Paddling the Lupinski Way

After the 2014 Ride the Bull Race, Jan swatted a wonderful backhanded compliment my way.  I can't remember his exact words, but to paraphrase: "It's remarkable that you're doing so well this season given that your form is so terrible.  Just awful.  Worst stroke I've ever seen.  Seeing you paddle, I weep for our sport."  And so on.  He also made some gagging noises to underscore his disgust.  But I noticed the spark of an idea in his eyes.  What if he could provide a safe environment in which to mold the technique of once young paddlers?

So it was that the idea for Lupinski's Sleepaway Camp for Paddlers first took form.  Although it took Jan another year to work out the logistics and obtain the proper permits, he was able to open the camp just in time for our country's 239th birthday.  After getting the required inoculations and providing a list of food allergies, Mary Beth and I made our way to administrative headquarters at the home of Jan (and, from time to time, his wife Renata) on July 4.  Bruce Deltorchio and Timmy Shields arrived a short while later, after having first performed some ad hoc drag testing on roof-racked skis at high subsonic speeds (minor scorching was reported).  Once Jan had secured our blindfolds, we convoyed the short distance from HQ to the camp itself with surprisingly few fatalities.

The deceptively calm waters of Lake Sebago, beneath which lurks  an unspeakable horror.  Oh, wait.  No, that's just an oddly shaped rock.

Lake Sebago rests entirely within the confines of Harriman State Park.  The ACA owns a rustic camp on the lake from which a number of private canoe and kayak clubs operate.  The Rockaway Olympic Club is one of these.  Lupinski's Sleepaway Camp for Paddlers, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Rockaway club.  It's technically registered with the state as a leper colony, but Jan assured us (from behind the surgical mask he was wearing due to his pollen allergy) that this was just for tax purposes.  Powerboats are not allowed on the lake, which makes it an ideal training destination.

After a brief orientation, we were assigned to our Polish-named camp teams.  Bruce and Timmy found themselves in Tribe Sokół while Mary Beth and I were Tribe Ogórek - the Falcons and the Warriors, respectively, Jan informed us.  Proud to be newly-annointed Ogórki (the correct plural form, we were helpfully told), we quickly mastered our fight song and secret warrior handshake.  We were ready to paddle.

Bruce and Timmy, having successfully scavenged discarded equipment from the dumpsters, prepare to set up camp.

For our first on-the-water instructional session, Sergeant Instructor Lupinski had us repeatedly paddle the length of the lake with prolonged pauses between each stroke.  Jan paddled behind or alongside each of us in turn, taking stock of our form with a discerning gaze.  With analytic efficiency, he identified our individual deficiencies and then - not being one to sugarcoat - lit into the worst offenders (that is to say, Timmy and me) with a little more enthusiasm than seemed necessary.  I'd say just two notches shy of sadistic glee.

Our instructor immediately noticed that Timmy's stroke was wildly asymmetric - while his paddle was getting a good bite on the left, it was barely skimming the surface on the right.  After several minutes of diagnostic observation, he ultimately determined that Timmy had been using a canoe paddle.  Mary Beth had some issues that many of us share - continuing the stroke beyond the hip, hands too low, and a tendency to hurt the ones she loves (so cruel...).  However, she responded quickly to Jan's suggestions.  Bruce has a fine and easy stroke, honed by compulsively watching videos of great flatwater paddlers (his collection of vintage paddling VHS tapes is legendary).  Not wanting him to feel like he wasn't getting his money's worth, Jan struggled to come up with critical comments, ultimately suggesting that Bruce "smile more".

Jan had previously established that he was no fan of my technique.  He now had the opportunity - by my own invitation, no less - to elaborate in great detail on just how much I was getting wrong.  Death grip on paddle.  Slouching in the bucket.  Elbows too high.  Hands too low.  Knees not together.  Poor rotation.  Choppy stroke.  Poor catch.  That covers about the first twenty seconds of his scathing critique, which was to continue virtually uninterrupted for the next hour and a half.  Having reviewed video of myself in the preceding week going full bore rather than at this controlled pace, I at least had the consolation of knowing that my stroke could be (and, in fact, was) worse.  I kept that to myself.

It's difficult to key in on the one element that bothered Jan most, but it was probably my screwy wrist action.  I've watched it in slow motion since, so I now understand why he had problems even determining what was going on.  I look like someone using a fork-lift after downing a half-dozen Red Bulls with a meth chaser.  Also, I'm chatting with the warehouse foreman in sign language.  His wife has been under the weather, but she's feeling much better now.  With all kinds of unnecessary wrist flexions, extensions, and rotations, it's really a wonder that my hands are still attached.   Jan did the best he could with me, but several years of muscle memory were fighting him at every step.

