Do you want to live by the Sjoa river, right at the end of the fun Sjoa play run and at the start of the legendary Åmot run in Norway this summer? This region is a true paddler’s paradise all summer long, full of great white water with creeks to run and waves to ride.

For this summer, from mid-June until the end of August, we’re looking for a Manager for the Sjoa Kayak Camp. Situated at the start of the Åmot home run on the Sjoa, the camp is home to numerous travelling paddlers throughout the summer. It is also the base for Gene17′s Norway programmes, plus home to the legendary Sjoa River Festival. The site is jointly managed by the local kayak store Strie Strømmer AS and Gene17 Ltd.

The role of the Manager is for about 1-3 hours a day, and the tasks include overseeing registration and ensuring the camp is maintained, kept tidy, and the services onsite are both clean and available for the users. The role is for 5 days each week, normally done consecutively. Your duties will be assisted when needed by Gene17′s resident coaching staff. Please contact Simon Westgarth with an application as soon as possible. This position will be filled with the first suitable applicant.

Part 1 Genes; Advanced WW. Covers the need to maintain the body tension, whilst anticipating the WW terrain, absorbing the hits and being ready drop of the next horizon line.

When Simon Westgarth, made Genes DVD in 2005, there had not been many technique productions for beyond Class III white water. He attempts to bring the age of the dynamic style to screen and explains through a range of tools who the modern paddler moves through time and space within steep and moving terrain. This is the first of 4 articles that will accompany the recent release of individual chapters on Gene17kayaking’s Vimeo Channel

In the first chapter Body Form, Simon brings the central theme of the upper body movement to adsorb the impacts experienced whilst dropping through rapids and slides. There are a range of good and not so good examples, that open the segment. Then comes the header statement, that the paddler’s upper body should be used to adsorb the terrain, and this is best done by compressing the upper body over the lower boat as the hits come raining in.

Its always challenging to get the wording right on the screen, in trying to be precise and yet short. To disengage the upper body movement from the lower is in essence what goes on, yet the the fundamental point with this comment is to ensure that the paddler is aware that their lower back moves the upper body forward to absorb the impacts, like a suspension shock, when under compression. Unlike when we’re jumping off a step, and we bend our legs at the knees to absorb this impact, in a kayak we can not, so we must find a way to do so, without taking the hit directly through the spine with potential serious injury. Pitching the upper body forward appears to be the best suspension shock we have.

The anticipation of the hits from the terrain, is often the difference between running the line and styling the rapid. All proactive paddler’s learn to see and thus know when to crunch forward for the impacts as they happen, often at the end of a forward stroke, rather than await their arrival and reacting to the hits. This pre-planning ensures the upper body very much remains over the lower body, and thus the paddler stays in balance throughout.

With most gravity sports, like white water kayaking, the anticipation of the fall line and changes in the fall line aspect and shape are very important for a smooth ride. In paddling our medium the river, also flows downhill, so we have an extra dimension to consider, that also has a considerable amount of energy, that can get deflected off the terrain. We must also absorb or accommodate the waters movement when choosing the line we wish to paddle. The energy held within the rivers flow is of course accessible to us as paddlers and we use this to make our different lines possible. Still within all this possibility, we must absorb the impacts either wholly through the correct body form or partly, by deflecting the impact energy to be adsorbed, such as through the tail of the boat.

In looking back at this 7 year old production, solutions for drops like key stroke concept, as seen in Genotype 2, plus the advert of the absorption crunch at the end of a forward key stroke, have made maintaining correct posture through the whitewater terrain accessible to the modern paddler. In some of the examples in Genes, the full upper body thrust forward on impact is no longer best practise for small to medium drops, especially as boofin’ should not involve hip thrusting to keep the bow up for a successful boof. But more of that in the next instalment…..

Alpine River Leader Training in Slovenia – >>21/28 April 2012 – 1 Place left

We’ll include, BCU 5 Star Training, Advanced WWS&R plus 5 Star Assessment all in the week in Slovenia. See Alpine River Leader Training for details.

Alpine River Leader Training in Slovenia – >>21/28 April 2012 – 1 Places left

We’ll include, BCU 4 Star Training, Basic WWS&R plus 4 Star Assessment all in the week in Slovenia. See River Leader Training for details.

All of our scheduled Piemonte trips will go ahead, we have paddlers coming from a far to join us in Italy for some fine steep creeking. We have added a few new places, see below:

::6/13 May 2012 – 1 PLACE LEFT
::13/20 May 2012 – 2 PLACES LEFT
::20/27 May 2012 – 2 PLACES LEFT

There’s no better place to refine your skills than the Sesia Valley, where water and smooth granite come together to form the perfect steep creeking training ground. See Steep Creeking for details.

