Time on Water

What paddling a kayak taught me about writing

The view from the end of the hall where I worked at Tokoha University in Fuji City.

I am sometimes asked why I came to Japan.

When I was about thirty, I decided to leave Canada and live where the language is so difficult my brain would melt and then slowly metamorphose into a new brain that would think differently than before.

This was around 1985, a time that some regard as “The Golden Age” of English teaching here.

I ended up teaching in a small college in Shizuoka City for a few years. But I shared an office with three other people, and my contract was only for one year.

I was offered a better position working at a college in Fuji City. When I visited for an interview, I was immediately smitten with the beautiful campus. I would also have my own office, rather than one shared with three other people. The initial contract was for two years.

I accepted a two-year contract and started commuting to Fuji City from Shizuoka. I eventually thought commuting was a bad idea, and decided to move.

This resulted in big changes.

I had just completed a fifty-kilometer ocean crossing in a kayak that had been on my bucket list (the crossing, not the kayak), and was now training in a new, faster kayak.

To be closer to my work, I moved to a very small apartment a few minutes away from my office at the foot of Mount Fuji that didn’t have enough space to store my eighteen-foot kayak.

I decided to concentrate on my teaching and sadly gave away my boat.

When I retired, I moved back to Shizuoka City. With a lot more time and a bit of cash saved up, I decided to kayak again, but more seriously.

I dream of kayaking in a Struer mahogany kayak because it is the most beautiful boat in the universe. The only problem is that normal humans can't sit in this kayak for more than a few seconds before capsizing. To paddle this boat with any degree of proficiency requires years of dedicated training.

My Struer kayak

I bought my Struer mahogany kayak. I also bought a NELO Viper 46, a boat described by a kayak racing coach in an email as "a beginner's boat."

I have decided to train very hard at Miho, a bay near Shizuoka City where I live in Japan. I will train in the Viper to improve my balance until it becomes easy, and then attempt to paddle my Struer for the first time.

A few weeks after I started to kayak again, I capsized in some choppy water and my cap came off. I then discovered that its spiffy dark blue color is difficult to spot in the ocean.

While searching for my cap I heard a voice over the roar of the wind.

"Is this what you are looking for?" I heard the voice say.

Looking in the direction of the voice, I saw one of the instructors teaching a group of school children holding up my cap. I paddled over and he handed it to me.

Later, noticing him sitting at a table, I walked over to thank him properly.

"No worries, " he said.

"Your English is really good," I said.

"I'm Australian," he said.

We have become friends, and often encounter each other when he is supervising children and I am paddling my boat.

My NELO Viper 46 and new light-blue cap

After a few weeks, he complimented me on my improved balance.

"Looking a lot better," he said.

When I thanked him for his kindness and truthfully said I needed more practice, he looked at me with an expression that suggested he was about to share a kernel of wisdom and said something I had never heard before.

"Toe!" I thought I heard him say.

"Pardon?" Did you say toe ...T-O-E?" I asked.

"No. T-O-W... Time On Water," he said. And then he said that in ocean sports, like kayaking, it takes time to improve. When you are frustrated at your progress, you have to accept that certain skills can't be rushed. You have to calm down, spend time on water, and let physical transformations take their natural course.

When I paddle my kayak, I try to paddle for at least two hours. I often train until I am exhausted. I capsize sometimes and bruise myself getting back in my boat. A few days ago, I tore some skin off a blister on my thumb. It stung in the salt of the sea.

These aches and pains are comforting.

I welcome these signs of progress; they are waypoints in my journey toward being a more proficient paddler.

Recently I have been exploring writing as a way to improve my thinking. I wonder if writing will change my brain into one that thinks better.

What would happen if I write the way I paddle?

That would mean embracing the discomfort of setbacks with calm optimism, believing all will be well if I just keep on writing. When I read about the experiences of the finest writers, it is clear that writing well, even for the most talented among us, is a long, arduous, process.

I am inspired by Stephen King. He doesn’t get angry or frustrated by rejection slips, he cherishes them. In his book On Writing, he tells us that when he got his first rejection slip he says, “I felt pretty good, actually. When you're still too young to shave, optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure.” He talks about his rejection slips in a lecture.

I pounded a nail into the wall, and I’d get the rejection slips back and I would put them on that nail, and around the time that I turned 17 or 18 the nail fell out of the wall because there were so many rejection slips on it. So, I got a bigger nail. And if there's any secret that I know to success it’s if you don't succeed get a bigger nail. Stephen King

I seek solace in knowing I will make progress if I work hard and stay relentlessly in the space where I want to excel, whether it is in the ocean or at my desk with pen in hand. It is my new mental space for writing.

T-O-W... Time On Writing.