The rumble in the Thai jungle

As I took my seat on  Finnair flight from Helsinki bound for Bangkok,Thailand I had to take a reality check to see if this was really happening. In the matter of 2 short weeks and a few emails I was heading to Thailand to run the first ever IRF workshop deep in the jungle close to Chiang Mai.

Ex-kayak freestyle world champion Eric Southwick had invited me to run an IRF guide and trip leader workshop for his newly established company 8adventures in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. 

Rafting operations on the Mae Tang river in Chiang Mai only started around 20 years ago but the area now has around 14 companies. 8adventures is the leading company in the area, offering a professional operation to the hoards of tourists wanting to experience the jungle.

Eric had kindly picked me up from Chiang Mai airport and given me the lowdown on the job ahead. My first priority was sleep. After a good night’s sleep at the 8adventures camp it was time to crack on and start the 5 day workshop. To assess the river do a check out run so I joined onto a trip and was pleasantly surprised by 2 things

• The Mae tang was super high due to recent rain. We had a solid 2km section of class 4-5 rapids to test us on all week.

• The team at 8adventures were slick. Eric and his co-owners Sak & Oat had a tight operation. This was a pleasant surprise.

Eric demonstrating the whitewater swimming position.

I had planned the workshop over 5 days to allow for extra teaching. None of the guides had ever participated in any type of structured teaching course. I also had to allow for language barriers so the plan was to take things nice and slowly and move at a speed that suited the students on the course. The 5 days were mapped out in the following way.

• Days 1 &2 were dedicated to personal rafting & kayaking skills. I needed to spend time observing each guide running the river. This worked out really well as we had commercial trips every morning so I got to see the guides with real customers.

• 

• Day 3 was set aside to focus on whitewater rescue skills & safety kayak skills such as dealing with panicked swimmers & unconscious swimmers.

  

  Keep your swimmers in a place where you can help them most & remember to smile.

  

  Eric & Sak take it all in. It's not every day I get to teach a former 2x World Champion & a Thai national champion about kayaking.

  

  A safety kayaker dealing with an unconscious swimmer.

  

  Same bank entrapment drill

  

  Live bait exercise 

  

  gotya 

  

  Swim test

  

  2 point raft tether exercise 

  

  Throwbag skills test 

  

  Rescue harness operation demonstrated by using a V Lower.

• Day 4 was used for trip leader assessments.

  

  A flipped raft stuck in a boily eddy was used in one of the TL scenarios. (Can you spot the surprise underneath the raft that awaits the rescue team?)

  

  One of the safety kayakers dealing with a stranded customer on the TL scenario.

  

  Mock body entrapment scenarios

• The days were long as they are on all workshops. We started early in the morning and finished late in the evening. The Thai guides really took an interest in the whitewater rescue aspect of the workshop. They had lots of gear and wanted to know how to use it. Now was the time to introduce them to my favourite mnemonic that I find myself using time and time again on workshops 
  
  
  KIS, KIS: Keep it safe, Keep it simple 
  The Nature of the Mae Tang river really keeps the guides on their toes. The river is full of Bamboo strainers mixed in with some fatal sieves. I needed to ensure that the guides really took their time and use the self, team, victim principle to ensure their own safety not only during the workshop simulated rescues but also when on the river operating commercial trips.

This picture sends shivers down my spine just looking at it.

The Locals like to build as close to the river as possible.

The extra time spent developing the rescue skills of the guides & safety kayakers really helped out during the trip leader scenario tests. Not only had the guides progressed in their understanding of rescue skills and principles. Their team work had improved dramatically. Having skilled safety kayakers really made the life of the trip leaders a lot easier during the test.

To sum things up. Thailand now has its first IRF certified guides, safety kayakers & trip leaders. The bonus is the fact they all work daily together for the same company. We shared an inspiring week together. New friends were made and the IRF now has active guides in Thailand.

The Participants of the first ever International Rafting Federation workshop in Thailand. 

I boarded my flight home tired and happy. As I sat down I realized it would all be starting again in 7 days time. This time I would not be in the river deep in the jungle but in the high mountains of the Indian Himalaya on the mighty Zanskar river.

Happy paddling, Mark

Training with the maidens of the Arctic

During the summer period each year the Suomi cup attracts teams mainly from the Arctic region of Northern Finland to enjoy a race series throughout the short summer. The series of races are normally dominated by 2 teams, the mens team from the town of Muonio and the ladies Routa rafting team from Rovaniemi. 

