"Obstacles??????"

 Obstacles are removeable. Obstacle is defined as something that impedes progress or achievement. They can be removed. We encounter them all the time. In our work place, in our fun place, in our sports, in our friendships, in our relationships with anyone or anything, in our down time or in our up time, in our paddling.....obstacles are just about everywhere. Some are big or small, some may not be noticeable at all.....maybe Dr.Seuss should be writing this. I guess my point is simply that we encounter these things all the time and are barely aware of how we deal with most of them. For instance when you cross a sidewalk and someone steps in front of you coming from the opposite direction you step aside to avoid hitting that person. The whole process is so benign and quick that you don't realise that you just avoided an obstacle and probably won't even think on it at all.

Some obstacles are big, really big they are hard to move or even avoid. So what do we do? What do you do when you face an obstacle? Do we think it through? Do we have time to think it through? Could we have minimized, prevented? When we kayak there are many obstacles. I am sure even that everyone would most likely deal with the same ones differently. Take for instance outfitting your kayak so that it is snug yet comfortable enough for you to roll. I garauntee everyone would have a spin on how it should be done, but the end result should be the same .......to roll efficiently or in some cases just to roll, which is fine. What is the obstacle? The inabiltiy to outfit the cockpit porperly, inadequate learning, or maybe learning it wrong and it doesn't really matter because they are all obstacles to rolling.

I am under the impression that to be a decent paddler you have to over come so many obstacles and many created by our own course of actions or mind set perhaps. What if you were faced with the same obstacle everyday or on every paddle or on every adventure (maybe a mental obstacle)...what would you do? I would adapt. Like in this picture.....obviously I am not going through the rock......I will go around it. I will adapt my forwward progress. Should we train ourselves to adapt to obstacles or to avoid them? Or is it that black and white?