Sean shares his experiences from his recent Moderate Water Endorsement Assessment…
The journey so far
Moderate Water Endorsement is the next coaching qualification for White Water after becoming a UKCC British Canoeing Level 2 coach. Getting to the point of assessment was a long and bumpy journey not without its trials and tribulations but you can read other articles for those.
Dartmoor in the cold and wet
The assessment is for a maximum of two assessees at a time. I had no friends ready at this point and was determined to get my assessment done before my big birthday in December so I booked onto an assessment with Darren Joy of Fluid Skills. I’d heard about Darren but never paddled or been coached by him before. So off I headed on a dark and dismal Thursday afternoon for the drive down to Dartmoor. I had planned on boating the Loop on the Thursday just to get my bearings as it had been almost a year since I was last on the Loop – but that never happened. I got sidetracked talking to folks at Lee Valley and got some helpful handy hints for the assessment from Dan.
I checked into the hotel and had a terrible night’s sleep as I couldn’t stop thinking about everything that could go wrong on the assessment! Needless to say I woke somewhat shattered and not ready for the assessment. I then was a bit gobsmacked that even Ashburton gets morning rush hour traffic so my plan to check the levels before I met Darren at the Dart River Country Park wasn’t the wisest. Luckily I made it time and didn’t appear too flustered (I hope).
Having never met Darren before and my efforts in Face-stalking had failed – I didn’t really know who I was meeting. Luckily his van is branded!
The assessment
There wasn’t really any time to sit back and relax. The assessment started pretty much straight away with Darren reviewing all my pre-requisite credentials and giving me a very thorough grilling over my coaching logbook. There was a point during this that I thought I had already failed before we even got on the water!
I was then given two students: Sarah & Jordan. Both very nice people and got to chatting with them. Apparently I’m long winded and need to just get to the point! Oops! After a quick chat with the other assessee, we agreed to both take our groups on the Dart Loop a) because we couldn’t go to different rivers and be assessed and b) it was pretty damn convenient.
The start of my session on the Loop was awful. In hindsight I felt sorry for Jordan and Sarah. I was so worried about the assessment that I forgot to actually have fun – I was delivering textbook coaching techniques but with about as much enthusiasm as getting out of bed for work! Darren pulled me aside at one point and gave me a couple of review points. Being so hung up about the assessment, I thought he was telling me I’d failed. I think that was the best thing to have happened because I completely changed from that moment and decided to have fun and make the session as much about Sarah & Jordan as I could. During the debrief after the assessment, both Sarah & Jordan both commented that it was 100 times better as soon as I switched. God I hate assessments!!!
Sarah & Jordan were great guinea pigs for the day. Not a single swim between them so I had to have a “staged” rescue scenario for Darren to observe my rescue skills. Jordan stepped up to the plate and swam down Triple Steps for me to rescue him. I then had to demonstrate rolling for my self rescues – thankfully no mandatory self swim!
Shortly after this Darren paddled up to me and shook my hand and congratulated me on passing. Expletives almost fell out of my mouth at the sheer excitement! I was so happy and we hadn’t even finished the Loop yet. As we set off paddling downstream, Jordan then told me the whammy – he had actually just done his MWE training the previous week with Darren and was looking to see what the assessment was like. For his little fib, I pushed him over 🙂
The wrap up
We all met in a pub in Ashburton that I’d never been to before but will do again – though its name escapes me! It has a big fireplace! The debrief and signing of paperwork was perfect – relaxing and good fun. Got personalised feedback from the students and from Darren which was great. Darren’s parting words were to just get on and do my 5* assessment and then do my Advanced Water Endorsement training. Urgh! And just when I thought I’d done enough….. there are more steps to climb!
I wish I could say that’s where it ends – but that wouldn’t be doing British Canoeing justice. My certificate arrived in the post three weeks later along with a coaching logbook to become a 3* assessor…. MORE coaching, more logbook hours, more paperwork! It never ends *sigh*
Sean on a recent trip to Scotland
