On Sunday I was lucky enough to attend one of the Welsh Freestyle Development Day’s organised Lowri Davies from Flow Free. This is the fifth in the series with previous locations all over Wales. We met at Swansea Canoesand talked about the importance of leading with the head for playboating. We also practiced our cartwheel initiation on the floor. This was a totally effective way of teaching angle and leverage for the double pump. This was followed up with a sesh on the Moriston weirs. Given the dearth of rain, the weirs were a more than a tad on the low side, so we spent a fair amount of time working on flat water moves.
Photos (L to R): Callie, perfecting her Cartwheel; Me working on double pump; Smiley Rick
Next we mossied on down the the weirs and practiced stern squirts on the eddy-lines and did a bit of smurfing.
Photos (L to R): Chris and Ger; Callie showing off her squirt; Ben surfing
During the afteroon we again practiced what we learned in the morning, building up that all importnat muscle memory and then headed down to try things out on the weir. Lowri and Chris showed us the cartwheel spot and we gave it a go. Note head position of Lowri looking at the hole. Perfection.
Photo: Lowri cartwheeling
Photo: Chris cartwheeling. I think he got 5 ends on this go.
Next up my turn. Callies parents, Dom and Sue, kindly took photos. Often, we are our own best critic. Check out where my head is (its certainly not facing the hole), my lack of elevation and the amount of forward lean i have. Lots of stuff to work on!
Photos: Me trying to cartwheel.
All in all a fantastic 8 hours on the river. Lowri is the best female playboating coach i’ve had the privalige to paddle with. I sometimes find it challening to develop skills quickly in a group setting, but Lowri spent time coaching us as a group and also indiviually. I learned more in a few hours with Lowri than I learned in 1 year trying to teach myself, for sure. I highly recommend taking a Flow Free course with her, particularly if you are female!