Local clubs offer whitewater clinics and excursions

Two of the oldest paddling clubs in the Knoxville area will hold their whitewater clinics in June.

Both the East Tennessee Whitewater Club and the Chota Canoe Club offer topnotch instruction, with excellent follow-up. A one-year membership is included in both of the clubs' clinic fees. After the schools, both clubs schedule weekend trips that give beginners a chance to paddle with experienced boaters.

Later in the summer, both clubs offer additional courses in basic safety and advanced swift-water safety.

The clinics cover basic whitewater paddling, stroke technique, river maneuvers, equipment and safety.

While the East Tennessee Whitewater Club's course is strictly for whitewater kayaking, Chota's clinic provides instruction in whitewater kayaking, touring kayaking and whitewater canoeing (solo and tandem).

Both clubs offer roll practices once a week.

Mary Ann Grell is a local kayaker who is the director of both clubs' paddling schools. An alumna of the East Tennessee Whitewater Club's 1997 clinic, Grell has been instructing for both schools since 1999. She is an American Canoe Association certified whitewater kayak instructor.

"Learning from a club puts you in touch with safety-conscious people who have been in the sport for years," Grell said. "These clubs don't just leave you on your own. They provide follow-up trips with people who know the rivers."

In addition to safety and paddling skills, both clubs stress river conservation and paddling etiquette.

Some of the best canoeists and kayakers in the Knoxville area were introduced to the sport through Chota or the East Tennessee Whitewater Club, or both.

Mark and Gay Henegar are a husband-and-wife team who teach kayaking at both schools. In 1995, when they were both 43, they enrolled in the Chota Canoe Club's weekend clinic. The following year, they assisted at the Chota clinic, and in 1996 they became full-fledged instructors.

"The people who taught us were so good and kind," Gay Henegar said. "We wanted to help beginners have the same learning experience we did."

Robert Bast's decision to take up whitewater paddling hit him like an epiphany. He was lying in a hospital bed recovering from surgery when a show on kayaking came on the television. He was 42 years old.

"I needed a goal for the second half of my life," Bast said. "I decided kayaking was what was going to get me out of the hospital bed."

Beginning in 2002, Bast began taking courses from Chota and the East Tennessee Whitewater Club, eventually working his way up from the beginner to the intermediate level.

"The people involved in these clubs come from every imaginable walk of life," Bast said. "None of that means anything when you get on the river.

"These instructors have spent hundreds of hours acquiring their technical skill - skills that they're not just willing, but eager, to pass on," Bast said.

Morgan Simmons may be reached at 865-342-6321.

Sunday, May 20, 2007