Appropriate courses

davebrads · Post by **davebrads** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 7:17 am

Another argument in favour of harder courses is that it tests the athletes fitness to a greater extent than the easier courses. Too often fitness is seen as purely cardio-vascular, some people extend this to such things as strength and power, but aspects of fitness extend far beyond that (taken from Brian Mac sports coach website):

* Strength - the extent to which muscles can exert force by contracting against resistance (e.g. holding or restraining an object or person)
* Power - the ability to exert maximum muscular contraction instantly in an explosive burst of movements. The two components of power are strength and speed. (e.g. jumping or a sprint start)
* Agility - the ability to perform a series of explosive power movements in rapid succession in opposing directions (e.g. ZigZag running or cutting movements)
* Balance - the ability to control the body's position, either stationary (e.g. a handstand) or while moving (e.g. a gymnastics stunt)
* Flexibility - the ability to achieve an extended range of motion without being impeded by excess tissue, i.e. fat or muscle (e.g. executing a leg split)
* Local Muscle Endurance - a single muscle's ability to perform sustained work (e.g. rowing or cycling)
* Cardiovascular Endurance - the heart's ability to deliver blood to working muscles and their ability to use it (e.g. running long distances)
* Strength Endurance - a muscle's ability to perform a maximum contraction time after time (e.g. continuous explosive rebounding through an entire basketball game)
* Co-ordination- the ability to integrate the above listed components so that effective movements are achieved.

The harder courses stress the agility, balance and co-ordination aspects of fitness to a far higher degree than the easier courses. If developing athletes are only exposed to easier courses, they will not be testing or training these aspects of fitness, and yet if they aspire to race at the top level, these are probably the aspects that separate the winners from the losers. Furthermore, from a coaches point of view, these are the aspects of fitness that need to be trained at a young age, strength and endurance can quite easily be left to a later stage in the athletes development. It is difficult for under 12s, especially boys, to progress to division 1, so therefore it is absolutely essential to the development of these paddlers that we offer division 2 courses on difficult water.

I'm starting to lean towards John Sturgess's idea of scrapping the divisional system, it would certainly end this discussion. My only caveat is that the divisional system pushes paddlers to race at places where given the choice they may not. I'm sure that several paddlers raced on the course on Sunday despite they not wanting to, and discovered a lot about themselves as a result.

The Doc · Post by **The Doc** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:00 am

I think that this debate is proving interesting but we are throwing around opinions and perceptions. So to try to bring some objectivity to this I have analysed the results of all Div 1 races this year. Surely the degree of difficulty is directly reflected in the number of Div 1 competritors having swims and 50s on at least 1 run, so taking this measure:

Average of all div1/2 races (ignoring Sundays HPP) 37% of Div 1s
Average of all Div 1 single division races 31%
Sundays HPP race 53%

So the hardest race of the year was Sundays by a significant factor
Div 1/2 races are on average being set harder than Div 1 races.

Clearly there is a problem in the barrier to Div 2 as I referred to it earlier in that progression of difficultly of races from Div 2/3s on "easy" water to Div 1/2s on "harder" water.

The health of any sport is about the number of people taking part, the more you have coming in at the bottom and progressing through, the more you have at the top. If we have an unnecessary barrier half way through that is currently deterring progression or encouraging some to leave the sport this needs addressing so lets focus on the problem rather than one race that clearly was somewhat harder than necessary.

djberriman · Post by **djberriman** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:37 pm

Sorry but I don't think a 50 on one run is any metric to go by. My 50 for instance was down to misunderstanding the plug hole line rather than difficulty. On run 2 I nearly missed 11, again nothing to do with difficulty either I just caught an edge in gate 10 which dropped me down the flow and tightened my line.

Similarly many paddlers will 'go for it' on their second run having bagged a good first run and are much more likely to 50. I also saw at least one paddler who gave up on their first run (and I think 50'd gates later down the course) once they realised their run was not going to achieve their objective.

The 50 does not state a problem with difficulty as it does not define why the 50 was given. A half head does not highlight a problem with difficulty just that the paddlers line was probably slightly too tight.

