Would you kindly critique this:

American Whitewater relies on its members to write the articles and stories in its bi-monthly magazine. Next month's issue is all about the "Mental Game" of whitewater. To quote the call for submissions:

A\W wrote: The Mental Game issue is meant to feature articles about the mental side of running whitewater. Musings on what it takes to maintain confidence, stories about people who kept their head in emergency situations, and thoughts on what it takes to stay sharp as paddlers become older. These topics are merely suggestions. The theme of "Mental Game" as it pertains to whitewater is yours to explore! We look forward to your submissions!

So, I wrote the following and plan on submitting it. Just want a friendly critique. Input from freelance Whales is certainly appreciated

tallen702 wrote:      I’m a paddling enthusiast. For that matter, so is my wife and several of our friends. But when you ask any of us what we “are” or what we “do” we all reply with our job title. It seems rather universal in this day and age that what we do to earn our living is what we go to when someone asks us to define ourselves. It’s a sad and disheartening social norm, but it simply is the way things go. By that logic, I am a chef. I spend far more time in hot and humid kitchens than I ever do in the much more amicable climes of whitewater streams here in the Mid Atlantic. It has been a hard, grueling job at times, and yet very rewarding at others, more importantly, it has given me a set of skills both physically and mentally that I have carried over into the rest of my life, yes even those parts that contain whitewater.            In the culinary arts world, we have a term passed down to us by the great French chefs of long ago. “Mise-en-place” is not only a phrase, but an essential of life in the world of food. Transliterated, it means “everything in its place,” a concept that most people find normal and rather blasé. The reality of mise-en-place, however, is that it permeates every single action that you take in the kitchen. Not only is there a place for everything organizationally, but everything has a specific time, and a specific part to play. It doesn’t just pertain to ingredients either, it is infused in the very fiber of everything from planning the flow of service, to defining the right time to place orders, prepare banquets, and even sit down for a coffee break. And while many aspects of my career don’t work their way into my extracurricular activities, this one has wormed its way to the very core.      As anyone who paddles whitewater knows, there’s a lot of preparation for just about any trip. When choosing a new stream that we’ve never paddled before, or an old one we haven’t been to in a while, our kind tend to stay up late poring over river descriptions on the AW website, forego the usual literature at bedtime for written accounts of descents in guide books, and stare at Google Earth on computer monitors, hoping to mentally will the computer into producing higher resolution photos of often neglected sections of places like West Virginia (Seriously, have you ever zoomed in on the New River Gorge? You can’t see anything decently; compare it to Great Falls on the Potomac where you can pick out individual kayaks!). We read the comments and warnings left for us on forums and bulletin boards by fellow paddlers to watch out for that new strainer, or what channels are clear of debris after that last big storm. In a sense, it’s mental mise-en-place. Whereas in the kitchen I will run through the scenarios in my head for the upcoming night’s service, what do I expect to sell a lot of, how many specials do I need to have ready to go, what do I do when one station gets slammed with orders and goes down in flames, I spend most nights before making runs contemplating how to get myself, my wife, and all of our friends downstream safely, and more importantly, what happens if it all goes belly up on us. For us whitewater enthusiasts, mental preparedness is quite possibly the most important aspect of our sport. Without it, we forget our lunch, our favorite paddle, or more catastrophically, crucial pieces of safety equipment. Even after the equipment checklists, we still have to play back the route in our minds; after all it is vitally important that we remember what landmarks to look for to navigate the streams safely. Being unable to remember whether to take the right, center, or left chute when one or more are reported to be impassable and blind can cost a lot more than just a scuffed boat or a long swim. Sure, you should scout any unfamiliar rapid, but from which side? If that mental mise-en-place isn’t laid out properly in our heads, we may miss very important steps in our trip downriver leading to less than fun experiences, or even worse.      It’s just like when my wife cooked for us early on in our relationship. She would look up a recipe online or in a cook book, go to the store and purchase what was needed, but she didn’t know that she needed to take extra steps before starting the dish. To her, it made sense to chop ingredients while cooking dinner, not to cut everything before hand and have it ready to add in as necessary. One particular time, she didn’t think in advance to buy the thinly-cut chicken breast she was used to cooking instead of the much thicker whole breast that she picked up instead. When the recipe called for the chicken to be in the oven for only 10 minutes after searing on the stove top and she pulled it out, I got a phone call at work from a somewhat hysterical girlfriend stating simply that she was having, “a chicken crisis!” She now thinks things through before jumping into the recipe she decides to cook, taking the time to dice her onions and garlic ahead of time so that one doesn’t burn in the pan while she’s still chopping the other. She thinks about what she is buying and how it will affect the cooking time, taste, and texture. All of these things are taken into account almost subconsciously now; she’s so good at it that it’s almost second nature. She has the idea of mise-en-place built-in now and I suppose that’s the way it goes for all of us on the water. Our own whitewater mise-en-place, our mental checklists in addition to our physical ones, act as our most important resource while on the river. It doesn’t mean I don’t stay up way too late memorizing what rock formation signals that gnarly class IV with the severe undercut on river left is coming up, I’ll always agonize over that until I hit the river and a sense of knowing and peace falls over me, but it does mean that instinctively I’ve got my act together and a bulletproof game plan to get us down the river in one piece. I also know that thanks to this mental ability to have everything in place, I’m ready for whatever situations arise.

Edited by tallen702 - 09 August 2011 at 12:14am

brihard wrote: That's a paddlin'.

Paddlin' the school canoe? You better believe that's a paddlin'.

Well written article Tallen. If I knew more about the subject matter I'd do better as a critic, but it's solid writing.

Needs more banjo music. Paddle faster.

KBK