Timmy - ever the prankster - discovered that he could wriggle his way under Jan's skin by pretending that he was having trouble mastering the mandatory stroke-pause-stroke cadence.  Chuckling to himself, he'd intermittently shorten the pause to a mere flicker of delay.  At the beginning of the session, Jan would offer helpful aphorisms like "The sokół must know when to flap and when to glide".  After suggestions along these lines failed to change Timmy's rhythm, he gradually degenerated to frequent admonishments to "Pause!" and "Slow it down!"  By the end of 90 minutes, Jan was spluttering wild-eyed insults directed at Timmy's hearing, intelligence, and parentage, while Timmy himself tried desperately to keep a straight face.

While I can't doubt Jan's credentials, some of his instructions seemed a little suspect.  For example, am I really supposed to periodically spray WD-40 in my shorts to facilitate proper rotation?  And while I know a loose grip on the paddle is important, does it make sense to practice jazz hands even when not on the water?  And, finally, how could I possibly think about my stroke while training.  Crazy.

Tim wastes no time in pointing out the obvious.

We eventually called it a day.  After sopping up the gooey remains of my ego with some old towels, we made our way to the Tribe Sokół tent platform to relax for a few minutes before dinner.  Timmy had brought a tent formerly used by the Ringling Brothers, which he proceeded to outfit with an inflatable mattress that included mooring lines.  Poor Bruce was relegated to the small remaining corner of this hangar, where he was to spend a fitful night worried that Timmy would tumble off his lofty perch and (after achieving terminal velocity) crush him.  Oh, the humanity!

After enjoying a beer or two at the camp, we headed back to Jan's house for a traditional Polish dinner of kielbasa, beet-infused horseradish, ogórki kiszony (cucumbers soaked in brine - an unlikely, but delicious, concoction that someone really should consider selling stateside), and toasted Skittles.  Hold on a second.  Ogórki?  What the...  Oh well, I suppose it's a noble enough vegetable.  Returning to camp, Timmy and Bruce headed for the big top while MB and I settled in at the Tribe Cucumber cabin.

In the morning, we met Jan and Renata at Rhodes North Tavern for breakfast.  We were joined there by Tim Hudyncia and new paddler Jenifer Carter.  I had an omelet, but that has little bearing on this story.  Over our meal, Jan sketched out the day's activities for us - another training session in the morning followed by a 5K race in the camp's K-4s in the afternoon.  I also had juice.  We made our way back to camp, where we met Mark Ceconi pulling along a treasure trove of trial skis and stand-up paddleboards.  Mark ended up working harder than the rest of us combined, despite not paddling at all.  On the positive side, he did sell a couple of SUPs.

Jan reenacts his early paddling days in Poland.

Our morning training session would consist of a series of one minute resistance intervals.  We'd maintain the same stroke-pause-stroke cadence as before, but each stroke would involve maximum leg drive and torso rotation, with a special emphasis on maintaining good grunting form (guttural, from the diaphragm).  The resistance part of the training was provided by a short length of tubing Jan had us strap under our boats.  The session was less humiliating than Saturday's, but only because Tim and Jen diluted Jan's efforts.

The K-4s were so unstable that just looking at one caused Timmy to fall in.

By the time we had completed our resistance training, it was time for the race.  After establishing that we had enough people to outfit four K-4s, Jan proceeded to randomly assign paddlers to boats.  The NSA might want to get hold of his randomization algorithm for cryptography, because it defied all predictability and logic.  By the end of the process, I had been assigned to two different boats, had latrine clean-up duty, and was on a waiting list for a liver transplant.  Although light-drinking Tim seemed like an obvious donor candidate, by the time I had found a knife (more of a sharp stone, really) cooler heads had prevailed and four reasonably balanced K-4 crews were set.  Each boat would have at least (and at most) two experienced flatwater paddlers, with the balance (or lack thereof) made up of surfski "specialists".

Encrusted with muck after spending a year in outside storage, Timmy reluctantly agreed to clean himself up before the race.

With something just shy of balletic grace, I spasmed into the rear cockpit of my K-4.  After some initial jitters at launch, I settled in as we began to practice synchronizing our strokes.  Our kayak was helmed by an unfamiliar Russian paddler by the name of Rostock.  Occasional surfskier Yosef Dayan was in the second position.  Bruce was ahead of me in the third seat.  I'm not sure it was a great idea to have me batting clean-up, but I'd just have to close my eyes and swing away (the same"piñata strategy" I used in little league, much to my father's chagrin).

As the first boat on the water, we had sufficient time to try out a few standing starts and a turn or two.  As Yosef instructed us, if you just mirror the stroke of the person in front of you, everything will fall into place.  During warm-ups I mostly felt like we were doing pretty well - not exactly lockstep strokes, but a coordination that a generous observer might refer to as "not entirely haphazard".  However, whenever Rostock changed his cadence, our synchrony faltered as we struggled to adapt to the new tempo.  We'd eventually lock onto the beat, but only after a cacophony of arrhythmic strokes.

