Windy City Symposium

The Windy City Symposium was the first of 4 symposia I planned to go to over the summer, in Chicago IL, Washburn WI, Door County MI, and Grand Marais MI. Way too much driving, way too much carbon contribution, but the options to improve one's kayaking skills are few and far between, so you go where the opportunities are.

Windy City had almost been canceled due to low enrollment, but when all was said and done, they ended up offering all the classes I was most interested in, so I went ahead with the trip east.

The symposium started Friday morning, and I arrived at the Illinois Beach State Park campground Thursday evening. After setting up my tent, I went for a walk to unwind and spotted a brightly lit commercial building which I initially took to be the conference center that was located nearby, and later discovered that it was a retired nuclear plant. Odd, to say the least, to be camping near the foot of a nuclear power plant, retired or not. Down at the beach, I looked across the water in the haze, and it seemed as if the far side of the lake was just a couple miles away, but that was just an illusion. To the south the lights of Chicago lit up the sky. During the night, sounds of boats, trains, airplanes and highways drifted across the campground, making it an oasis in the midst of a very large urban area.

Friday was a day of forward strokes and boat control. We worked with Ben Lawry and Pete Tibenski in the morning, and added Pete Jones in the afternoon. I found that I was ever so slowly starting to get the torso rotation thing that they had been trying to explain at the IDW, as well as getting a somewhat more solid lean. Our first exercise was getting our legs out of our cockpits and pivoting around our boats, and the capsizes commenced almost immediately (I was fortunate enough to stay upright for this exercise).

Saturday was the BCU 3 Star training day. The BCU is the British Canoe Union, and they have 5 levels, denoted by stars. I had hopes and dreams of earning a 3 star award the next day. We spent Saturday working on towing and other skills in fairly rough water (2-3 foot seas).

Sunday morning we worked on rescue scenarios. Pete (the coach from Wales) had been the main instructor on Saturday, and was part of the instructor team on Sunday. When the plan was that we would work on towing again, he offered to work on bracing with me. We started with low braces, and I immediately noticed that his brace was relaxed and not rushed at all, while mine was a jerky slap. Unfortunately, before I got much farther I capsized (again, we were in 2-3 foot waves). After we got me back in my boat, we headed in to shore and Pete pulled my boat up on the sand and dug a hole that shaped the path the paddle was supposed to follow, and had me do my low brace into the hole and back out. Nice learning aid that he thought up on the spot.

At that point, I was pretty sure that I wasn't ready to do the BCU 3 Star assessment, and after our lunch break I headed up to tell the instructor that I was not going to participate. However, it appeared that there was only one other student, and you need 2 to run an assessment. So I decided to go ahead … that I would learn something no matter what, and it would be worth it to let the other student proceed. At the last minute the 3rd student showed up.

About half an hour into the assessment, the instructor said that none of us were ready for the assessment and offered us options: proceed with the assessment, switch to a training format, or hang it up. We opted to switch to a training format, and had a chance to learn some stuff in the wind and waves.

When the class ended, we packed up our boats and I headed home. I drove for a couple hours then stopped at a hotel for the night. I was one tired puppy, but I had learned lots and made several new friends. All in all, it was a great weekend.