Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

I see from the current BC coaching newsfeed that British Canoeing are introducing slalom personal performance awards.
Could anyone who is involved please explain what these are for and why they are needed?
Surely the way to demonstrate and develop personal performance in slalom is to enter events and progress through the ranking system!
In my view the divisional structure already provides an accessible and progressive system for the grading of slalom ability, with well understood markers of performance level.
It seems to me at first impression that this is a poorly conceived initiative that could simply undermine existing efforts to encourage newcomers into slalom, through either Div.4 events or direct Div.2 entry.
Jerry.

Perhaps this is BC's way of providing additional support and resource for the development of slalom?

(now where is that imogie for "tounge in cheek")

I've not looked at it in depth but perhaps it needs to be looked at from the oppsite angle, its a way of getting your ability in slalom recognised by BC such that you may get those outside of slalom to recognise your skills so you can then do other things without having to go through various awards to prove you have the ability.

I must admit I looked at the basic slalom award and wasn't that impressed, time will tell.

I have to admit I glanced over it with scorn simply assuming it was a new way BC had come up with to try to make a little more money from paddlers.

The slalom coaching module probably does have a place (if it is designed by people who understand slalom coaching), the personal awards I simply can't see any reason for.

When you start out your club coaches will let you know when you have enough of a skill set to have a go at div 4 (or div 2 when appropriate), and from that point on you measure your progress by race results. Slalom coaches seem to be pretty good at introducing new techniques and ideas as and when they are appropriate to the level you race at - occasionally course designers throw in a sequence which your coach may not yet have taught you how to do best but thats how we build experience. Most of our kids have not done much with pivot turns yet, yesterday some of them met a sequence where it was probably the fastest way (cue debate from the old boys who were all spinning and claiming it was no slower!), and they adapted pretty well - time and position might not have been spot on but both managed it on second runs, one even did it without hitting the gate. They got a good measure of their own progress - they have come on well this season and are just breaking through to a new level of difficulty at the end of it so will train some new techniques over the winter ready to continue their progress next season. I don't quite see how this continuous inrease in skills can really fit into 3 levels of awards?

Another important point is that racing ability does not all come from training, there is a lot of race craft which you simply don't develop in a training situation and have to learn through actually going to races and experiencing the highs and lows and developing the strategies to cope with racing. You can't get good at racing in the classroom!

I should imagine the same is true across all the competition disciplines (BC appears to be releasing awards for all of them)

https://www.britishcanoeingawarding.org ... ce-awards/ (expand slalom)

mmmm, looks worrying like more commercialisation of the entry-level coaching that has always been part of the club environment.

I can understand that for things like sea canoeing, where people may want to take it up without joining a club, but need to make sure they have good skills, safety etc.

But slalom has always been about attracting people to a club, or existing people within a club, into slalom. They learn the basics within the club, enter their first Div 4 maybe just about able to get to the bottom of the course and do most of the gates, then they build from there by learning from better paddlers, doing more racing etc etc.

Whatever a club's preference is around whether they charge for coached sessions, it's still that steady progress, and as others have said, we already have quite a well established system for recognising improvement!

I'm hoping it was just that there was a need for this in non-competitive disciplines, and they didn't want slalom to feel left-out!