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Kayaking and canoes involve paddling and water. T’ai Chi, a style of martial arts, is practiced on land with neither water nor boats. The two seem unrelated but did you know that T’ai Chi benefits water sports players like enthusiasts of kayaking and canoes racing? Paddling requires moving gracefully, strongly, and balanced on rough waters. It also puts much strain on the arms and the back, if done incorrectly. T’ai Chi improves and enhances paddling skills because the exercise and the sport follow the same principles.

Karen Knight and Betsey Forster, experts in kayaking and canoes racing, admit to doing T’ai Chi regularly. According to them, T’ai Chi provides cross-training. They claim that kayaking and T’ai Chi reinforce the skills and principles of each other which make practice of both relevant for improvement. They add that doing complementary exercises boosts the skills and energy levels of paddlers. The two share kayaking principles and the complementary T’ai Chi practices.

In any water sport, it is necessary to keep your body centered, quiet, and stable. These traits are reflected in your boat and spell the difference between staying on the boat or getting thrown off it. How you position your body and your posture play significant roles in kayaking and canoes racing. Sit straight and spread your weight equally between your buttocks to create a stable pelvic base. This position liberates your upper body and allows your lower body greater control over the boat. It is important to align your nose, navel, and tailbone to create a single unit. Making your body move and paddle as a unit minimize strain and risks of injuries. Another principle, called the paddler’s box, incorporates power in paddling strokes. This is achieved by aligning hands and arms front of your shoulder plane. This ensures that your arms and shoulders are moving as a unit no matter how you paddle. Stable paddling is also a key factor in kayak racing. Most regard stable paddling as an accurate measure of the canoeists’ skills. It is difficult to paddle quietly and keep the boat from bobbing but a good canoeist can do it. Avoiding pitching and bobbing the boat are done by keeping the boat stable and the paddling movement slow and accurate. Every move must be calculated because unnecessary motions can topple the boat over in rough current.
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Barbados Surfing conditions are ideal for any level of surfer. Barbados is almost guaranteed to have surf somewhere on any given day of the year. Coral reefs practically encircle Barbados’ coastline giving the island the Caribbean’s most consistent surf conditions with swells all year round. You can find point breaks and reef breaks on the island, rights and lefts. To cap it all off you can travel to anywhere on the island in 45 minutes or less.
Check our list of hotels that are popular for the surfers who visit the island
Whether you are a beginner or advanced surfer there is something here for you, also available are surf lessons and surf tours. Even the most advanced surfer know that there is nothing like local knowledge of a break. Zed is the man to talk considered by many to be one of the top and most knowledgeable surfers on the island he can organize a surf tour for you to suit your skill level.
The premier Surf Spot in the island is the Soup Bowl, which is like a magnet, if there is swell out there the Soup Bowl will catch it. The east coast boasts the most powerful and biggest waves. Sitting on the eastern coast of the island this is where the Atlantic unloads it’s power. With an offshore wind this is the spot every surfer dreams of riding. Careful this is an advanced spot and should not be taken lightly.
The north and west coasts of Barbados have some great spots as well, like Mullins, Sandy Lane, Batts Rock and Tropicana to name a few, but these only go off with a north swell.
On the South there are breaks like South Point, Freights, Brandons and Surfers Point. Check our listings of Surf Breaks for more information on these and other beaks on the island.
The warm waters of the Caribbean and laid back lifestyle of the people coupled with the stunning tropical scenery make this a surf destination well worth your time. Beware many who make the trip return again and again and again…….. (more…)

In climbing, there is an old adage stating that “climbing is the best training for climbing,” an adage used by many to make excuses for not training outside of climbing. I personally disagree with this philosophy as I will explain.

When we are speaking of the exact skills needed in climbing, how and when to step, climbing techniques and mental skills, there is no substitute for the activity of climbing itself. However, in order to develop strength levels specific to the sport of climbing such as improving grip strength and upper body strength and endurance climbing will produce very limited or even no results or improvements.

One of the main reasons climbing isn’t good for strength training is because in climbing failure is not an option. If you have muscular failure while climbing, it may very well prove fatal. So the goal while climbing id to avoid this completely. Alternatively, when one is strength training for climbing, one wants to reach and even pass the point of muscular failure as it is this very act that causes the body to respond with an increase in strength to adapt to the stress being place on it. So the two methods are mutually exclusive and you will never achieve maximum strength by climbing alone.

Another example that reinforces the disparity between climbing and strength training for climbing is the way in which you grip the rock. In climbing, the rock demands the climber to use a random variety of many different grip positions and, at times, you may even deliberately vary the way you grip the rock. As a result, it’s unlikely that any single grip position will ever get worked maximally and, therefore, the individual grip positions (e.g. crimp, open hand, pinch, etc.) are slow to increase strength.

This should help you understand why a full season of climbing may indeed improve your anaerobic endurance (i.e. endurance of strength), but do little to increase you absolute maximum grip strength. Therefore, varying grip positions is a great strategy for maximizing endurance when climbing for performance, but it will never work for training maximum grip strength. Effective finger strength training demands you target a specific grip position and work it until failure, which can only be done safely in a non climbing environment.
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Tandem skydiving in New Jersey is a very popular sport. Since tandem parachuting is one of the easiest, and perhaps the best for a novice, ways to experience the extreme sport of skydiving. There are several benefits to tandem skydiving. One benefit is that there is not very much training involved. Another benefit is that is that you can take comfort in the experience of the jump instructor you’ll be working with. One final benefit is that there is an automatic activation device on the parachute, so your chute will be sure to deploy at the appropriate time during a jump.

Classes and Lessons

Skydiving begins with a training session. The session will teach you the basics of skydiving, the equipment necessary, and what to do in the air. After your training session, you will go through a regulatory equipment check procedure. The safety harness you are wearing will be checked by your instructor for proper fit, and then you will be headed to the plane for take off. The flight itself takes about twenty-five to thirty-five minutes. During the final minutes of your flight to your dive destination, the instructor will review the basics of the dive with you to ensure you are properly prepared to make your jump.
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