Which type are you?

[Barefootwander]

On a recent paddling day down the Ocoee with some new found friends. I got into a discussion with one of about the attitude after a swim. Whether a big long nasty swim or just a 'Hey I'm retarded and can't believe I just did that swim'.....Which attitude is yours? Are to shaken up and get timid and down on yourself some a swim? Or do you get pissed at the fact that you swim and take the same big lines and try to prove yourself to yourself again?

So which is it?

I for one get pissed and try to not do the same dumb-ass thing again.

And don't say that you don't swim..... everybody does it. Just some not as frequent as others.

[David Conrad]

In the years between high school varsity swimming and a couple of years ago when I serendipitously discovered boofing, in what you could call the child-rearing years, I had a reoccurring dream that I was in a swim race and my arms weighed a ton and I was thus floundering. In the last couple of year, as 34 degree water dictated, I gathered gear together as I could afford it for my new whitewater life . . . a used wetsuit here, a new semi-drytop there, and everything was fine . . . at the pool. Then that weird dream happened. In my gearing up and pool practicing, the tunnel of my skirt worked in conjunction with my non-waist-sealing semi-drytop as they both sealed against my wetsuit. But wait, it's real life now, and what's this, I can't roll up on Hell's Gate on the Kettle River, how no! . . . squirrelly water! . . . one, two, three, four times!, listen dude, keep that head down!, damn!, start swimming!, get to that eddy, can't...lift...arms...damn! . . . water is coming up between my wetsuit and skirt into my top and into my arms. Well, really I didn't mind swimming but I could have skipped drinking half of that Kettle River while defense swimming down the next set of waves. Those lobster arms had to go! Since then I've been tweaking the gear but still find swimming inconvenient . . . and it gets everybody all freaky . . . so I practice and practice and roll and roll. I must say all that practice paid off the last couple week at Wausau and on the Lower St. Louis . . . combat roll after combat roll, which felt great on that 85 degree day in a wetsuit. But it isn't the practice so much as the attitute . . . make up your mind you are going to roll successfully, and do it.