the mullet, the wpa and hooking a new paddler

Recently, in a conversation with another Great Lakes SUPer, I mentioned a post I'd seen on The Mullet and the guy was like, "The what?"

"The Mullet."  I replied.  "Distressed Mullet.  You haven't heard about it?"  He said he hadn't.  So here it is, Great Lakes Paddlers... One of the best online resources to keep you current with everything SUP... www.distressedmullet.com.

The Mullet is run by John Beausang, who started it back in the day when he fell in love with SUP.  The site has grown over the years and now keeps us up to date with everything happening in SUP from around the world.  In addition to all the latest news, there's also a classified section where you can buy and sell used gear, lots of instructional articles and even a SUP-dedicated radio station!

I don't know John personally, but I do know that he named his dog Bauer...  That's right, Jack Bauer... So you know he's got to be a stand up guy (pun intended, but still pretty awful).  Anyway, if you haven't been there yet, get over to Distressed Mullet and check it out.

The other thing you need to do today is go join the WPA, or at least hit their website and learn about The World Paddle Association and all that they do. As I've been in the process of planning our Chicago race, I've seen many peoples' faces glaze over when I've enthusiastically told them, "We're going to have a WPA race in Chicago!"  I guess we still have some educating to do on the subject.

The World Paddle Association was founded in 2010 with the mission to, "provide a comprehensive voice, fair and equal access and organizational structure to the sport of Stand Up Paddling (SUP) and its participants in a manner that benefits the collective paddling community."  Less formally stated, the WPA keeps all our sh@t organized and keeps the sport moving in the right direction.  SUP racing would not be exploding all over the country like it is without these guys and all their efforts.  If you're at all interested in racing, or anything SUP for that matter, check out The WPA.


Finally, in local news, I had the pleasure of hooking a new paddler on the sport this weekend... 

... Meet our friend Janna.  She's a personal trainer at Holm Studio and a super-cool chick (she sings in a Soundgarden cover band... awesome!)

We started with some basic instruction on the sand...

 ... Then we headed out for her first paddle.

Janna was a natural, looking at ease on the board from the get-go.  We went out for a long paddle and she was doing so well that I was able to jump right in to advanced paddle techniques, getting her to reach, stack her shoulders and feather the paddle on the return.  Janna was super stoked and I know we'll be seeing a lot more of her at the beach this year.  Plus, with her training background and competitive spirit, I bet we'll be seeing her on a race course before long too.  


I love getting new people into the sport, so if you want to give SUP a try let me know and we'll get something set up.  That's it for today... See you on the water.