Friday 5 February 2010

First Step onto the Coaching Ladder

Having wanting to get involved in coaching for a while I booked onto a UKCC Level 1 coaching course with Paul & Matt of After Adventures http://www.afteradventures.com/ . It would be great to get involved with coaching the youngsters at our local club and also with SOT kayak fishing taking off like it is it would be nice to assist new anglers to the hobby get onto the water safely.

The course was to be run over two consecutive weekends in January. It involved classroom work plus much practical work out on the water. Ice on the lake was always going to make the deep water rescues challenging.

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The course was attended by six of us aspirant level one coaches, a mixed but lovely bunch of lads and lasses.

We were honoured to have the teaching conducted by Kim Bull, a Level 5 Canoe & Level 4 Inland/Sea coach, Kim is also a BCU Coach Educator and a UKCC BCU Level 1 and Level 2 Coach Course Director. http://kimbull.co.uk/

It was a wonderful four days of learning new coaching skills. Personally my own open boating skills were always going to be questionable and the course demands all attendees to be competent in two disciplines.

What was required was a day’s tuition with Kim in the art of paddling an open boat. I arranged to meet him at Hexham on a lovely stretch of the Tyne. Kim was able to offer exceptionally good training and within a period of eight hours I was paddling like a competent open boater, this was more to do with Kim’s teaching skills than my own ability at learning new things.

It was quite an emotional rollercoaster and today I'm feeling quite battered and bruised but finally I had achieved my goal and was awarded the status of level One coach.

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