To be meaningful I think you would actually have to find a common set of paddlers accross all events otherwise you are bringing all sorts of unknowns into your stats such as newly promoted paddlers, never paddled at HPP, paddlers who don't race very often or have never competed on a harder course. All of these (and no doubt many more reasons) will surely mean your stats are flawed.

Also you compare HPP to the average that means there must be other courses that were higher than 37/31%. What are the highest stats excluding HPP using your method? Was HPP really the hardest by any great margin.

I for one learnt a lot at the weekend. Thanks for making it possible.

IMHO I think coaches (including myself) and parents need to encourage their paddlers to paddle on harder courses when given the chance, allowing them to choose to paddle easier courses just to gain promotion is short sighted and in the long term does the paddler and the sport no good. Promotion is all too often the target rather than development. Its also why we have paddlers waiting for demotion. Perhaps another reason to scrap a divisional system.

The Doc · Post by **The Doc** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 5:16 pm

Duncan I understand your comments but surely these factors are common to all races, ie. people going for it, their first race at Div 1 etc so I think it is a reasonable measure if not entirely perfect.

But to clarify the figures for all races were:

Shep 1/2 7/3 35%
Shep 1/2 8/3 37%
Try 1 22/3 48%
Tully 1/2 11/4 32%
Try 1 28/4 32%
HPP 1/2 7/6 27%
Bala 1 28/6 14%
Hpp 1/2 11/7 28%
Hpp 1/2 12/7 53%

So the hardest (by this measure) was Sundays Div 1/2 and the least difficult (by this measure) was Bala Div 1

Hope that clarifies the numbers!

PaulBolton · Post by **PaulBolton** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 6:44 pm

The figures are not correct - every time I get a 50 it's a judging error!!!

djberriman · Post by **djberriman** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 10:15 pm

I guess my point was that the 50 does not prove difficulty. If a 50 was always a non attempted gate/capsize etc then the stats would mean something IMHO but as it is it just proves that it was a course that paddlers got more 50s whilst attempting for what ever reason. It also doesn't prove if it was the 'difficult' features that caused the 50's so I find it hard to take any meaning from it. But hey I never did statistics so perhaps I'm wrong.

That said with all the figures its still an interesting stat.

Not suprised by the Bala figure since most of the course was on the flat.

Wish I was in Pauls position unfortunately when I get a 50 its down to me! Oooo apart from that one at West Tanfield when I was in Div3 and a number of people who I didn't know congratulated me for getting it only to be given a 50.......grumble.....moan....judges!

oldandslow · Post by **oldandslow** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:09 pm

Oh dear, what a can of worms. Thanks indeed Dave for a well run event. Just one final thought. I don't think the issue is particularly with the div 2's. The div 2's would expect a hard course and they all rose to the challenge well and should be proud of their achievements. The problem arises for the bottom end div 1's. There is a huge leap from 2 to 1 and I would have thought the best way to make this leap would be at a 1/2. These are few and far between, only 3 in England I think, 2 Tullys and a Llandysul. This is an old chestnut, but the paddlers who get promoted quickly at a handful of div 2/3's are suddenly faced with a really difficult transition and we are losing a lot of enthusiastic paddlers here. There need to be easy div 1/2 to help make this step.

Slow Paddler · Post by **Slow Paddler** » Wed Jul 15, 2009 11:38 pm

That comes back to paddlers practicing & racing on the appropriate water if they're likely to get out of Div 2 then they should be training on HPP and should be racing there as a Div 2 paddler, not wait until they are div 1.

The paddlers & coaches (if they have one) need to have an action / developmental plan, especially if they are doing well or have an aspirations to get into division 1. It shouldn't come as a surprise getting into Div 1 then having to paddle at HPP, it should have been planned throughout the year & the foundations put in place.

If you're going to race in Div 2 & winning, you either need to get on the bigger water & train, or accept you don't like it & paddle as a judge in the lower divisions.

races can't be dumbed down just because individuals have not done enough training on the water.

davebrads · Post by **davebrads** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 7:32 am

oldandslow wrote:This is an old chestnut, but the paddlers who get promoted quickly at a handful of div 2/3's are suddenly faced with a really difficult transition and we are losing a lot of enthusiastic paddlers here. There need to be easy div 1/2 to help make this step.

