I’ve twice dump-trucked my raft. My entire rafting career, I’ve never fallen out (from raft to water!) nor unintentionally flipped, my first season I had the lowest season-long number of people to fall out among my graduating class, except I did twice loose everyone in my crew but myself to the splashy fun…
My first time dump-trucking, I was a greenhorn.. (I think it was my first time with customers ever),.. and was barely able to get myself and our craft to the shore. Happenstance I picked one of them up - from the land! The rest of my team noticed right away and quickly gathered up the rest of my mess (we call it carnage in the biz).
The second time dump-trucking two seasons later, I was on a IV at near-high-water, the crew survived wave after wave handedly and then a tiny side-wave wrecked us. I erred in thinking they could handle it, having spent an hour preceding with my crew sans drama, and I thought they were ready and able for some more fun. Everyone fell out but me.
The first time dump-trucking, and considering that any dump-truck is already a rather large mistake, I didn’t do very well. I remembered my training and stayed with the boat, but a couple thousand hours later, steering a boat with nobody on-board I handled the second time differently.
Where was I. Everyone fell out but me.
There I was…
Just kidding. I’ll spare you the embellishments..
The second time everyone fell out but me, and being last raft out at the top of the falls before Mishawaka, nobody on my team downstream could hear my whistle."
I need to add some background. This was my first run alone with customers on a IV ever. A IV is pretty intense, requires special training, and the crew must also be sufficiently skilled to handle it. Crews are turned away from IV’s all the time. My crew seemed very able-bodied. We had been nailing it!
But at the top of Mishawaka falls, I’m letting them have extra waves. I intentionally let the boat hit waves a little off kilter so that the crew can feel the fun. Duder’s having so much fun, he gives me this look like, “I’m gonna do it!,” I look at him like “what are you doing to do? No, don’t do it! NO! NO!”
And then, he does it.
He lets Poseidon take him in! He checks himself out. Might as well have been crossed arms, dive master approach!
And he just so happened to choose a time to do so when we are mid-wave, off-kilter for more fun, the weight of the boat shifts dramatically, and… gone… everyone.
The wild thing was, it was like everyone just gave up and let it happen. Not like the first guy, he was doing it on purpose, but more like just giving up completely and allowing fate to pull them in. The boat’s starting to tip up, and nobody hangs on. They just… let it happen! They all slide out like there was butter on the bottom of the hull and let the river take them.
There wasn’t much I could do for them at that point. What was done was done, and I was about to follow the boat into my first fliperoo. We called it ‘closing the coffin’, something to this day I’ve never done unintentionally.
But then I remembered a fundamental principle in the heat of battle. When everyone is out, the boat is much lighter. I knew if I could just… stay… in, the physics of the boat would even back out and I could negotiate a much lighter raft. I had learned this prior to my checkout run when it was just me and the runt of the litter. When it came time to certify for the IV, the runt got the nod, but I did not. I was the coach’s “kid”, as it were, and was made to train with the certified runt in a double configuration to help him get his hours up.
To make matters worse, some of my teachers liked to drive my paddle harder when serving as crew, I aimed to please, so resulting I was eventually playing hurt. Repetitive wear. Maybe they were trying to teach me to disregard, I’m not sure?
So I was frustrated, but because of the extra training, when it was just me and he tandem, I learned how to single stick it! I ended up playing with him that day, freaked him out I did. Playing with the water, I was. Because I had learned something nobody could take away from me when I finally got some time with a lighter boat that’s not possible to learn with a full heavy.
I had complete control over my vessel, even with one paddle.
Mind you, with only one paddle, the physics are off. You have no symmetry, and without things like J-strokes to counteract, most guides can’t keep her straight.
Flash back to the present moment and so, “I single-sticked it.”
"I picked up one patron, told him to pick up his paddle, then we picked up another, I told her to pick up her paddle, then we three set out to quickly gather up our third.
My team still couldn’t hear my whistle downstream and we had two more patrons in the water. So I got hard on my crew. I hollered “Forward 2!” in series, but they were already tired from the cold water and it was really just me and a little bit of the lanky gentleman nestled comfortably in the forward hull, port side and diagonal to me (I’m a righty usually). Not enough power to get through to the other two in the water."
