport.  We see an increasing number of those new paddlers entering in formal educational systems where they get introduced to our sport and get brought to intermediate levels.  We see them then getting exposed to the diversity of whitewater through formal education and community activity (slalom, freestyle, creek, big water, polo, surf etc.).  Community activity is a result and a catalyst for this diversity and World Kayak sees a continual focus on every community to ensure that the paddler continues to be active and participate in the sport and their personal skills development.  From there we see paddlers with competitive drive to be introduced to coaching where they can find themselves moving towards elite levels.  We then see elite and community activity appearing in regional, national and international media … attracting more and more people to our gateways.

OK, where do we stand with this model?
Er… its getting better, but we have work to do!  Every region is at a different state so take this as a general observation.  But keep in mind that there is a LOT of very positive work to be done.

Gateway: Our gateways are limited.  Most paddlers get into our sport via a friend.  This cannot remain true.  There are a ton of amazing examples of gateways that work and they are being implemented as we speak by some of our industry peers… we are simply not sharing that success on a global scale.  We need to explore these ways to get our sport where others are… access through school programs, municipal recreational departments, through youth programming (scouts etc.), camps and much more. World Kayak’s Educator portal is now set up to introduce successful gateway models to schools and instructors… spreading the seed of success globally.

Early Education: Many paddlers bypass formal education and end up either quitting out of frustration or stuck at beginner levels. World Kayak is including different approaches to exposing paddlers to formal education by designing and supporting simple ways of getting folks through gateways and into our educational system.

Diversity: We see little diversity at schools who typically teach to light intermediate levels and seldom teach specialty programs (freestyle, slalom etc.). World Kayak has begun work on vertical programs that kayak schools can introduce in their regular programming that expose their students to all our disciplines.  We are also introducing a grading system (like judo belts) that encourages paddlers to gain skills in river running, freestyle, slalom, creek, safety etc.

Community Activity: Our community activity varies, but is waning as we need more and more fun ways to gather and have fun together. World Kayak’s first initiative group was to introduce events that the community can rally around… throwdowns, video premieres etc.  We’ll continue to do so.

Coaching: Where disciplines like slalom are set up with great coaching programs, its hard for the average paddler to get into them… and few exist really for other disciplines like freestyle.  World Kayak will be working with the elite level associations on programs that will connect their coaching programs to the grass roots activity… so any paddler can clearly see a path into coaching.  We will also be working on coaching models for those disciplines missing it now.

Elite: Our elite paddlers are getting organized now with the ICF and other bodies but it is still growing and learning.  World Kayak again will be there to help any elite organization become more accessible to the paddler with elite aspirations.

Marketing: Slalom gets a good bit of coverage during the olympics and some countries will feature whitewater disciplines in their media, but its inconsistent at best.  We have a lot to show but need to take that bull by the horns.  With our growing online coverage platform, World Kayak will continue to expand our on-line coverage and start working at television production in the years to come.  2010 will see World Kayak venturing into more and more disciplines.

Next Steps
World Kayak sees itself as an entity that can tie the map together.  We will be working with existing bodies towards delivering that ‘perfect’ sporting model.  We aren’t far!  There are many organizations across the globe at various stages of doing all this work.  World Kayak will be doing all it can to piece the puzzle together and help it produce growth.  Stay tuned in the next while as we announce some great new synergies to this end. ]]> http://worldkayak.com/2010/06/16/from-the-wk-brain-the-50000-foot-view-of-a-sport/feed/ 0 http://worldkayak.com/2010/06/07/reno-hometown-throwdown-5-2010/ http://worldkayak.com/2010/06/07/reno-hometown-throwdown-5-2010/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:11:39 +0000 colin http://worldkayakblogs.com/worldkayak/2010/06/07/reno-hometown-throwdown-5-2010/

After the Reno River Festival everyone had boatercross fever, so Toby decided that we should turn that week’s throwdown into another boatercross race.  We had 4 heats stuffed full of kayakers wanting to go fast.  We had a backwards start where all the racers lined up backwards and once the start horn sounded they had to spin around fast and get moving across the flat start pool.  Once they crossed the pool they were all lactic and had to negotiate the remaining three drops with other boaters looking to shove them off line.  The top two boaters from each heat advanced on to the next round.  We also had a consolation final were all the boaters who did not advance got to have one more shot to advance.  There were some great passes during our day of racing.  Rusty and Noah were dueling it out all day for the title of fastest racer, and in the end Rusty walked away with the win.  The results of the final heat were.

1.Rusty

2.Noah

3.Drew

4.Matt

5.Sage

6.Mike

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