Ready to be the coolest gift giver this season? Give meaningful and fun gifts that contribute to your favorite paddler’s health, wellbeing and passion for paddling. Read on for my top picks for paddlers who do (or would like to) take on their wellness with as much stoke as they take on the water! Under $25 Asheville Tea Company Pumpkin Pie Chai Delicious, hand packed tea by Asheville outdoor enthusiast Jessie Dean. Perfect for pre and post paddling, especially during the cool winter/spring months. Full of digestive spices that are also sweet and comforting. My favorite recipe for preparation: 1TBS
Anna’s Gift Guide for the Health Conscious Paddler
November 20, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Anna's Blog, Health and Wellness, Kayaking Tips, SUP Tips, Yoga for Paddling
The Secrets to Calm, Confident Whitewater Kayaking
November 8, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Anna's Blog, Kayaking Tips
Want to feel more stable and confident in your kayak in whitewater? Try sinking your weight down into your butt. I know it sounds weird, but it works! Placing your focus on your kayak and hips gets your attention away from doing too much with your paddle. Too much paddling actually leads to instability. That’s why when you watch really good paddlers they take fewer, yet more powerful and timed strokes. When we focus on feeling ‘grounded’ in our kayaks we create stability and confidence. Here are examples of what I mean. In this first video, Sandra, a newer paddler
Whitewater Kayaking: The Secret to Beautiful Lines
July 6, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Anna's Blog, Kayaking Tips
If you’ve taken kayak instruction from me you know that I’m a big believer in the importance of boat angle in running beautiful lines. The ability to set and maintain your angle when running a rapid can make or break your line, and the amount of control you have going in and out of eddies is directly related to angle. Angle is more important than speed, especially when running lower volume, technical rivers. The crux is how well you can maintain your angle because setting your angle is the easy part! Here are two POV videos of the same rapid
Women’s Paddlefest 2018
June 14, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Anna's Blog, Inspiring Articles, Kayaking Tips, Latest News
Thank you to those of you who attended Women’s Paddlefest at the Nantahala Outdoor Center and raised close to $3000.00 for charity! High water, mudslides and rain days before the event didn’t stop you from joining in community, empowering yourselves and having fun. Instead of canceling we went ahead with the event modifying programming to Lake Fontana and the Nantahala, and consolidating the event to one day. We had 30 women on the lake and Anne Sontheimer from the NOC and I split the group and gave instruction on strokes and edge control/rolling. At the end of the lake session
How to Paddle Class IV with Fewer Strokes
May 9, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Anna's Blog, Kayaking Tips
I recently posted a video of me running my favorite rapid, Boxcar, on the North Fork of the French Broad here in Western North Carolina. The rapid consists of a short slide leading into a 15 ft drop that you boof into a beautiful little gorge. Here it is for you! Both my Creek Week students and folks online expressed surprise at how few strokes I took to run the rapid smoothly. Taking fewer strokes is one big difference between beginner/intermediate skills and intermediate/advanced skills, especially stepping it up to Class IV creeking. As you progress you learn that creating
Things I Wish I Had Known Sooner: A Kayaking FAQ Part 1
February 10, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Kayaking Tips
Take a moment to think back to when you first got into kayaking, when you were the new kid on the block. Are there “little” things that you know now that you barely need to think about but that were a source of frustration or puzzlement in the beginning? After spending a summer teaching new kayakers and fielding all sorts of questions, I got inspired to put together a short list of things I wish I had known earlier in my kayaking experience. A FAQ for new kayakers, if you will. While this list is far from comprehensive, these are
Simple Reminders
January 18, 2018 | Written by: | Filed Under: Inspiring Articles, Kayaking Tips, Trip/Tour Reports
It’s Sunday morning in January in McCall, Idaho, and I’m kicking away at the snowbank alongside my yurt in an effort to excavate my creek boat from where it’s been wintering underneath. My hands are already frozen from attaching my kayak stackers to my roof rack in the bitter cold, and now my toes are freezing too. “Why did I agree to this?” I mutter to myself as I tug on the grab loop of my Mamba while continuing to kick out a big enough opening to wrangle it through. In flurry of ice shards, she finally breaks free and
How to Build Emotional Resilience on the Water
November 9, 2017 | Written by: | Filed Under: Anna's Blog, Health and Wellness, Inspiring Articles, Kayaking Tips
According to the dictionary, resilience is defined as, ‘the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.’ A second definition is: ‘the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape.’ When you experience a difficult, disappointing or scary situation on the water how quickly do you recover? Are you able to let it roll off your back and feel empowered to paddle on? No matter your answer, know that you can increase your resilience with practice. In the past, when I performed poorly in a competition or got trashed on a river and swam out of my kayak I
Why You Should Take an International Paddling Trip
October 16, 2017 | Written by: | Filed Under: Inspiring Articles, Kayaking Tips, Trip/Tour Reports
A really smart woman once told me I didn’t need a drysuit when I could just boat where it’s warm enough not to wear one. Inspired by this approach to winter boating, I booked my first international kayaking trip to Mexico and have been traveling ever since. Although it’s not quite drysuit season yet and the warm weather has me wondering if I’m ever going to need my drysuit again, fall is always a time when I start dreaming about my next big adventure, preferably to a more tropical location. You don’t have to be an expert boater to enjoy
The River, my Old Friend
October 13, 2017 | Written by: | Filed Under: Inspiring Articles, Kayaking Tips
Mind Body Paddle recently re-posted the very first blog post I wrote at Anna’s request—the story of how I became a kayak instructor, written before I actually started instructing. Written before I ever knew that I would end up working for Girls at Play/Mind Body Paddle. I was in high school, writing about this dream I had of guiding people down the river. I was signed up to teach kayaking on the Wolf River in Wisconsin that upcoming summer, despite my status as a novice boater. I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew that I was
