Mid-Atlantic Paddlers Association

On Friday, July 29th I flew up to Long Island to participate in the 2nd Annual Hamptons Challenge ECORA point series OC-1/OC-2 race. Although the logistics of getting to the Hamptons were challenging, overall the weekend was well worth the trip. Danny Ching and Johnny Puakea attended the weekend festivities and provided a clinic after Saturdays race. Danny Ching is an amazing paddler. I watched him finish the men's race well ahead of the rest of the paddlers and when he was paddling on the right side his ama rarely touched the water. The clinic was very helpful. Johnny Puakea reinforced what Walter Guilde said last year about the need for a slow relaxed return in both OC-1 and OC-6. Caroline Brosuis demonstrated that on Sunday when she concentrated on relaxing and slowing down her return which helped lengthen her stroke and she finished 5 minutes faster on the same race course as Saturday. Most folks were slower on Sunday but not Caroline. All in all it was a pretty amazing weekend watching Danny paddle and having the opportunity to be critiqued on video by Johnny and be able to ask his advice. Tori and Pat worked very hard to pull off an ambitious schedule of races and clinics and the ECORA community should give them a big round of applause. Freda