Nobody ever looked back.
"So my team downstream finally notices there are two orange helmets in the water, and they throw two excellently-placed ropes. Excellent.
Patron 1 misses the rope. Patron 2 misses the rope. Second rope gets missed too. That trick is out of time, so it’s time for plan B. Plan B is not plan A harder!
Time to send special forces and two or three light boats with solid paddlers embark from the shore, knowing full well that most of the short lunch hour is getting cut into. There will be hell to pay for this misjudgment on my part, later on…
Away they go on their rescue mission, and I’m in the back of the rescue formation at this point contemplating a full panic. FORWARD TWO! I bark again, knowing full well the crew has long since completely checked out. Back to single-stick, now with more weight.
Downstream, the other two are picked up in short order, no big deal, and returned back to lunch at the Mishawaka. They tipped me $50 and declined further travel accommodations from me!
When we went to debrief, I was instructed to focus on getting my three remaining crew safe after I was no longer able to help. If it wasn’t for my team, this situation would have been much worse! You have to have a team you can count on!"
Afterwards, because I was expected to take the heat as was cultural, I temporarily lost a lot of confidence. I got chewed out, and my fear was getting chewed out again, it was never about the water. When they let me back onto IV’s again after even more long-in-the tooth training (we didn’t get paid to train, and it really was long in the tooth), I didn’t care to do IV’s. I could, but I didn’t like it anymore. I took my III’s instead… less drama, less chance of catching heat.
(They all stayed in! This being not the same day as our dump truck, which occurred after I was certified (while here I was not yet certified on IV’s). That gentleman I’m holding fast weighed about… 400. I promised I wouldn’t let him fall in, and I did not. When you’re stuck in a hole, paddles don’t need to be in the water for to correct, least not in this instance. Listing always from the weight and sucked in also the same from the weight, we battled this hole for quite a while before she let us go. I failed this, my first Class IV test, for allowing this crew to embark in the first place. My retort that I didn’t go it alone, that I had a seasoned teacher with me, fell on deaf ears. That’s my instructor in the black with clipboard in hand. Setting the record straight, I sensed bias. Many good teachers, else, I had sans the clashing of the cultures, binary (or was it three?) prior mentioned. In another way though, this black-suited man also was a good teacher. I remember he drove the purple jeep. To each their own, naturally, though this failed test had nothing to do with the water, did it? I don’t submit to anyone save God. However, we each have much to teach the other, don’t we? Thanks for that.)
Culturally with any team, the illusion of confidence in volunteering beside what makes real confidence, the courage which cures slower the more profound with sensitivity, and the dullness of hearing that attends without… blaring.
Being in touch with nature, which is to say being in touch with oneself, is juxtaposed beside expectations in culture where winning, or surviving, or both is tantamount. In this context, in this team setting, rarely is addressed the real issue of hearing, listening, and looking. This, our blind spot. Though who could improve upon this metric of the world, not in it? There is quiet and there is turbulence.
And when there is turbulence, there is rarely quiet without the tempering of fire, or in rare instances remembering the child’s first glean, our one true nature all oft forgot in the turbulence of daily life and survival in an environment which prefers dullness and speed.
Just like training for war, there’s no way to know how you will do on real water when you’re by yourself with customers, so the culturally enforced normative is to bark your wish to be first (same as water polo, actually), and rightly so, though it’s not in the nature of those who prefer to listen & observe.
But when push comes to shove this is the simulated confidence, while real confidence lives within. Often then not, the emotion called envy rears its ugly head. Envy tangoes with beauty makes for the good soup. And group think abounds. Brokedness horse and cog and whispered wheel, this our Dharmachakra - choose wisely.
Rhythm, being fluidity, comes from being permitted to warm up to the temperature of the water in peace, only coaches rareness of gold understand. Or given enough time, to shatter the normative glass ceilings instead in one’s own nature. This is to say, genuine mastery, and bleeding together of masteries. Mushin (無心). Jinba Ittai (人馬一体). Wu wei (無為).
Alchemy. And learning all over again to re-alchemize.
More on this, later on.