There are two ways in which paddlers have to progress as they move up the divisions; the size of the water and the technical difficulty. A number of people on seeing the course on Sunday said it was a Prem course, it wasn't. The difference between a div 1 course and a prem course is that on a prem course you should be expected to do technically difficult moves on the main features (though I have raced on Prem courses where this has not been the case, and this is where I become disappointed with the course), whereas this is rare on the div 1 courses.

On Sunday's course there was only two technically difficult moves, the stagger over the top hole, and, and the stagger between the plug hole and the muncher. The top stagger had options to make it easy. The "big" sequence at gates 12 & 13 was not difficult, and nearly all paddlers who attempted it succeeded in getting the gates. The aim of the course was to introduce first timers on HPP to the features without they having to do anything particularly hard on them, the idea being to force them to do things that they might otherwise shy away from when they train on the course. At the end of the day, the only way to become comfortable on the course is to get stuck into the features and get wet.

In our club we aren't getting over to HPP often enough, and for some of our paddlers we hadn't really prepared them well enough. It took quite some pursuation to get a couple of them to give the course a go, and we had one other who sat out the race. At the end of the day the two that raced were happy that they had, and the one that sat out was questioning his decision.

GreenPeter · Post by **GreenPeter** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:22 pm

A theme keeps cropping up here, “we are loosing paddlers because the transition from div2 to div1 is to hard”.

Doe’s anyone have any figures to back this up?

I have only just come back to Slalom after quite a few years in the wilderness so don’t have any year books to look back over to see if numbers are dropping (I could tell you they have dropped since the late 70’s and early 80’s, but also back then the sun used shine a lot more and a new Slalom boat cost the same as a cagdeck now).

So are numbers still dropping?

If we are loosing paddlers because the transition from one division to another is to hard. Hasn’t this always been the case, div3 to div2 in my day, div3 generally flat water and then a lot bigger water once you got to div 2.
Also isn’t it part of human nature that some people are going to give up when the going gets harder.

If we accept the problem is the transition from one division to another division, why don’t we;
1· Increase the number of points needed for someone to get promoted (keeping people in the division longer, so they gain more experience)
2· If you need x points from 4 races to get promoted, then one of the scores in your total has to come from a course that has been designated a bigger water course. So can’t get promoted by just doing easy courses.

Thoughts………………

djberriman · Post by **djberriman** » Thu Jul 16, 2009 10:03 pm

Another reason 50's are an inaccurate measure (without a reason) is the weather - wind can play a big part in 50's (as a half head, missed gate or a double entry).

Fairweather Paddler · Post by **Fairweather Paddler** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 9:01 am

Another interesting statistic to throw in here .... of the div 1 paddlers who competed on the Sunday at HPP and at Washburn last weekend, there were 6 paddlers who recieved one or more 50's at the Washburn yet got two clear runs at HPP. Therefore some may use this to argue that this means the HPP course was the easier one :O

Like all figures they need to be taken in context and you need not only the background information but also a control measure.

One could say that just as there are no easy or hard questions , just ones you know and ones you don't that similarly there are no easy and hard courses, just ones you can paddle and ones you can't! The answer is to get out on as many courses as you can and practice.

oldandslow · Post by **oldandslow** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:04 pm

I still think that in the progression of things, it should be Short course 4, 3/4, 2/3, 2, 1/2, 1, P/1. Therefore a 1/2 should be an easy 1. Am I naive?

Nick Penfold · Post by **Nick Penfold** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:43 am

Not naive, but that's a novel idea to me and doesn't fit any guidelines. Microdivisions? Aargh!
There are Div 2 paddlers out there who WANT to get on tough courses.

oldandslow · Post by **oldandslow** » Wed Jul 22, 2009 10:45 pm

There are indeed, it's the div 1's I was thinking of. As a newly promoted div 3, you would be more likely to go to a 3/4 for your first race rather than a 2/3, because the course and water are easier. Therefore surely the same should follow for a div 1. I would expect as a newly promoted div 1, you'd expect a div 1/2 to be easier than a div 1 or a Prem/1.