5 years ago I started writing this blog. Like many people in 2020, I suddenly had time to spare. I’d been thinking about starting a blog for a while but lockdown finally gave me the chance to make it happen. This is my 100th article! To celebrate, I wanted to share some reflections about this blog as well as sharing with you some of my favourite articles I’ve written over the years. So grab yourself your favourite snacks, sit back and read on!
Reflections after 100 articles
Anyone who has ever met me knows how much of a chatter-box I am! This seems to extend to my online persona and before I started the blog, I found that I was writing more and more on my social media posts. I thought to myself why not turn all these scattered thoughts into a blog? I’ve always enjoyed writing and getting to write about kayaking seemed like a great idea! As a very sociable person, I struggled in the lockdowns and writing became a huge source of distraction and enjoyment for me. It also became a way to really connect with people which was an unexpected but welcome outcome.
I did not have any expectations about people reading my articles and at the beginning I honestly thought that the only person who would read my blog would be my Dad. My Dad does read my articles but it turns out so do a lot of other people. Over time, this blog has evolved in ways that I never expected.
The more I wrote, the more people were reading my articles. I found that people would share these articles with friends, leave comments or contact me to talk about the article. Many of my articles started to get reposted in kayaking magazines and I would be invited to events with the purpose of writing about them afterwards. Getting invited to be part of the ICF media team for the 2022 freestyle kayaking world championships was a particular highlight.
I would also start to have people come and talk to me on the river about my articles. It is really lovely when people tell me that they read this blog or that they enjoyed a particle article.
A few years ago, I was paddling at the Tryweryn when a man approached me to ask if I was Del. When I said yes, he told me that my blog was the reason that his girlfriend hadn’t given up on kayaking. She loved my articles and they helped her to deal with issues she was facing about being scared whilst kayaking. I remember this moment so distinctly because it really surprised me, ‘Wait – my writing helps people?’ I thought afterwards. It was very kind of this man to come and share this with me and made me realise that maybe it wasn’t just my Dad reading my blog anymore.
Regularly writing on this blog does take a lot of work but it is something I really enjoy. Primarily I write for myself but it is lovely to think that others may benefit from what I have written. In the next section, I will now share some of my favourite articles.
100 articles – here are my top 10 favourites!
I was going to choose this list based on my ‘most read’ but this list actually missed some of my favourite articles and so I decided to chose my top 10 personal favourites instead! The articles are listed in chronological order below. For each article, I’ve given the opening paragraph and a link to the article so that you can read more if you wish to!
1. ‘How to be an independent boater’ series
Okay this is a slight cheat I know, but in 2020 I wrote a trilogy of articles about how to become an ‘independent boater’. This is the opening paragraphs for the first of those articles.
A goal that I believe many kayakers have is one to become an ‘independent boater’. Let me explain what I mean by that phrase. When someone starts off in kayaking, it is often through a club. They are reliant on those more experienced than them to organise and lead trips of which they are invited on. It can be hard to move away from this structured system and become someone who goes kayaking when they want, where they want and with who they want.
Whilst many people would like to achieve this independence, they may not feel confident enough in their own knowledge and experience to make this transition. As someone who has largely moved away from club boating and more towards peer paddling, I was considering the steps needed in order to achieve this. I came up with three main steps or sub-goals and am going to dedicate a blog piece to each of them. In this piece, I am going to look at safety and specifically the journey to becoming safe in a kayaking environment.
If you want to read more – click here!
2. Negative thoughts and how to combat them
When it comes to head games in kayaking I am my own worst enemy. One of the greatest obstacles that I have to deal with is when negative thoughts about my kayaking or even myself come into my head whilst I am on the water. These thoughts have the potential to affect my river time so greatly that two things usually occur. The first is that I stop enjoying myself. The second is that my paddling actually gets worse because of it. My whole motivation for kayaking is because I enjoy it so if something gets in the way of that, it needs to be addressed.
I came up with a list of my most frequent negative thoughts and how I dealt with them. I then asked people what negative thoughts they themselves experienced whilst on the water. I was amazed at the response I received to this question. It was clear from the replies I was getting that there were some strong common themes and many of the answers actually matched my own list. So I decided to address three of the most prevalent negative thoughts along with how I have learned to deal with these thoughts whilst kayaking.
If you want to read more – click here!
3. Mental health and kayaking
This weekend celebrated World Mental Health day. No doubt you will already know this due to the vast amount of posts that have been shared online about mental health. It is wonderful that people feel comfortable to have this open and honest discussion about mental health. Kayaking for me plays a huge role in my mental well-being as well as my physical well-being. This is an aspect of my addiction to kayaking that I believe is shared by many others within the kayaking community. Therefore this week’s article I want to dedicate to mental health and it’s association with kayaking for me.
If you want to read more – click here!
4. 5 tips that have improved my paddling.