If you do not see something you like, please contact us with your request, and we’ll do our best to make it happen.

The course can be summarised as follows: -
Basic Handling of ropes, slings, carabineers, prussiks, pulleys.
Rescuing Boats and kit.
Rescuing People.
Staying safe on steep ground.

Dartmoor was cold that weekend and Simon took this into consideration. Day 1 was spent going through the syllabus on dry land. That way we kept warm and dry, and we were also able to cover more material. The evening was a chance to recap over a couple of pints, and then on Day 2, we repeated, but this time on the river. The noise, slippy rocks, cold hands and wet rope adding to the difficulty.

The Erme was a great location. For those that know the river, the slot and drop has a cave behind the fall with stoppers both in front and behind the curtain of water. For this reason the advice is to protect the drop with live-bait. If anyone capsizes, the live-bait jumps in straight away and pulls the boat and paddler clear. No waiting to see if they can roll. Our first two tasks….recover a person (in this case an airbag) from in front of, and then from behind, the curtain of the fall.

Suitably exhilarated, we moved down the river. The next exercise, a boat pinned on a rock. Simon wanted to see us go through a step-by-step process the river. Make a paddlehook to get a line on the boat, try simple muscle power, then a vector pull and then the 4-1 external pulley system, the pig-rig as it’s known.

The first exercise of the afternoon was a boat vertically pinned with a paddler, for real this time, inside. The emphasis of the course was to keep the actions safe, simple and quick. First the stabilisation line, one more line and two carabineers, and we were able to complete a cinch, enabling the paddlers to climb out without the risk of falling, injury, or being washed down river.

The third scenario had us all on one bank having to deal with a foot entrapment, mid-river. Two bags, one sling and two carabineers, is all the kit required. A little coordination and know-how gets the casualty stabilised in a cinch and then pulled free.

It sounds easy. It’s not rocket-science. But it does require practice. There were many learning points that I took away with me. Things I’m going to have to practice, even the ones Simon showed us that sound simple, like rope management. It’s these actions that will save me from tripping up or being pulled off-balance. It all requires practice. So bear with me, because if you’re on a river with me I’ll be getting the kit out.

Going on a course is good fun, and you will learn some really useful stuff, simple things that might just be your get-out-of-jail-free card. So see if you can spare the time and money sometime this year. Make it a belated resolution.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully you did more than just look at the pictures.

Andy Barras

Andy undertook a 2 day BCU Advanced WWS&R Training course with Gene17, for other BCU Advanced WWS&R see Gene17′s Courses Webpage

After arriving back at Newbridge in plenty of time, we decided to carry on downstream to the country park, with a leisurely paddle down the loop, before heading into Ashburton for debriefing. Plenty of feedback was given and we discussed the essentials of all types of trip organisation, from mixed-ability local “Sunday afternoon” paddles, to weeks away in the Alps and further afield.

The following morning, we arrived at Lynmouth car park, ready for our second day’s training, this time on the gorge section of the East Lyn. We put on at Watersmeet and paddled down the first few rapids with discussions on group dynamics, what factors are likely to affect it and why having a good group dynamic is important, especially when tackling harder rivers. We stopped off at one of the ledge drops before the main gorge to work on personal paddling skills, in particular perfecting our boof. After watching a couple of demonstrations from different angles of Simon showing us correct technique, we preceded to work on it ourselves, each time being given photo-feedback and constructive criticism for how to refine our own technique. We all benefited a lot from this and left with noticeable improvements. Further downstream, we stopped again at crux 1 and crux 2 in the gorge to talk about rapid management, with emphasis on positioning ourselves and the rest of our group in the most appropriate location for practical and safe descents of these rapids.

After we were done on the river, we headed up out of Lynmouth to the pub on the hill to reflect on the weekend’s training, have any questions answered and set out a plan for paddling in the future. We all left having had an enjoyable weekend and were coming away having both learnt a lot as well as having plenty to work on.

Thanks to Simon and Tom for providing such a useful and fun course!

Matt & the guys undertook a 2 day BCU 5 Star WW Kayak Training course with Gene17, for other 5 Star courses see Gene17′s Courses Webpage

Set in the perfect natural classroom of the Soča river, this course will have you guiding, coaching, and making decisions with confidence on class III rivers.
We’ve put this course together for BCU and ICU Level 2 coaches who want to step their game up a notch
To ease out that step up to the new Moderate Water Endorsement or Level 3 Coach, we’ll cover everything from your paddling skills and coaching methods to modern, dynamic guiding techniques and real-world group management.
This course will include BCU 4 Star Training and BCU Basic WWS&R.

Who better to prepare you for white water than one of the leading white water kayaking schools!

See River Leader for details

>>21/28 April 2012 – 2 Places left

Simon@Gene17