2015 ICF World Championships Slalom
 
1
2
3
K1M
CZ J. PRSKAVEC
PL M. POLACZYK
US M. SMOLEN
K1W
CZ K. KUDEJOVA
DE R. FUNK
DE M. PFEIFER
C1M
GB D. FLORENCE
SI B. SAVSEK
GB R. WESTLEY
C1W
AU J. FOX
CZ K. HOSKOVA
ES N. VILARRUBLA
C2
DE ANTON/BENZIEN
FR PICCO/BISO
FR KLAUSS/PECHE

Canoe Slalom

Every Crushing Stroke - The Olympic Revolution, Part IX

canoe kayak slalom usa every crushing stroke rich weiss scott shipley sportscene icf jean michel prono

"Every Crushing Stroke" is a classic (book) about performance kayaking written by three-time World Cup Champion Scott Shipley and published in January 2002. "The Olympic Revolution" is the first chapter of the book and gives an interesting image of canoe slalom in the eighties and nineties. In the coming weeks Sportscene will re-publish extracts. The book has become a collectors item but can still be bought on Amazon.

Below extract number 9. Previously published extracts:

  1. 'Getting Started I' click here.
  2. 'Getting Started II' click here.
  3. 'Racing' click here.
  4. The Junior Circuit I
  5. The Junior Circuit II
  6. The Junior Worlds part I
  7. The Junior Worlds Part II
  8. Coming of Age Part I
 

Coming of Age Part II

Scott Shipley, 2002 - Jean-Michele [Prono] stressed a more subtle style than even what I had been practicing. He stressed preparation in almost every move. Where we had been trying turn right in the gates we were now trying to turn above and through the gate while still keeping the speed on the boat. He taught us to use a bow-rudder to carry a turn instead of the blockier sharp turns we were doing on our heavy draws. Most importantly he stressed using our shoulders to lead and control our turns. We began to work on pocketing our upstreams with turns that would rocket us back into the current, our offsets were no longer random scrambles but controlled curves where again each gate seemed to launch us into the next. For some of us this camp was an epiphany. I had realised by this point that even my best was not as good as Richard Fox and that something had to change. It felt like Jean-Michele had finally us with the know-how we needed to catch the Europeans. For others Jean-Michele's coaching was more difficult to accept.

canoe kayak slalom usa every crushing stroke jean michel prono scott shipley sportscene icf jean michel pronoFor most Americans the Frenchman’s [pictured left] coaching was a radical departure from the norm. As Americans, we had paddled one way for many years that it was hard for many to accept that there was a better way. This was especially true for our canoes and women who had had so much success with the American style. There was a lot of resistance to these new ideas, especially in the East where it represented a smack in the face to our entrenched system. Once again my isolation proved to be my advantage. While we were at the camp with Jean-Michele everyone was excited about his ideas. It was only
 after I went back to Chilliwack that many of the East Coast boaters came to doubt them. By that point I, and my west-coast training partners, were three thousand miles away and trying to master Jean-Michelle's techniques.

These were stressful times for U.S. kayaks. In addition to our frustrations with out performances internationally there were added stresses at home. Worries about qualifying for the US team were constantly down my mind. While none of the US boats had reached a level where they were competitive with the best in the World there were many of us who were very competitive with each other. Every day, every workout and every run I worried that I was not fast enough to qualify for the U.S. team. The stress was a constant factor in the back of my mind. Some days I would be unbeatable in training and would glow for the rest of the day with the satisfaction of my performance. Other days I would make mistake after mistake and scream out loud with my frustrations.

Ironically it was out of fear of my competitors that I became motivated to master Jean-Michele's ideas. Our East coast were able to shun these new ideas with confidence and the support of a very successful training group. Our top canoes and women were doubtful of these new ideas. They had years of top-level results to back their now proven techniques and many became naysayers of this new style. In the end most went back to the way they had paddled before.

Out West, on the other hand, we were isolated and trained every day with the desperate fear that other training groups would master these skills before we did. We were kayaks of a losing heritage who were desperately seeking a change for the better. We also knew a good thing when we saw it and had immediately seen the virtues of Jean-Michele's style. We knew the key to staying ahead of the pack would be to make the change quickly. Having said that, learning to paddle in an almost entirely new way was frustrating and hard. Skills that I had mastered long ago now seemed virtually impossibly hard and had to be re-learned all over again. That summer I had once finished eight spots from the best in the World but had for a period of five or six months, thrown that away to start again from square one.

We were on to something and we knew it. In fact, we were on to a lot of things. The dynamic within our training group had become fantastic. Only twice in my life have I been a part of a training group that worked as well as our group out in Canada. At the time that group came together in 1991 not one men’s kayak from North America had ever placed better than fifth in a single World Championship. Since that time the combined group of Canadian Dave Ford, Rich Weiss, and myself have amassed five individual medals in four World Championships.

canoe kayak slalom usa every crushing stroke jean michel prono scott shipley sportscene icf jean michel pronoThe incredible thing about our American group, despite isolated camps such as our week spent with Jean-Michelle, was that we were largely coachless. It was a liability we didn't let limit our training one bit. We became our own coaches. We set out a yearly schedule in the fall and then met almost weekly to evaluate our training and set a weekly schedule. We held a fall training camp each year where we completely broke down our technique and then put it back together. We had winter camps to wet our appetite for racing and spring camps to refine those. Our appetite for the perfect workout was insanitable. In addition to our three regular short-course workouts a week we would have a fourth "coached" session that was designed and run by a different athlete each week. That athlete decided what to work on, set the gates and ran the workout with the idea of learning a specific skill.

Rich and I complemented each other perfectly in the workouts. Rich was a four-time state-wrestling champion and worked like a horse. He was consummate power and consistency. I was the glider. Where Rich would favor his arms I would cruise through on edges, where I was a sitting duck on my edges Rich would power past me. In the end we both melded our strengths somewhere in the middle. By 1992 both Rich and I were poking fun at the other for having taken the other's style too far.

The one thing Rich brought to those workouts that I had never seen before was an unparalleled ability to train. All through my time as a junior I was the workhorse on the team. I trained twice daily and refused to be beaten in those workouts. Rich stunned me in our first workout together. He absolutely left me standing still. I quickly exhausted myself just trying to prevent Rich from passing me on every repetition. By the time we were finished I had to climb out onto shore to lie down from exhaustion. It was at this point that Rich offered to design the next course. I kid you not, Rich was only half done with the workout! In the three years we trained together Rich and I did 13 grueling workouts a week. We took one rest day every two weeks and we never took a vacation. In all that time I only once heard Rich mention that he was tired. One single time!

Coming of Age Part III...

Editor: Jan Homolka