Day 8- Ahh, Air Screws are Hard.

     My mom got here today! Yes, my mother had to come all the way to Africa to be able to see me, she is also just that awesome. She is recovering from a bunion surgery that has been causing her some troubles so she wanted to escape the Michigan winter woes and meet her youngest daughter dearest in Africa. She rocks. So she got and we had our catch up session. She is so easy to talk to, she has so much knowledge and a lot of very useful things to say and ideas to fix things. She also knows me better than anyone on this little island, by a long shot. 

    Around 11, we had a meeting with Den to kind of kick off the “training” early, before the actual course starts on April 3rd. In just that hour, I absorbed more information from a coach regarding freestyle than I have gotten in my whole life, combined. I am more than lucky to be able to have this experience to be coached by the staff at Sweetwater Coaching. After the session, I dove back into my book, which I feel like I have hit a stopping point in because I can’t get kayaking off my mind. 

    We went out after lunch, pretty much with the whole island, mom recovered from her 38 hour trip to the island. I stayed out on Nile Special for the whole afternoon, until the sun was setting on the horizon and we were blessed with yet another spectacular sunset on the Nile. I was working on air screws the whole time, which proved to be relatively painful most of the time. Special had dropped a bit low so it was flushy but was giving up absolutely massive air, this came to both help and hinder in my learning ability. For the first time ever, I got immediate feedback, from a coach, on what I was doing wrong and what I could do to fix it. I feel like air screws are the kind of move that you have to crash a bit before you start sticking them, I am definitely in the crash phase at this point. Given I am hard headed, I am betting I will be in the crash phase until I start nailing them every time, no matter how beaten and broken I feel. 

    After dinner, I ventured back out to the riverside to find one of the larger lightning storms on the horizon that I have seen for a while. I just sat on the riverside, watching Mother Natures brilliance and thanking Her for being so beautiful, I also was wishing that I had Snowy by my side to share this experience, we always love watching lightning together.