What Skills and Attributes do you Need for Slalom Canoeing?

The choice of sports available to your child is vast. However, children are often suited to different sports and hobbies depending on their interests, physical ability and personality type. Slalom canoeing is no exception, and although it will be the perfect fit for many, it might be another child’s worst nightmare.

So, if your child is interested in slalom canoeing and wants to take it to the next stage and join a club, here are some of the skills and attributes they will need to succeed.

Courage

Racing down a slalom canoe course is no mean feat, and being faced with choppy water when you’re in a little canoe can be frightening, especially to begin with. This means your child needs courage by the bucketload to succeed in this sport, even giving it a go. As they progress and become used to the courses, they’ll feel more at ease; however, competitions will bring new courses requiring even more courage.

Quick Reaction Times

Slalom canoeing is quick, and it’s not a sport they can take easy or light-heartedly. Whenever your child is on a course, they need to be firing all cylinders to react to the water and the course to ensure they complete it correctly and accurately, and if they want to be in with a chance of winning, achieve their fastest time.

Perseverance

Developing your fitness to the levels needed to be successful at slalom canoeing takes dedication and perseverance. If your child wants to pursue the sport seriously, they’ll need to train in and out of the water, and often it won’t be fun. However, without the perseverance to train hard and not give up, there’s no way they can make it down and up a course to reach the gates in the way they would want to and progress as a slalom canoeist.

Listening

To be a great slalom canoeist, your child must be great at listening and taking on board feedback, including constructive criticism. Learning to take onboard feedback is a fantastic skill, and the sooner they can use it to improve and not let it bring them down, the easier they will find many aspects of life. The only way they can progress in their technique is with paddling, steering and the hints, tips and tricks to achieve what they haven’t yet been able to.

Accuracy

Linking closely to technique is accuracy because your child will not have the accuracy if they don’t learn the skills and strength. Also, without it, they will struggle to succeed because they need to be precise in the canoe’s positions to make it down the course and avoid touching the gates and incurring penalties.

Endurance

Every child is predisposed towards specific attributes, which include endurance; however, a child can also develop endurance through hard work and perseverance.  Endurance is being able to continue even when the task is super hard, and unpleasant, which often slalom canoeing is. However, unless they can see past the hard work to the finish, they’ll unlikely succeed either as a hobby or to progress.