Doug Cooper has worked as an instructor, coaching and guiding for over 35 years, with a passion for sharing knowledge in a way that empowers others to develop their skills, experience and confidence to achieve their outdoor goals. For the last 25 years, a focus of Doug’s coaching has been paddlesport coach/leadership development where he provides training/assessment courses to support future instructors. His specialism is sea kayaking and in this he has published Sea Kayak Handling and Rough Water Sea Kayak Handling, both books designed to support paddlers to develop their skills; this to hopefully take them on trips they aspire to achieve. Doug’s passion is sharing knowledge and doing this by taking people to good places, to do good things when sea kayaking! https://scottishseakayaking.co.uk/ Paddling smart – the technical and tactical consideration for working with your kayak and the environment to make life easier. This podcast conversation will use turning in the wind as the basis to explore the concept of how if we ‘listen to our kayak’ and ‘feel what our kayak’ wants to do and how it is interacting with the environment, it will help us become more efficient in our paddling. This, done by considering how things like speed, trim and timing can be used as tactics to make turning in the wind easier by helping the kayak do what it naturally wants to do in the wind; then considering which technical strokes we can then add to aid this further. Having explored this as a concept, we finish the conversation by considering how this can then be taken into other environments, perhaps rock hopping, tide or surf; and maybe adding further tactical considerations of angle, positioning and edge while always listening and feeling what the kayak wants to do and then adding technical strokes to help it. It’s all about understanding what works and then ‘paddling smart’ to hopefully make life easier! To download the transcript for this episode click here.