Leif and Natalie

In April 2024, I was invited to give a motivational speech about kayak racing at a women's happy hour event in Seattle at the Rough and Tumble Pub organized by Megan Kelly and Anastasia Alder. I was invited to do this partially because of the blog I wrote in 2021 titled “ Motivations for competing in Whitewater Kayaking ”, and because I was currently coaching one of the organizers on an online race team with my husband, Leif.  I was honored and excited to be invited and speak of my journey because  (in the words of a mentor of mine, Abby McHale ) I truly believe that “ we must foster reverence for the courage of uninhibited expression in one another because when we show ourselves to one another, we realize we are not alone and that our experience is simply the experience of woman. And when a woman is in her power, fostering her sisterhood, it makes all woman feel safe. ”  The following speech is an uninhibited expression of the wisdoms I have learned from my experience ka...

This blog was cross-posted on the Kokatat Team blog on Oct 12 2020. link here .  In this blog, I present some specific strategies that you can use to progress to harder water more safely. I don’t prescribe one 'right way’ because everyone’s life situation, mental states and experiences are different. However, I will present a framework that you can use to tailor your own progression to your own situation. My ultimate goal is to provide some insights so that everyone can have a lifelong, challenging, fulfilling and positive relationship with whitewater, where you don’t stop because you feel like you stalled out or because of a scary experience. This blog is a revised and more succinct version of the live webinar I gave for CaliCollective ( access the recording here ), May 2020. The ideas and essential skills I present are based on deep reflection into my own kayaking progression into harder whitewater, which included very few injuries and incidents, and fostered in me a ver...