Routa were fresh back from an early season outing to the European cup race in Bosnia where they finished in an encouraging 7th place. This was a good result considering that none of the rivers in Lapland are possible to paddle until early May as they are all still frozen. For most of the team this was their first time in a raft this season. During the race the team were inspired by the performance of the Czech ladies team.

On returning from the European cup the Routa ladies team continued with their success by winning the ladies race in the next race of the Suomi cup series back at home in Finland by a convincing margin. 

The following Monday from the race I was lucky enough to be invited to work with the team on a 2 day training camp in their home town of Rovaniemi. Toini, a member of the team, had contacted me to ask if I would come and help coach the team for 2 days and see if there were anyways in which I could improve there performance. I was honored. 

The turn out was perfect. We had 6 paddlers which meant I could coach from my kayak this enabled me to observe the team really well.

Before we got on the water we had a discussion about the aims of the team and what they wanted to get out of the 2 day workshop. All of the team explained what each of them wanted. The reoccurring theme was a desire to improve there performance and be able to compete with the top European female teams, in particular the female Czech team. 

The team also wanted to improve their own observational coaching skills in order to improve their own coaching sessions once I was gone.

With the objectives of the team clear in my head I could now start to plan the workshop in fine detail. 

We took to the water for a paddling warm up, straight away I noticed 2 really positive signs

1. Power & technique

The team had bags of power and technique. We were paddling on the flat water of a lake and they were keeping up with me in my kayak. 

2. Communication & Discipline 

The Ladies had really good discipline and the communication lines were wide open. 

With a nervous smile on my face I sat back in my kayak and though to myself it's going to be a long 2 days where can I help this team, they are better paddlers than me.

Pushing the negative thoughts aside we started to look into the fine details of  the forward paddling technique. This started a discussion based on how many strokes were needed to reach top speed. We really slowed things down and took an in depth look at the sprint start and manged to compare the start of a raft sprint to the start of a 100m athletics sprint.

We moved onto the water and really started to break down every aspect of the teams performance when entering and exiting eddies. We tried different approaches and experimented. I slowly started to notice that the team were coaching each other, I was simply facilitating the session. This allowed me to observe the team and give back some useful feedback.

We moved downstream to the Vikakongas slalom site. As it was still early in the season we still had plenty of water which was great. We decided that on day 2 we would base ourselves at the site and really work on the slalom aspect of the teams performance. 

We paddled down the remaining sections of the river experimenting with aspects of the teams performance and technique when ferry gliding and running rapids. To make life more challenging I gave the team tasks such as blind paddling & paddling without talking. The team were surprised at how well  they managed to complete the tasks and realized that they had a really good team work ethic already in place. 

Day 2 started with a few tired looking faces and some achy joints including mine. Day 1 had been a heavy day. We slowly warmed up and were ready for more action. As previously agreed we decided to base ourselves at the slalom site. I set the team and demanding set of gates to achieve. 

I then took one member of the team away on each run so that they could observe and evaluate the run in order to improve the performance on the next run. This worked really well.

What started out as a pretty hard series of gates to make now started to become achievable and by the end of day 2 the team were making the gates with ease and starting to style the course which was encouraging. We also used a little bit of video coaching analysis which worked well. 

We took some time at the end of day 2 to look at flip drills. None of the commercial companies in Finland operate on water above class 3, therefore flipping very rarely occurs to the point where flip drills are never taught or rehearsed. 

We looked at the finger reflip technique. Instead of using the traditional technique of 1 person climbing on top of the up turned raft. we used 3 members of the team to quickly reflip the raft from the water. This technique was warmly accepted. 

Once changed we discussed the outcomes of the workshop and agreed on specific training targets for future sessions. This was all fed back to the team with a wrap up email. 

Mark.   

                                                                                    

Rafting the Casbah

Stepping out off at Marrakesh airport I was hit by the warm air. A pleasant change to the blast chilled air of my Arctic winter residence. I was in Morocco to run my first IRF workshop of the season for Berber Rafting Adventures in the Atlas Mountains.

Our drive into The Atlas mountains 

After a short taxi transfer to our hotel the group met for the first time. We consisted of 9 raft guides from the UK ,France & the Netherlands. Over dinner we discussed the groups expectations for the coming week.

This workshop was going to be a residential workshop, we were going to be together non stop for the next week. The perfect ice breaking exercise for a group of raft guides was to have a few beers and chill out.

