Themes: rejecting perfection, community, learning, and experimentation/creativity.
sharing with you from ERA Instructor Mita Coker
This weekend made me feel fulfilled, present, joyous, and humble. This was my first ever women’s-specific programming I’ve run and I was nervous! I wanted it to be perfect, which is why I was nervous. Perfection can be so enticing to people, especially paddlers and especially female paddlers; and it is so so dangerous. It takes the fun out of a sport that is literally just for joy; puts pressure on people that does not have a place in a learning environment, and inhibits experimentation, which is critical for getting better in paddling and in building community. Once I realized I was falling back into a common trope for myself and for many women, I decided to approach it differently. I reframed my mentality for this clinic and embraced uncertainty, experimentation, and honesty. By doing that as the instructor, I was able to set that example and encourage others to do the same. I would never hold my students to the standard of perfection, so why hold this clinic and myself to it?
We made mistakes, we swam, we flopped around, we laughed, we shared, and we learned from all of it. We practiced skills that force you out of your comfort zone – offside rolls, running new lines, going down rapids using unconventional methods, and doing it all in the company of new people. We all agreed to create a space and a group that invited creativity and trial and error, and celebrated each other every time we upheld that agreement. We were able to step out of our comfort zones while staying in our learning zones, and make breakthroughs doing it. Perfection is the antithesis of creativity and creativity is the beginning of learning.
We started our weekend by being open to possibility, new adventures, and each other. By reinforcing that with honest communication, staying curious, and rejecting perfection, we were able to build a community that felt comfortably challenging. That is what I think makes women’s-specific programming so special: just by signing up, you have made an unspoken agreement that you are going to do uncomfortable things in an uncomfortable environment, but you have a group that will support you doing that, and you will support them.That doesn’t happen often with open-enrollment instruction, there just isn’t that agreement to be an active participant in the community.
Trying new things, or old things that scare you, is just as much mental as it is physical. Your community makes all the difference when learning and pushing yourself, and our community was supportive, honest, varied, and engaged. It made teaching and learning so much easier and way more fun! Releasing ourselves and our group from the expectation of perfection enabled us to get a little silly, be more present within our group, and experience each other in an honest and unvarnished way.
This community and this clinic made me feel fulfilled as an instructor, embraced as a friend, and valued as a female paddler. And turns out, it was perfect.
For more Womens Progression Dates and Other Options for Improving Through Instruction