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in article , Michael Daly at
wrote on 10/13/05 1:55 AM:

On 12-Oct-2005, KMAN wrote:

And exactly what is that environment? Can you prove that it
is safer than any other?

Uh. Prove that it is safer...well, I'd say a sheltered bay with a sandy
bottom is safer than Niagara Falls.

What is it you are saying that is different than what I already said the
pros do?

Why are you moving away from the question that was posed? Is that the
Michael Daly way of saying "You are right of course, I apologize. Now here's
something else I'd like to ask you about?"

In any event, I think you'll find I answer this question below.

You accused me of not understanding that swimming in whitewater is
dangerous.

No, I'm pointing out that you are ignoring that issue and assuming
that a rank amateur with no instruction will be able to magically
acquire the skills to handle WW on his own.

And, yet again, there is no foundation for this statement, and it is quite
false. It's not magic at all. A self-taught paddler (as you seem to
understand from your question above) would indeed follow a similar path as
they would be led down by an instructor. This really isn't rocket science.
You experiment, make observations, make adjustuments, and repeat. You start
in fla****er, move to I/II, and move to increasingly challenging
environments as you improve. I wouldn't recommend learning WW alone, but
that doesn't mean you have to have a professional instructor in order to
learn and continue developing in a self-taught manner.

No competent WW instructor,
professional or otherwise, would suggest that a paddler learn WW on
his own.

I've met few people who make their living on professional instruction
recommending that people learn on their own for free instead. But it's a
rather silly all or nothing statement to suggest that not one competent
instructor would ever say this. I've spoken to some myself who are quite
honest in saying that they know many a fine self-taught WW paddler.

WW is a dangerous environment and requires paddlers to learn
how to handle the conditions and work together on the water.

Yes. Well, I've yet to meet any paddlers who refuse to work together with a
competent self-taught paddler.

With
an instructor, the student has an experienced person standing by.
With the solo learner, there's no support.

Now you've changed your emphasis completely. So it's about having an
experienced person standing by? Once again, you never asked me anything
about this. Had you simply said "Don't you think, in a challenging WW
environment, that it makes sense to have an experienced person standing by?"
I'd have replied in the affirmative.

The fact that high-risk activities are often best conducted with others has
nothing to do with the discussion at hand. We are talking about whether or
not it is possible to learn kayaking skills without professional
instruction. Try, for once, to stay on track. And when you find that your
logic fails, try, for once, simply admitting it instead of trying to
distract and dodge from the issue.

They will be objective third party news articles.

Which still proves nothing in support of your arguments.

Mike

Then I guess there's no point, and I guess you will never answer the
question. What a surprise!

Just to recap (and reminding you that I have answered all of your questions,
even the ones that were obvious dodges from questions you were attempting to
escape) the question to you was as follows:

Do you have any evidence to suggest that the rate of injury of self-taught
kayakers exceeds that of those who receive "professional instruction?" If
so, I'd like to see it.