The Case for Expanding the Paddle UK Freestyle Coaching Remit

Recently I have been persuaded to go for the Paddle UK Freestyle Coach award, but I still have questions over the prevailing logic of its remit.

I’m finally going to do something involving coaching. The BCAB Freestyle Coach award to be precise. I had intended to go for the White Water Coach award, and have been intending to do so for the past, ooooh, 10 years at least. I have just never got off my backside to do the leader assessment. Collecting paper has never been my thing, and since I’ve only maintained a semi-distant relationship to clubs for the majority of my paddling life, I haven’t felt much need to, until now.

The Paddle UK coaching pathway

For those outside of the UK, the coaching scheme for Paddle UK goes something like this. First you take a Core Coaching course, which sets you up for the methods of coaching promoted by the organisation. Then you move to a specific disciple, eg SUP, white water kayaking, freestyle, or canoeing etc.

To get your White Water Kayak Coach award, you first need to complete White Water Leader training and assessment, along with outdoor first aid and a White Water Safety award. The leader assessment then deems you safe to lead small groups down grade 2(3) rivers. The White Water Coach award deems you able to coach on the same grade of white water. So, when you’re taking a group down river, that’s your leader qualification coming into play. When you stop at a feature or a rapid to give tips, that’s your coaching.

Remit weirdness

Now, there’s a bit of weirdness going on when it comes to the Freestyle Coach award. If you complete the on the water assessment for Freestyle Coach, you can then coach groups on up to grade 3 white water at fixed venues like HPP, CIWW, Mile End Mill, Jackfield etc. What it doesn’t give you the remit to do is to coach on a river trip, eg the Dart Loop. This is perfectly understandable, because in order to take the Freestyle Coach award, you don’t need to have been assessed as a river leader or have a White Water Safety award beforehand.

However, the thing I really have trouble getting my head around is if the freestyle coach in question also possesses a White Water Leader ticket along with White Water Safety. Why can’t they then coach on a river trip? They will have been deemed safe to lead on G2(3) rivers, and freestyle on white water has a lot of crossover with normal white water paddling, since you are paddling on white water! For freestyle you need to know how to read the white water, how to cross it and move around features. You need to know how to use the water to help you move around, etc. A lot of it is very similar to what a White Water coach might do, although in reality someone getting coaching in freestyle would likely be at a more advanced stage of paddling.

I’ve asked the question many times to Paddle UK representatives, and it’s been like banging my head against a wall. Each time I’ve asked, I’ve had the same reply telling me that to be a Freestyle Coach doesn’t require a leader assessment or white water safety award and can also be done as a land based assessment. I already know this! But, that’s not what I’ve been asking. I’ve been very clear to ask why it is that a freestyle coach isn’t allowed to coach on a river trip if they also have leader and safety awards? In the end, I gave up asking because each and every time those caveats were being completely ignored.

The thing is, there are often great features on rivers that are not near a get-in point. If someone wanted coaching on Chain Bridge Wave on the Dee, for example, it would require the kayakers to paddle down to it from Horseshoe weir.

However, the other thing I don’t understand is how Paddle UK can say with a straight face that doing this would be out of remit in the first place. After all, if I have a White Water Leader award, how can the governing body say that I’m out of remit for leading my group down to the wave? It would be well within my remit as a White Water Leader to do so!

Now, the finicky people amongst you might say “Well, you might have passed your Freestyle Coach award, but there are different tactics for river running.”

At first glance it might seem like this is a very good point. But is it, really? After all, most white water freestylers are also white water river paddlers. And, the White Water Coach award doesn’t assess candidates on every single facet of their white water paddling knowledge. If I was to turn that argument around the other way, I could say “Well, in that case someone who has passed their White Water Coach award shouldn’t be allowed to coach freestyle!”

You see, that’s the rub. A White Water Coach is allowed to coach freestyle if they wanted to, and yet they might not specialise in it or have any in-depth knowledge on the subject at all. But, they’re allowed to do so, and they have the advantage of being cleared to do it on a river trip! However, a Freestyle Coach who also possesses a White Water Leader award isn’t allowed to coach on a river trip. It’s absurd.

Has Paddle UK recognised this silliness?

It does seem from comments I’ve had recently that maybe Paddle UK has realised the absurdity of this, internally at least. For instance, if I coached at the bottom wave of Mile End Mill and somebody swam, thus requiring a boat chase and rescue, apparently I wouldn’t be covered unless I had the White Water Leader award! But, I guess if Paddle UK were to acknowledge this publicly, they’d have to admit that a Freestyle Coach with a White Water Leader award should really have the same remit as a White Water Coach. For all intents and purposes they are very similar given that they are both white water awards on up to grade 2(3) water.

It should be noted that the Freestyle Coach award can take place at venues like HPP, which have very solid G3 features, and require river running tactics to move a group down to the individual features unless you walk there. Boat rescues too, are practically the same as any river, minus the trees. Arguably, it’s actually harder and requires more skill to enact a paddler and boat rescue from a playboat at HPP than most grade 2 rivers while in a great big creek boat! HPP’s features are pretty chunky, and the eddies are incredibly boily with powerful recirculation. Often, a boat chase and swim there is quite long and regularly ends up at the bottom of the course.

Imagine a club trip on a river like the Dart Loop. At the bottom of Triple Step there’s often a nice wave there. Now, the club might have a general White Water Coach, but imagine that within the group there was a Freestyle Coach who was also one of the qualified trip leaders. The White Water Coach thinks it might be great if the Freestyle Coach shows the youngsters some surfing and playing skills, but it can’t be done because they are on a river trip and not at a fixed venue like HPP!

I’m going to be very interested to see if any existing coaches or Paddle UK reps chime in and tell me that it would be allowed. If that’s the case, then you’ve just admitted that a Freestyle Coach with a leader award should also be able to coach on river trips!

Opening the remit would make it more popular

It’s my strong opinion that Paddle UK needs to rethink this, officially. There’s a push from both Paddle UK and GB Freestyle to promote freestyle much more, but there’s nowhere near as much demand for the Freestyle Coach award as there is for the White Water Coach. The reason is simple. Once you have White Water Coach, you can coach pretty much anywhere up to grade 2(3) and then you can take the next step to Advance White Water Coach, and there’s nothing stopping you coaching freestyle. Why would most people choose the Freestyle Coach award if they can take a single award and be able to do both normal white water kayak coaching and freestyle if they wanted to?

Yet, if Paddle UK opened up the remit for the Freestyle Coach for candidates who also hold a White Water Leader and White Water Safety award, it would very likely increase take-up. This is because initially the Freestyle Coach award doesn’t require a leader assessment, which means it’s more accessible as a coaching pathway. If people knew they could increase their remit to river trips by getting their leader assessment done later, it would put less pressure on them to get all precursor awards.

Paddle UK could also do this for the White Water Coach award. They could allow candidates to take the award at set venues like CIWW without a leader assessment, but be allowed to expand their remit if they got the Leader and Safety awards at a later date. This would help a lot of clubs who have a coach shortage develop members, who could then take people to fixed venues like CIWW, HPP, and Jackfield etc without the time pressure of having to organise and take leader training and assessments first.

But, the important thing would be that Paddle UK kept the remits similar, otherwise we’d be back to square one with everyone taking the White Water Coach award in preference to the Freestyle one.

A lot of clubs are having issues of a lack of leaders and coaches. The door is open for Paddle UK to do something very easy to help ease the problem. But, I’m not holding my breath for them to do so.