Mary Beth was surprised by how stable the boat was. Nobody had the heart to tell her.

Our rehearsal time was all too short.  The other three boats soon joined us on the water.  Tim and Jen were in a sleek Nelo captained by Jan.  Mary Beth was in a boat led by another Russian-born paddler named Ivan.  Timmy anchored a tippy Plastex boat driven by Alex Ambotas (who paddled a tandem surfski to a second place finish with Jan in last year's Blackburn).  Jan led us to the starting line and outlined the 5K course.  I can't say I understood where we supposed to turn, but if at any point I was in the lead, we would have more serious problems than remaining on course.

After mastering synchronicity in warm-ups, we concentrated more on mayhem during the actual race.

Jan counted us down and we struck out.  I was concentrating so intently on staying in sync with Bruce that I was mostly oblivious to my surroundings.  We seemed to be in the lead during the initial straightaway, but after the first turn Mary Beth's boat appeared 5 or 6 lengths in front of us, leading me to believe that they had turned on the wrong marker (that is to say, cheated).  Along with Alex and Timmy's boat, we slowly closed the gap to the scoundrels.  On the third turn, Mary Beth's and Timmy's boats got tangled up, forcing both to near-stops and sending the latter well wide.  By the fourth (and final, it seems) turn, we had pulled even with Mary Beth's boat.

We hadn't been paddling as smoothly as we had in warm-ups, perhaps because we were constantly changing cadence to accommodate the frequent 180 degree turns.  Nevertheless, we still seemed poised to win the race.  And then... Through a negotiation that involved a lot of emphatic Russian, the lead paddlers apparently decided to slow to allow Timmy's boat (pushed wide in the previous turn) to catch up.  Once the three boats were abeam, we commenced a straight-line dash for the finish.  This rapid change in cadence had a catastrophic impact on our shaky uniformity.

Only Mary Beth bothered coordinating her outfit with the boat color.

We tried desperately to hold it together, but when it became clear that this wasn't going to work it was every man for himself.  You'd think that coordinated strokes wouldn't matter that much.  After all, we were all still paddling in the same direction (OK, I'll admit that I did briefly attempt to back-paddle my way back into sync, but eventually gave that effort up as futile).  Not only did our flawless asynchrony slow us dramatically, it felt like the boat might shake itself apart.  Two lost fillings later, we hit the finish line, second behind Alex and Timmy's boat.

Out of respect for the drenched, I haven't mentioned the boat sunk by Jan, Tim, and Jen.  They were once so dry...  Because damp men tell no tales, only Jen remained to relate the sad story of the capsize of the Nelo.  Apparently traumatized by the experience, however, all she could do was rock back and forth while repeating "So wet.  So wet." Those four poor souls had peered into the abyss.  I only hope that someday they can find peace.

In much bigger races than this, there's no shame in fourth place.  Pretty good color coordination, though.

After cleaning up (and drying off), the surfski paddlers made formal apologies to the flatwater pros, who graciously lied about us not being huge disappointments to both them and our parents.  We're a gullible crew, so we grinned foolishly and toasted our K-4 excellence with some beers before returning to administrative HQ for the closing ceremonies.  After another Polish feast, Jan and Renata led us one last time in the mournful Lupinski Sleepaway Camp for Paddlers Hymn.  Tears in his eyes, Jan told us how proud he was... of Bruce.  The rest of us, he said unconvincingly, should "keep at it".  The campers then said their goodbyes, vowing to keep in touch and to sit up straight in the bucket.

I learned a lot at camp.  Keep my hands up and stop doing whatever it is I'm doing with my wrists.  Concentrate on burying the paddle blade before "yankin' it back" (Jan's paraphrased words, not mine).  Never investigate chattering noises coming from under the bed in the Ogórek cabin.  And, most importantly, don't get out in front of Jan in a future race unless you're prepared to weather a withering critique of your stroke.

Our final feast at the Lupinski's home took a strange turn when Mark announced that he was much taller than we had previously thought.

Despite the jokes at his expense, I'm very grateful to Jan for generously offering his time, resources, and expertise for our benefit.  He's an excellent instructor, even when a jackass paddler tries his patience by refusing to heed his suggestions (I swear, it felt like I was doing what I was told).  Although I may have hinted otherwise above (for alleged comic effect), the only monies collected were for race registration and the ACA camp use fees ($1,750 seemed a bit steep, but I guess insurance costs and such must be high in the area).  Thanks to both Jan and Renata for hosting this event while simultaneously dealing with a skateboard-induced family emergency.