Whitewater slalom racing, at its simplest, what is it? What are most basic building blocks of slalom? Choose the line. Execute the line. Be fast. The rest is just details. This conclusion was the outset of a question Cathy Hearn posed to a number of athletes training and coaching together in Charlotte recently. Obviously, there is much more that goes into each one of these steps. However, in it's simplest form, these are the building blocks of slalom...choose, execute and be fast.
Choose the line.
Know where you are going, definitively. Close is not good enough. There are at least six lines through every gate. Study and find them. Dissect the river. Micro-analyze the water. The shortest line is not always the fastest line, but it very well may be. When choosing a line, honestly assess your ability to execute the move you are planning. Do you have this move? How consistently do you have this move? What is the payoff of a fast move versus a safer line? Can you reliably execute the fast and riskier line? Is the risk really worth the time lost and energy expended to get back on line if you blow the move? Be honest with yourself. Pick a line you are confident in. If for no other reason, if confident in your plan and line, you will paddle more confidently and therefore be faster for this reason alone. Pick a very precise line you are confident in based on an honest assessment of your abilities.
Execute the line.
Now, you've picked a line. You are confident in this line. Go do it. Be disciplined about your line. If something does not work, and a move falls apart, do not let it interrupt your plan. Recover. Keep your composure. Know your plan. Get back on line and believe in your plan. Continue to execute and be confident in your plan.
Be fast.
This should be part of your plan from the beginning. Where can you be fast? Where should you simply concentrate on efficiently making the moves, where executing the line really is fast. When executing difficult moves, concentrate on executing the moves as correctly as possible. On other parts of the course, where there is dead water or a wide open offset, can you let it rip? Can you pick up time? Coming out of an upstream, by rotating, driving your outside knee around, squeezing the outside edge and getting forward, can you drive the boat out faster? Once you have decided on a line, ask yourself where you can be fast. Then be fast. Don't be a sissy. Go get it. Be FAST!
Choose the line. Execute the line. Be fast. This is slalom. Choose, execute, be fast...and win.
This work is licensed by Joel McCune under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.