We all awoke the next morning and boarded Yann's van for the 6 hr drive to the Atlas mountains. We were all instantly taken back with how beautiful Morocco was most of all it was good to feel the sun on our skin.

Our arrival to the camp after a long hot dusty day on the road was an eventful one. Ed, one of the guides slipped climbing down from the roof of the van. The first real life scenario of the course had begun. I now had to clean and stitch his foot up. With some help from James and Nell we manged to get away with using sutures and managed to use lots of steri strips.

Eds foot 48 hours after his wee slip

After an amazing dinner of Lamb tangine I retired to bed for the night in preparation of our first day on the water in the morning.

Early morning coffee hit

After a light breakfast we packed up and drove up the valley to the commercial rafting start point for the Melloul river. Yann our host had informed me that due to a late spring  the rivers were still really high due to the snow still melting. The effect this had on the Melloul was great!  The river was flowing really fast with no eddys with lots and lots of trees in the river making this a great test piece for the guides to prove themselves on.

The high water flows in the area were going to make the course entertaining 

We kicked the day off with safety talks. Many of the guides started of a little nervous but soon managed to relax. Our french contingent were a little skeptical about having to give a safety talk in English but they all managed to get through with no problems.
The British based guides on the course all gave really good informative safety talks in the searing 30 C degree heat with all of their kit on.
My main observation from all of the safety talk was  re occurring, the guides needed to "KEEP IT SIMPLE".
Our rafting guests do not need to be blinded by technical jargon. Later that evening we did a "safety talk in silence" workshop where each of the guides had to give sections of the safety talk with out talking and by using actions only; a great leaning tool.

We cooled of by putting on the Melloul. The Melloul is a short intense trip with plenty of things for the guides to concentrate on narrow canyons separated by tree infested flat sections. I needed to spend 30mins with each guide taking control of the raft. It took each of the guides a few minutes to adjust to the speed of the water and the trees but after this they were all fine. I got to see some really good examples of client care and good raft handling techniques.

The Melloul: a perfect warm up run.

We stopped at the confluence with the Ahansal river where our camp was conveniently situated. A quick lunch stop and 5 minutes warming up in the sun before we headed back up for the 2nd run in the afternoon. All of the guides now noticed that they really had to keep on top of there water intake so we stocked up for the afternoon run. The afternoon run went really well, the guides were starting to settle into there new surroundings. We ended the practical side of the day at the take out looking at how to get a line across the river. I could see that the boys really wanted to get stuck into the rescue & rope work aspects of the course.

Our evening session consisted of a short anchor and knot trying session which was to come in handy for the days to come.

Day 2 started with 2 more runs of the Melloul. During these runs we started to explore the role of the safety kayaker on a raft trip. The kayakers practiced exiting their kayaks into the raft and taking command of the raft mid rapid which was something they had never done before. We practiced towing the rafts along with multiple techniques of taking charge a guide-less raft from the position of a safety kayaker.

Oli taking charge of the raft by vocally guiding the raft down a rapid from his kayak

We ended the 2nd day with the practical rope work assessment. Each of the guides needed to set up a functional 3;1 mechanical advantage system inside 5 minutes. This was a great example of how we need to spend some time investing in the correct rescue equipment. We discussed the benefits of a 5m length of tubular webbing along with good carabineers & pulleys. My advice to any guides is to practice practice when it comes to rope work. All of the guides passed and I wanted to give out bonus points as they were all rigging their systems in the dark!

Day 3 kicked off with a short session on packing for a multiday trip. For the next 2 days we were going to operate the workshop on a multiday trip down the Ahansal river.

                                       

This set up had a very Nepalese influence to it. 

We eventually set off down the river. The high water levels gave us continuous rapids with lots of  testing technical rapids. This really allowed the guides to sit back and enjoy their surroundings. Without knowing they started to relax and just guide naturally which was a pleasure to watch. Our lunch stop was set at the bottom of a class 4 rapid.

                                               

We continued rafting after lunch and entered a spectacular canyon just before we hit our camp for the night. Once at out camp we decided to finish off the day with the throw bag & swim  test. Each guide had to make 2 throws inside 20 seconds, one of the throws had to be a recoil throw. After a few practice throws the boys were on fire. The swim has to be a challenging swim which all of the team agreed it was as the water was snow melt water and freezing cold.

After the guides had all completed their swim and throw bag test it was time to set up camp for the night. Make a fire, sit back and enjoy our surroundings.

