The weekend for the Fort William Film Festival was 16th and 17th February 2008.  Corran Addison was invited over for a talk on the Saturday night and to deliver some workshops.

The weather prior to the weekend was dry and all rivers were a scrape.  The Etive was desperate and even the Spean gorge was dubious.  I had envisaged that Corran would want to do some gnar gnar river and put us all through our paces.  With no water, I anticipated a wash out.

On Friday I had taken the day off work and with Ian Letton and Giles Chatter drove North to have a look at the Orchy or the Etive.  We got to the Orchy and it was dry.  The Etive had not much more than a trickle going down it. 
What were we meant to do?  Easy option.  We drove to Roybridge, parked the cars and had a few beers on the bridge over the Roy looking, sullen, towards the river.

Friday night saw the arrival of more paddlers to our wee group, Tony and Tim with Jonathan arriving in the morning. 

Saturday morning we rocked up to the Nevis Centre and met with other paddlers for the work shop.  Corran turned up.  We got together and discussed the options.  I immediately thought it would be knocked on the head.  However, Corran mentioned he had scoped out the tail race and said there was enough features to do the session on.  Tail race, I thought, where is the gnar ganr there?  He came over as a well motivated and energetic guy selling the tail race.  Great, I again thought, am there. 

We turned up to the tail race about noon.  Some other boaters went off mountain biking instead.
Getting changed for the session was Bridgett, Tony, Marty, Giles, Chris (AKA FJF), Richard (AKA Banzer), Tim (AKA the Force) and me, James.  I’d even go as far to say there were one or two good boaters there. 
On the water Corran looked at our forward paddling skills, c-stroking, delayed stoking, turning with an emphasis on avoiding using back paddling strokes and keeping the forward momentum going.  Efficiency.  That’s what I got from it. 

There was no gnar gnar.  There were no huge falls.  There was no adrenalin pumping heart stopping features. 
What there was, however, were some nice eddy line manoeuvres, a very fast flowing tailrace and some technical manoeuvres on that stretch.  The emphasis was getting the stroke sequence right on the more difficult currents prior to the gnar gnar.
 
We sat in an eddy and Corran said do A, B, C, D, and E, followed by F, G and H.  He then went off to do it.  And he did, effortless and exactly as he said. 
The group went off to do it and it would be fair to say that none of us managed to do what he asked.  We then went off and done various manoeuvres and stroke sequences.

I personally was given a load of food for thought in my poor personal skills. 

It was a thoroughly good coaching session. 

It would be fair to say that I thought it was going to be a fully charged session with lots of testosterone buzzing around the group.  I was very wrong.  For that I was glad.  I got so much out of that training session it really focused me and my own paddling style.

One session down, the Film Festival to go. 

I hadn’t been to this type of film show, and didn’t know what to expect.  The Film Festival was to be held at the Nevis Centre, Fort William. 
Due to start about 7pm we rocked up just after 6. 

We got our tickets from the box office and lingered about taking in one of the photo displays in an adjacent hall.

When the doors opened for the main event we got some quality front seats.  It was quiet a nice hall, in my opinion.  I reckon it would have seated 100 easy, although I never did a seat check.  The hall started to fill up and soon enough all the seats were taken. 
Brendan, was the host for the evening.  The festival was full of short films varying from films of small foam performing various tricks, some type of funny fast picture type slide show, our very own home made Scottish film to one from the Return of the Fat Cats DVD on a kayaking expedition in Greenland.
For me the best films were the Scottish one.  Not because of it being on Scottish waters, it was because Scotland is unique in the variety it has to offer.  The short film I was most impressed with, however, was the two guys expedition to Greenland.  There was more going on in the video than the trip, but hey lets not kid ourselves on, the trip was sooo good.  Their companion ship, how they documented the various ups and downs they went through.  It was a real buzz watching it.  True expedition boating.
However, up popped Corran between the films .  He stepped up to give a presentation.  I wasn’t sure on what he was going to talk on and thought if his session today was as refreshing as it was what was his talk going to be like?

Corran talked about his roots in South Africa, his introduction to kayaking and his fathers and families influence on him.  Reminiscing and seeing pictures of various trips in South Africa he talked through from, Corran to a small boy, through his early years to becoming a teenager and beyond.  There were one or two pictures the showed Corran boofing off a massive water fall to land and breaking his back. 
In all I thoroughly enjoyed listening to Corran talk and for him to share his experiences.  There wasn’t enough time at night allocated to him and he could have chatted for longer.
Corran finished with the biggest and loudest applause of the night.  Bravo him!

That was it. 

My first time at the Film Festival and I’ll give it the big thumbs up! 

Inspirational advice, coaching, training and for me a great ambassador of the sport.

Great Weekend.

 

James Fleming