2000

Adventures With Uncle Wally (Revered Teacher)

by Uncle Wally

Every teacher's greatest wish is to have the rapt attention of each and every student in his class, right? Unless, of course, he is about to make some astonishingly egregious error. But would anybody be napping then? Of course not. That's precisely when he'd have everyone's undivided attention.

Now I, personally, have had a long and distinguished teaching career, even if I do say so myself. Teaching kayaking, that is. So I understand the territory. While I'm not really in the habit of making egregious mistakes while introducing others to the wonders of the whitewater world, we all do have our moments.

Recently, though, bein' the sort of fella who's just as happy with one blade on my paddle as two, I'd been thinkin' it might be kinda fun to teach from an open boat for a change. So I went back to paddling school myself, jumped through all the required hoops, and got myself certified to teach whitewater paddling in open canoes.

Then there I was, with all the rabid zealotry of a recent convert; ready, willing, and able to proselytize the next generation of whitewater canoeists, when I discovered (to my lasting disappointment) that the next generation of whitewater canoeists was rather sparsely populated. There were any number of wannabe kayakers waiting in the wings for patient tutelage in the ins and outs, the upside downs and rightside ups of whitewater paddling technique. But their canoeing counterparts were few and far between. Don't know when paddling a canoe in whitewater became such an esoteric art form. But it made it darned hard to get a job. There I was, just bustin' at the seams with the latest canoe pedagogy . . . and nobody to enlighten with it.

I did eventually get a gig as a whitewater canoe instructor. And I was pretty darned happy about it, even if it was just a second-in-command sort of position. Playin' second fiddle to the lead instructor, Claire, was nothin' to sniff at anyway. Claire's teaching tenure was longer and more distinguished than mine to start with . . . and she didn't have to say so herself. Plus she had a couple of slalom racing titles to her credit. So I kinda had to count it an honor just to be seen in her company.

Nonetheless, that first flatwater session proved to be something of a trial by ego for me. Claire did all the dispensing of wisdom. She enlightened and educated the masses. I was just the demo boy, showing the proper execution of each stroke while she detailed the technique. Deep down somewhere, I knew that what I was doin' was every bit as important as what she was. I mean, if a picture's worth a thousand words, then a solid paddling demo must easily be worth a thousand descriptions of technique, no matter how entertaining. But it didn't feel that way. I felt expendable. I felt sorta like the lady in the fancy dress and cheesy smile who turns over letters on the TV game show; decorative, but not terribly important. I wasn't out there as the Fearless Leader. I wasn't the Great Paddling Guru showing the Way. The more I wove my way around the lake, trying to crank out technically perfect forwards and cross forwards, draws, sweeps, and pries and what-not, the more I felt like I had been demoted to flunky.

Then, toward the end of the morning, Claire gave me my golden opportunity. We were all rafted up in the middle of the lake while Claire finished a mini lecture on something or other. She paused at the end and then asked, " Wally, is there anything you'd like to add?"

Was there! "Why, yes!" I answered as I pushed myself off from the raft of canoes in joyous anticipation of my long-awaited moment in the didactic sun.

Well, you can call it fate or bad karma or just a timely lesson in humility but there was something just a tad too enthusiastic about that shove away from the group. As I slid away from the rafted canoes, I felt the offside edge of my Ocoee catch water in a distinctly dramatic fashion. This was not gonna be a good thing. There, with only one hand on my paddle and every eye in the class on me, I found myself suddenly flipping upside down on calm water in the middle of the lake.

In the quiet solitude of submersion, I took a fraction of a second to reflect on the disconcerting absurdity of my situation. Here I was, wanting to be the Revered Teacher, and the first chance I got, I had to go and do something this dramatically dumb. I hafta admit to feelin' pretty sheepish about it, hangin' upside down there in the middle of the lake like that. It was the paddling equivalent of puttin' your foot in your mouth and then bitin' down hard.

I didn't waste too much time in mentally beatin' myself up, though. I couldn't stay down there forever. People on the surface were waitin' for me, wonderin' what the heck I was up to. At that moment, I wasn't so sure myself. I didn't quite know what my next, best course of action was gonna be. There was no way I was gonna be able to save face if I wet exited and had to swim to shore. And I had a sudden, deep desire to breathe again sometime in the very near future. So I ended up doin' what many another guy before me has done in some tough situation.

I got religion. "Please, God," I thought, "PLEASE don't let me miss this roll!"

In my fervent panic, I abandoned everything I knew about perfect canoe technique and reverted back to tried-and-true kayak habits, brawling my way back up past the surface with a C-to-C roll. It was probably the least elegant canoe roll the world had ever seen. But it worked. I was upright again in the presence of eight, awed canoe students and one bemused lead instructor.

There was a moment's silence while Claire considered how to respond to this unexpected demonstration. At last she said, "There you can see that it IS possible to roll an open canoe," saving my bacon while tactfully omitting any mention of proper form.Well, well. I had forgotten that teaching could be such an educational experience. Spiritual, too.

I was a pretty subdued character after that. I probably learned as much as I taught in that class, which was a considerable amount. More than anything else, I suppose I learned to be careful what you wish for: you just might get it.