Read Every Crushing Stroke The Book of Performance Kayaking Scott Shipley 9780971032002 Books

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Product details Paperback 110 pages Publisher Scott Shipley; First and only! edition (January 10, 2002) Language English ISBN-10 0971032009

Every Crushing Stroke The Book of Performance Kayaking Scott Shipley 9780971032002 Books Reviews

• Very interesting read, and useful in my paddling!!
• What I wasn't prepared for the first time I picked up this book was what an inspired writer Scott Shipley is. Don't get me wrong -- this book is for folks who are captivated by slalom racing. I would protect this book if I could - from all the demanding folks with five free minutes between TV watching sessions and lack of comprehension enough to think that the title on the cover actually contains the correct letters to spell "Into Thin Air." I think that this book has settled comfortably into obscurity (with the possible exception of Scott's garage, where I'm sure many copies hold a prominent position!) This book does not have a wide appeal - it is a book (half-techincal manual, really) written by an engineer and man who lived with his head down for years, honed in on a desperate pursuit of excellence.
  
  And so it is just so surprising how lyrical and inspired the writing is. The first third of the book is a history of Shipley's career -- and what a history! It is more than just Rich Weiss's legacy that "shines forth from the pages of this book." It is Shipley's. He has undertaken an incredible journey -- one from which he has not really returned. It all comes through -- the heartbreaking three failures in the Olympic Games, the "necessary arrogance" and "heat-seeking missle" that he became - refusing to lose during even basic practice sessions, the death of the seemingly invincible Rich Weiss, the living in stark poverty in a tree house in British Columbia and then being whisked into the opulence of the Olympic Village, the flailings and missteps and ragged toughness of Shipley, Weiss and Brian Brown walking barefoot through the snow, digging out their cars with kayak paddles, paddling barehanded in the huge water of the Chilliwack "at Biblical levels" and mututally breaking down and systematically putting back together the ideal racing technique in their "laboratory" way out in British Columbia - trying to succeed where Americans never had, exiles from their own country -- and from the traditional, lavish hotspots of the European racing factory.
  
  It's all there. I can still picture a young Shipley on the river bank at the World Championships scanning the fog and hearing the cheers of the crowd just upstream -- only to see Jon Lugbill's fist just above the fog - his top hand hammering up and down with "every crushing stroke" and then seeing Lugbill himself in all his glory "surge out of the fog on a full speed sprint" with the other two Americans, Jed Prentice and Davey Hearn, right on his stern, as they smoked down the course on their way to the Team Gold Medal.
  
  Overall, it's a great technical manual too - but you would expect that. I won't write any more, lord knows few enough people will ever read this book I believe. But I think it's awesome still.
• essential reading for any slalom athlete, even if a little outdated. needs to be read a few times to be fully understood, but that's because at times it goes pretty deep.
• Although there is a lot of good knowledge floating around out there, very little of it has ever been compiled. Shipley does an outstanding job of compiling some outstanding information useful to a recreational paddler wanting to improve technique, or a hopeless racer-head trying to eleveate themselves to the next level.