Only the other evening I was out with the local Kayak Club here in Kilkenny ( Kilkenny Aqua Canoe Club) for the first time in a while, just out with some of the young guys who have an interest in freestyle and white water boating as a whole.
Last summer I paddled with one young guy in particular ( Billy )who was getting to grips with the basics of freestyle paddling, fast forward a year and Billy is not long gone 15 and progressing quickly. Here is just a few seconds of footage I took from the boat.
Its not just Billy there is a core bunch of kids who are all pushing each other on and doing really well, much like the guys from Dublin scene from Wild Water Kayak Club. I’m sure there are others much the same all round the country that I’m not aware of.
There seems to be plenty of talent about which can only be a good thing for the future of the Irish Freestyle Scene.
Well done to them all and to those that help them on their way.
Just a bit of a plug for upcoming Junior Paddlefest that’s happening next month in Wicklow.
As some of you know this idea was only really conceived in the Sluice car park last Sunday afternoon after a training day organised by Ger O’Reily and to be honest I am surprised how quickly this has snowballed. The premise for this event and the ones that are planned to follow it is pretty simple “To run a series of freestyle events with will allow people to learn new skills & develop their existing ones in a fun and safe environment”.
A few days back on of the guys from the UKRGB Bren (aka Peakfreak) posted up that there are no videos online that just explain the “double pump” and any that try assume too much previous knowledge from the person looking to learn.
I had being thinking of doing up a few wee how to tutorials but was being a bit lazy about it, I took this as a bit of motivation. I hit a part of the local river two cameras and tripod in hand. Sadly after I had uploaded the footage to my laptop I some lost it all , a fecking disaster so I flew back down to the river with my younger brother Keith “shaky hands” Shanahan and managed to get only 6mins of raw footage before the battery died. I managed to salvage this after all that.
This has kinda inspired me to put a bit of effort in and knock out a few more hoping to improve on the quality.
As some of you might know I am a member of the Irish Freestyle Committee and that our National Team are in preparations for the upcoming World Freestyle Championships In Thun Switzerland later in the Summer. RTE’s magazine program Nationwide decided to do a a small piece on the Freestyle Team and Freestyle kayaking as a whole, this was a bit of honour for us as we are the only sport/ discipline to get covered twice.
As this was Filmed at relative short notice and that the team are currently spread from Uganda to the Ottawa I drafted in some help form friends / Sluice locals and those of the national team that were in striking distance of Dublin.
Fellow team i-canoe member James VdB took some shots on the day
The piece aired on Irish National last Friday evening to approx 500,000 + and was received well among both the paddling / non-paddling community. My only regrets are that there was not some more kayaking shown as a few of the guys managed to go huge on the evening but this wasn’t shown, there were also a couple of more interviews shot too which didn’t get aired ( one of which included the single best “why do you kayak” answers I have ever heard ).
Welcome to my little part of the interweb, I know what you are thinking " Ah jayus..........not another fecking blog", sure bear with me and see how it goes.
I will be updating it nice and regular with photos/ stories / random banter & little "how to" guides. Stay tuned it might help you waste some time during the working day.