During dinner we discussed the role of a trip leader on a commercial river trip. The next day was to be the trip leader assessments. Each of the trip leader candidates were to be given 1 hour to take control of a scenario on the river. It was up to me to create a true to life scenario that could happen on a commercial trip. This could include panicked midstream stranded swimmers, multiple swimmers from a flipped rafts, entrapment and treatment of unconscious casualties. The list could go on and on. 

Each of the trip leaders were really put to the test with some life like scenarios. The guides all loved the chance at a bit of play acting and we got to see some true Oscar award winning performances.

The trip leaders coped very well with the demanding scenarios put down in front of them. The relentless sun and hot weather made life a little more interesting. 

We paddled down the last sections of the Ahansal through the spectacular canyon relaxing in the shade. 

The Ahansal flows in to a dammed lake. We paddled the flat water out into the lake where the water went from a muddy brown color to a deep turquoise. We boarded the ferry with the rafts for the 10km journey across the lake to our waiting vehicle. We had to take advantage of this turquoise water at the takeout by finishing the day off with the flip drill test. Despite having 4 action packed days the guides were still managing to make their flip drills inside 1 minute which was great.

The final day of the course allowed us to complete the last remaining aspects of the safety kayak session and also this involved dealing with multiple swimmers, panicked swimmers, & unconscious swimmers. We also looked at some live bait rescues. After lunch we decided to have an open session where the guides could take a more in depth look  at any subjects they still wanted explore. Being typical guides they wanted to geek out on rope work especially mechanical advantage. We had a short session on the land before finishing the session off with building a high line across the river. The local took the chance to get a cheeky ride across the river. Our high-line now became known as the Berber ferry!

Over the week a few consistent themes came out of the course and they were.

• Keep it as simple as possible.
• Keep it safe always. 
• Actions speak louder than words.(demonstrate with actions where possible) 
• Practice ropework & safety talks as much as possible. 
• Spend a little cash to have the correct equipment for the job. 
• Think professional & act professional. 

Overall it was a great week and we look forward to hopefully running another course in Morocco next year. 

Congratulation & many thanks to 

Yann Coppen @ Berber rafting adventures,James, Ed Patryk,Hugo,Simon,Damien,Oli,Nell 

Happy paddling 

Mark

2015 and beyond

After a successful very busy 2014. 2015 is starting to look like its going to be just as eventful. 2014 was an experiment to see if I could run enough IRF courses to be able to form my own training company and make a full time career out of delivering courses. I am pleased to say that my experiment paid off and I am now in starting to officially create a training company. So the really hard work starts now !

The paperwork to form a company based here in Finland is sat right here next to me. Requests for courses are arriving without any official marketing yet. 

The First major project of the season is to become a training provider for rescue 3 Europe. Finland currently does not have any rescue 3 training providers.The opportunity to be able to deliver rescue 3 courses in Finland is greatly needed as Finland has no formal infrastructure for teaching whitewater safety & rescue. With time to come I would also like to be able to offer Ice rescue technician courses here in Finland as each year people needlessly drowning due to accidents on the open Ice. 

April will see the First workshop of the season. Berber rafting in Morocco are going to host a Workshop on the Ahansal  river from 15th -22nd April This course is going to be run on a multiday decent of the river allowing us to really focus on the training needs of the guides. Berber rafting still have a few places available

http://berberraftingadventure.weebly.com/ 

June will hopefully see Finlands first ever rescue 3 Whitewater rescue technician courses run. Finland has a growing community of kayakers who will hopefully benefit from some training making them safer when they head off for there summer adventures. 

August will be when I head off to India. I will be Running a International Rafting Federation Guide training program on a 10 day Zanskar expedition for pureland expeditions .http://www.purelandexpeditions.com/. This will be an opportunity for those with no formal guide training to be trained on a classic 10 day river  expedition.

Once the Pureland guide training program is over I plan to spend some time training the local Zanskar guides we really had a productive workshop last year. Hopefully we can build on last years course and create some worthwhile training for the local guides.

 I have spent the past 2 fall seasons working alongside paddle Nepal. Paddle Nepal are one of the largest rafting companies in Nepal employing over 30 full time guides. Each of the 30 guides Now has an IRF qualification.  March 2016 is the date that has been set to run an IRF instructor workshop in Nepal. By setting the date for March 2016 this will allow us to plan and run hopefully a well attended highly successful workshop run by myself and Jim coffey.  