Whether you are a complete beginner or an internationally regarded expert – people will always share advice with you on how to improve your paddling. I’ve been paddling for 6 years and I could not even begin to list all of the pieces of advice I’ve been given.
Some tips however have really stuck with me as they made such a positive impact on my paddling. These were tips that permanently changed the way I approached an aspect of my paddling and made a clear impact on my overall progression as a paddler. Read on to find out what they were!
If you want to read more – click here!
5. How to always have people to paddle with
One of the most common messages I get through my social media accounts is ‘can I come kayaking with you?’. I believe that this question is not asked because people want to specifically paddle with me, but more because people want to paddle with someone. I post a lot about my kayaking adventures; therefore, people know I am out paddling, and asking if they can come with me might mean they can also get out paddling.
One of the barriers to going white water kayaking is that it requires you to have paddling friends to do it with. I do paddle solo regularly but only on flat sections of river or at a white water centre. I would not paddle a white water river solo because of three reasons: safety, social and shuttles.
I appreciate that there are people comfortable paddling white water solo and that is their choice. Usually, the people doing so are more than capable of both making that decision and of carrying it through safely. I am not here to debate that. Instead what I am here to do is to share some tips on how to make paddling friends so that you always have someone to paddle with!
If you want to read more – click here!
6. How to make people fall in love with kayaking: 6 tips to support beginner paddlers
I recently had somebody reach out to me to ask me if I had any advice or tips for someone just starting out in kayaking. The person asking was the social and welfare committee member at a University kayaking club. They were relatively new to kayaking themselves and weren’t sure how best to support new paddlers in the club. This person was also keen to hear any tips for encouraging more women to get involved in the club. After sending some ideas across, it occurred to me that this would make a perfect blog!
White water kayaking is such an incredible activity which can quite easily become the greatest love of your life. However, starting white water kayaking can come with a steep learning curve which can sometimes put people off. Here are 6 tips to support new paddlers and help them to fall in love with white water kayaking. Please do comment if you have any tips of your own to share!
If you want to read more – click here!
7. 5 of my favourite white water rivers to paddle in….
Okay, another series this one! What was meant to be a trilogy turned into a tetralogy with 4 articles exploring rivers in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Here is the opening paragraph for my first of those articles.
I often get asked the question – what are your favourite UK rivers to paddle? It is always a difficult one to answer! Partly because there are so many rivers well worth paddling across the UK and each have very different characteristics which make them enjoyable. I have put together a little series of articles looking at my favourite English, Welsh and Scottish rivers. As a Nottingham girl, I thought I would start with the English rivers!
If you want to read more – click here!
8. My top 10 lessons learned after a decade of kayaking
I had just turned 20 years old when I flew to New Zealand to live there for a year. I was determined to make the most of such an incredible opportunity and say yes to every new experience offered whilst I was there. Which is how I found myself signing up to an introduction to kayaking pool session with Auckland Univeristy Canoe Club. A year later and having taken many swims out of a kayak on the rivers of New Zealand, my visa ran out and I had to return to the UK. I moved back to Nottingham and was delighted to find out that Nottingham had it’s very own white water course and quickly signed myself up as a member.
Since that first pool session in Auckland, I have been obsessed with kayaking ever since. I have spent countless hours out on the water over the last decade, improving in my skillset and gaining experience in that environment. I recently celebrated my 30th birthday and realised that I had been kayaking for 10 years now! I have learned a lot of lessons in that time and I wanted to share my ‘top 10 lessons learned’ with you in this article.
If you want to read more – click here!
9. Kayaking safety: The power of counting lemons
Years ago, I signed up for an advanced white water safety course which was run by the legend Chris Eastabrook. During this course, Chris introduced me to something that he called ‘counting lemons’. In a nutshell, there was this idea that often when things go dramatically wrong on the river, there were usually lots of smaller things that had gone wrong in the lead up to that moment. He referred to these smaller things as ‘lemons’ and it has led to a safety measure that is now an integral part of my kayaking called ‘counting lemons’. This idea has genuinely changed how I approach kayaking and my decisions around safety. Keep reading if you want to know how!
If you want to read more – click here!
10. A fear of failure in kayaking: How a growth mindset can help your progress
‘I can’t do this.’ ‘I’m bad at kayaking.’ ‘I’m never going to learn.’ Sound familiar? If so, this article is for you!
When learning a new skill, progress starts strong, but sooner or later, improvement slows, and frustration sets in. That’s when mindset makes all the difference. Over the years, I’ve become fascinated with how a fear of failure, often linked to a fixed mindset, holds people back in kayaking. In this article, I explore how shifting to a growth mindset can help break these barriers.
If you want to read more – click here!
Final thoughts
Finally I want to thank everyone who has read this article or any others that I have ever written. I say I write for myself, which I do, but it is lovely to think that my words are being read by others.
If you have any topics that you would like me to cover in future articles – please do add a comment below. Equally – if there are any articles over the years that you really enjoyed – add that in the comments too!
Thank you for reading and as always, happy paddling!
