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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels June 18, 2004 Commentary Learning a painful lesson the hard way Jennifer Squires Consider this edition the third in a three-part series about my lack of hand-eye coordination. I realize I could comment on the NBA draft or American Legion baseball or even fish counts in the Rouge, but this is a funny story. I've gone though the poison oak attacks and bike-riding bloopers in this column, but the kayaking concussion outdoes it all. A very talented kayaking buddy of mine gave me a kayaking guide a while back, maybe believing I could use it to find runs. Except I don't own nor have I ever owned a kayak, I just have a love affair with the idea of kayaking. Of course, I've never actually been kayaking for real. See, last spring one of my girl friends and I came up with a fabulous idea - we should learn to kayak. I'm not quite sure what we were thinking when we signed up for the kayaking class taught by the Southern Oregon University Outdoor Program. Neither of us were into athletic endeavors that couldn't be recreated inside the YMCA and I can't even ride a bike without needing a first aid kit. So we go to kayaking class. The program involves eight classes at night in the SOU pool and then, I guess, we were supposed to be kayaking geniuses. It was the third night of class and only the second night we were actually in the kayaks, in the pool to practice the technique. My friend had already dropped, but I had confidence I would be the star of the class. Riiight. After paddling, we learned how to "wet exit" the boat. Wet exiting, for those who aren't experts, is how to free oneself from the kayak when the boat is upside down and there's no hope of righting the vessel. I was good at this because all I had to do was yank on a cord and the force of gallons and gallons of water entering the banana-shaped boat would eject me from the kayak and to the surface of the pool. So then I had to learn buddy rescuing. Instead of wet exiting when the kayak is flipped, the paddler runs his or her hands along the bottom - which is now above water - until another kayaker bumps the tip of his or her boat into the inverted kayak. Then the kayaker underwater grips the second boat to use it as a base to rock the boat back to the surface. I tried, I really did. The first time I grabbed the other kayak from underwater, I managed to get out of the water enough to gasp for air. However, I didn't have enough force and fell back into the upside-down position. When I couldn't get the boat over and couldn't hold my breath any longer, I had to wet-exit. Somehow, instead of squirting free from the kayak, I erupted into the bow of the boat. Hard. My head smarted like crazy, but I had to tough it out. This was kayaking class. I held it together until the instructor gummed his finger into the sore spot on my head. "You should go check that out in the locker room," he suggested. I looked like a gunshot victim. I hit the kayak with such force, it split a crescent-moon gash on my forehead and gave myself a mild concussion. Class ended early for me that night, but I came back. I just never did learn how to kayak. DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams