Currents
S T A N D I N G WAV E S
AN EMOTIONAL STATE OF BEING. PHOTO: DAVE BEST
For a long time now I’ve been trying to hook just about everyone I know on paddling. I’ve taken my brother, my high school friends, my university roommate and my girlfriends. Even when I was instructing and people were shelling out their
CRAZY PEOPLE PADDLE MORE
hard-earned money to be there and appeared to be natural athletes on the water, the sad truth is that only five out of every hundred paddling school students become paddlers like us. What are we doing wrong? Thanks to the back catalog on Netflix, I’ve been testing a new
theory. In the ‘90s film Crazy People, staring Dudley Moore and Darryl
Hannah, Moore is an advertising agent who snaps, has a nervous breakdown and is checked into a psychiatric hospital. There he and his new friends create ad slogans, slogans that tell the absolute truth. For example, this one for New York tourism: “Come to New York, there were fewer murders last year”. And, to the surprise of his former ad agency bosses, these crazy campaigns worked. It’s just a Hollywood movie you say? In 2003, Las Vegas launched its now famous “What happens in
Vegas, stays in Vegas” advertising campaign. It has been so suc- cessful that after eight years running, it joined the Madison Av- enue Advertising Walk of Fame. Recent neuroscience research suggests that decision-making is
an emotional—not rational—process. Scientists found that people with injuries to the emotion handling parts of the brain were un- able to make decisions. They could evaluate the facts, but were unable to decide the best outcome. Everyday we fool ourselves with lists of pros and cons and then, without being aware, make our decisions based on emotions. Re-
24 PADDLING MAGAZINE
search suggests that we therefore choose to be paddlers based on how we think it will make us feel. I once paddled a spring river with a guy I’d just met. Local
intel—mostly from fishermen—suggested it was a gnarly canyon run full of bony slides. We loaded our creek boats, full-face hel- mets and elbow pads. We left late and after getting lost on the shuttle, slid into the river even later than expected. The river was not gnarly at all. It began with a torturous three-
hour-long lake paddle followed by two hours of meandering class II. We found out afterward that we put in eight contour lines short of the correct river, just over the next hill. Arriving at Pablo’s truck after dark, we realized that he’d left
his keys clipped to his combat pants. So after a long, hot day floating a lazy trout river in body armor we hitchhiked the 50 miles back to my truck and his keys. A 2 a.m. cheeseburger and fries at an all-night truck stop never tasted so good. Las Vegas certainly isn’t for everyone. If, however, drinking,
gambling and cheating are your thing, you may choose to go there. You’ll have a blast. And, you’ll tell your friends (maybe not your wife) about it. Pros and cons list be damned. I’ve told my this river trip story dozens of times over the years.
It’s true. It’s real. To some, it appears the day was a complete di- saster. Rationally, it sucked big time. But if we want more people to stick with whitewater, we need to get past teaching strokes and fire up their emotions with stories about the addictive, un- predictable outcomes that we know to be adventure. —Scott Mac- Gregor is the founder and publisher of Rapid Media. This article first appeared in the Summer/Fall 2013 issue of Rapid.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56