The Annual Whitewater Symposium started off as an instructional get together 5 years ago. Hosted at Zoar Outdoor in MA, by Bruce Lessels and team on the first year, most of the presentations were about instructional techniques, and all of the one the water presentations were designed to both help instructors teach better and paddle better. Slowly but surely the symposium has been evolving to incorporate a broader subject matter and is becoming a meeting of the minds for caretaking all things whitewater. Safety presentations, how to make money in the industry, different business models for kayak schools, how to add value to your own whitewater community, how to be a good steward of paddling, and of course, how to teach and paddle better. 
These are just a sample of the presentations and active on the water presentations available at this year’s symposium. Everyone got a good look at the ASCI course, with Matt giving the full presentation, and showing that he could turn the best wave on the course into a “hole that EJ will swim out of” (sorry Matt, going to have to beef that hole up just a little bit more if you want to see me swim!). Joe Jacobi’s “Slalom Survivor” got great participation and reviews as everyone got to have a great time doing a twisted version of slalom racing that evens the playing field! Joe Pulliam, former Dagger owner, gave the key note speech on the health of whitewater industry. I learned that I need to bring my hearing aids to these things because I missed ½ of what people were saying in the Q/A sessions after each presentation! Kent Ford even said, “EJ, you should wear your hearing aids.” OK, I’ll remember them next year!
James McBeathe and Colin Kemp were also present and gave two presentations on World Kayak. They talked about how awesome the ambassadors have already been in rejuvenating their local communities with only being involved since June 16th at the earliest (that is when it went live). The presentation was designed to educate those interested in what World Kayak is doing to help increase the available activities for whitewater paddlers and what our future plans are and how each person there can participate, since this is a group effort, not a one man show. There were many great talking points that came out of it, and as James said in his blog about it, you got to eat, sleep, and paddle whitewater for 4 days straight! I left all fired up on whitewater (that isn’t really so unusual, though, is it!) and my commitment level is, once again, at an all time high to make sure that my kids have even better paddling opportunities down the road then they do now, and the same for everyone else.
Great Stuff for everyone in whitewater at the symposium. Keep your eyes open for next year’s and make sure you are there! It is for EVERYONE that paddles!
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