My kayaking has been theortical recently. Its been dry for ages, I got a good fix in Scotland and so I have been happy not to chase it for a while. However Doug Ammons talk, as anybody who saw him will know, was food for thought. I've been going through his 'Whitewater philosophy' book (which is well worth reading) and also the death of Lars Holbeck though disease is another cause for reflection. I was also interested to note a change of tone of kayak session recently to really take on issues like Hydro power.

All of which basically has encouraged me that kayaking may actually be 'growing up'. Sure, in its whitewater river running incarnation the modern form has only been around for maybe 40 years, but thats enough to start to form a history. Doug used this to theme his lecture, Holbeck's death will serve as a punctuation mark in that process, Kayak session are seeking to extend it. A generation of boaters have now done the 'young punks' to 'old hands' transition while the game of river running has remained fundamentally unchanged. I know boats are different and standards have pushed on, but, as the saying goes "the more stuff changes the more it stays the same". That means that lessons can be learned, themes can be teased out and we dont have to stay routed in the immediate. "Someone hucked this", "somebody else ran that", "another hit this move". - all that is largely sterile. We've had 40 odd years of it.

It's not that everything has been done, not by any means, but just talking about the physical feat of making a boat do this or that is limiting. Psychology, context, location, relationships, environment and even policy are what carry a lecture, book, magazine, film or blog post.

My theory session has been invigorating, but as ever, thinking raises more questions than answers. Hopefully my new questions will get aired, reworked and possibly even resolved as things go on. A history is always an unfinished work, but I think its now clear that we have one.

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