Words By: Simon Coward
We are beyond excited to announce our partnership with Dagger Kayaks, to bring the worldwide teen paddling community THE NEW WAVE PROGRAM.
This program combines Aquabatics Calgary’s years of experience crafting a safe, enjoyable and skill based creeking progression with Daggers 30 + year commitment to building the highest performance and safest whitewater kayaks.
The New Wave Program has been put together to offer a creeking progression for teens unlike any other. Using the world class whitewater of British Columbia, Canada, this week of paddling sets out to instill the virtues of a long term, logical paddling progression set within the frame work of team work, mature decision making and having technical skills to match the whitewater being paddled.
Facilitated by Aquabatics Calgary’s internationally certified instructors, and supported by Dagger Team athletes, the goal of this program is to help guide and nurture youthful paddling enthusiasm in the direction of working as a team, sound communication and safe, mature decision making on the river.
The program, as mentioned before focuses on 3 key concepts:
- Technical Skills
- Safety
- Communication and Decision making
All three of these are encompassed under the recurring them of teamwork!
During the program, participants will be put through their paces on technical skills, first in whitewater that is comfortable to them. Allowing them and the instructors to work out kinks in a comfortable environment. As the week and the paddlers skill progresses, we will take these specific skills and transfer them into more challenging whitewater environments.
Safety will be of upmost importance, and not just in the ‘adults looking after the group’ kind of way, which is obviously first and foremost. But that doesn’t help the paddlers in the long run. The safety component of this program is thought out to the smallest of details, so everything is done in a safe and realistic environment. Participants will work on technical rescue skills in the evenings, and during the day they will be running safety for their friends and co-paddlers, facilitating mock rescues and much more. By the end of the program we expect the paddlers to be at a level we would be happy having them run safety for us.
Then the thing that we think ties it all together, but is often not acknowledged, the communication and decision-making component of paddling. Can we honestly say we can ensure teen paddlers always make mature decisions on the river? No, no-one can. What we can do however, is instill a sense of pride and awareness in young paddlers that being solid on the river doesn’t mean just running the hardest drops. It means being part of a team that moves efficiently on the water, has each others back, and supports walking away from rapids when factors don’t line up.
The bottom line with this program is, I am a parent and we are encouraging our children and many other young people to get out in kayaks. This will lead to some of them taking it seriously and ending up paddling harder and harder whitewater, our goal and responsibility is to ensure if they choose to do so, it is informed and with a mature head on their shoulders. That is what The New Wave Program is all about.
For more information, dates, inclusions etc you can either check out the program details page on our website. Alternately, drop us an email at courses@aquabaticscalgary.com and we can send you a full trip dossier and answer any questions you have.