The Importance of good safety kayakers

I am not or dont pretend to be a great kayaker I have run my fair share of scary stuff over the years. I have also had my fair share of swims and confidence meltdowns. What I do take pride in is the fact I know I am a solid safety kayaker when working on commercial raft trips.

Good days & Bad days in Iceland


Lots of people make the common misconception that if you can kayak you are already a professional  safety kayaker. This may not  be the truth.

Many potential rafting customers are now approaching rafting companies and asking if safety kayakers are present on their commercial trips. The need and demand to have professional safety kayakers is raising all of the time. But what makes a professional commercial safety kayaker ?.

Nanu Gurung of Paddle Nepal 

As with most things in our industry it come down to the big 3

Training
A solid background of professional training is going to go a long way.
Solid training will give a safety kayaker the tools and skills to be able to deal with any arising situation in a professional cool, calm & collective manner. This in turn will also increase the safety kayakers confidence on the water.

The International rafting federation safety craft workshop is the perfect place to gain such training. The workshop consists of the following training and assessment elements.

• Personal kayak skills assessment on class 3 whitewater or class 4-5 whitewater
• Commercial trip management from a safety kayak perspective including river running signals, communication & positioning 
• Throwbag skills test 
• Ropework  and mechanical advantage test
• Safety kayak specific customer safety brief 
• Personal swim test
• Dealing  with unconscious casualties from the kayak
• Exiting a Kayak in a rugged environment
• Taking command of a raft from your kayak including vocal commands and pushing /towing a raft 
•  Exiting your kayak entering a raft and taking command of the raft whilst in a rapid 
• Dealing with multiple panicking swimmers Accessing an upturned raft from your kayak and re flipping the raft.

The whitewater rescue technician qualifications from rescue 3 international  will also equip Safety kayakers & raft guides with the relevant set of skills to be able to operate safe rescues in a whitewater environment in both during daylight & darkness.

The rescue 3 & IRF systems are both globally recognized awards so each guide or safety kayaker holding these awards should have an identical skill set.

A wilderness or advanced first aid certificate is an absolute must for any guide working in the outdoors with commercial paying customers.

Experience
As with anything in life. A task carried out by somebody with experience of the given task is going to complete the task much more easier.Compared with someone who has never carried out the given task.  So what experience does a safety kayker need in order to be a true professional?.

• Personal kayaking experience and the ability to control your kayak in a variety of conditions & situations is a must. A Proficient safety kayaker should be confident running rapids whilst having 1 or maybe 2 swimmers holding onto his or hers kayak.

• Operating river experience.  A sound knowledge of the river in all water conditions is also a must. A key skill of a professional safety kayaker is to identify potential hazards and flipping spots for the rafts and to be able to communicate them to the rafts in a clear way  . Knowing that on a certain level that feature x will be a nasty hole or a protruding rock with pin potential will allow the kayaker to pre position them self in a place where they can help the rafts in a quick manner should a problem occur. In my earlier days I was taught that a good safety kaykaer should know their river that well they should be able to run it backwards with their eyes closed alone . A bit far fetched but true in a way!

Binod Gurung of Wet n Wild explorations, lardo rapid Lower Indus India

• Experience of working within a tight team of guides also plays a key part. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your fellow guides will make the life of a safety kayaker much more easy in the long run. Knowing that in high water guide x normally flips in a certain rapid will give you the time to be prepared for the possibility of a flip with swimmers as a result of this. knowing if a certain  guide sometimes struggles to climb back onto an upturned raft after a flip will help you to offer them assistance if they need it. The same applies vice versa the raft guides need to be confident that the safety kayaker is going to be able back them up and deal with swimmers or a flip should they occur or that the correct signals are given when running a river in higher than normal conditions.

Notice the safety kayaker on hand to assist with any help if needed. Kali Gandakhi river Nepal.

The age old saying "There is no substitute for experience" is age old for a reason !

Judgement
Finally without experience or the correct training your judgment will be impaired. The ability to make snap judgement  decisions based on  training & experience is one of the main skills of a good safety kayaker. The ability to decide which customer to help first in a scenario with multiple swimmers could potentially prevent somebody from a nasty injury. The decision to give a signal to a raft to avoid a large pour over that could flip the raft is a key judgement decision. The decision keep a little distance from a panicking swimmer until they calm down a little before you commit yourself to assisting them with a tow from your kayak is always a key judgement decision.

This Triangle brings together the big 3. Solid training & experience combined will allow you to make better judgement calls.


Hopefully this has given you more of an insight into safety kayaking. see you on the river
Mark.