Stand Up Paddle (SUP) lessons and Outrigger Lessons in London, Ontario!

Paddle Sport Performance is pleased to announce that it will be serving the London, Ontario area with Stand Up Paddle (SUP) and Outrigger Canoe (OC1, OC2) lessons this season!!!

Currently we are scheduled to be in the area Tuesday afternoon til Wednesday noon.
All equipment is provided!!!
Rates are posted on the websiteSUP / OC in London, Ontario


To book your sessions, just click the link!

Book your session!!!

Performance Improvement - from Lou Loukanovich

With Lou's permission, we are re-printing a recent blog post that he submitted concerning the importance of mental training.  All views in this submission belong to Lou and are not necessarily shared by SUP Toronto or Paddle Sport Performance (www.paddlesportperformance.com)

How did a Group of Catholic Buddhists Improve our Performance

In the spring of 1976 I read in one of the Montreal dailies that the Alouettes, the local CFL club is employing the services of Catholic Buddhists to help them with Zen meditation. This meditation was to improve focus and concentration on their body position, muscles, breathing, controlling heart rate and repeating mantra.

At that time we had heard only about Transcendental Meditation, and were intrigued with Zen Meditation. We decided to find out. I say “we” because our visit included Steve King and me. Steve is the kind of guy who is always interested in new ideas and learning and trying them out.

Catholic Buddhists were living in a house in the McGill ghetto. We felt that if the Alouettes could improve their performance with Zen Meditation, why not my athletes preparing for the 1976 trials. The credibility of this group was enhanced by being visited at the time of our visit, by a Roman Catholic priest. They were dressed somewhere between Franciscan Friars and Hare Krishna types. I thought that if the church reps were there, these Catholic Buddhists must have some acceptance.

We even ended discussing the visit of Marco Polo to the Far East. Apparently, on his return to Venice from one of his Silk Road trips, he told the Venetian clergy that the Buddhist must be related to the Christian church as some of their liturgy was similar to the catholic ceremonies. Marco Polo had to be correct, no doubt, because he was born as Marco Polich in Korcula, the beautiful walled city on the island by the same name in Croatia. I did not know this at the time, but visited Korcula later on and, saw the house in which Marco was born. If I knew that, I would  probably have been even more positive as my mother came from the island of Hvar which is in the neighbourhood.

These Catholic Buddhist types, practiced a Buddhist life style, but remained Catholic. Wanted to make sure, I guess, that they would cover two options, going to heaven as well as having a chance in becoming cool people via reincarnation.

Nevertheless, they convinced us that the Zen was more effective than Transcendental Meditation. The Transcendental objective was to “Zero” our memory, while Zen teaches us to control our bodies. It is far more positive. Being in the computer business at that time, I knew that blank computer memory does not work well.

They showed us what to do. We assumed the lotus position, faced the wall, picked a mantra, concentrated and focused on our body parts. I must say that that it felt good. By focusing positively, instead zeroing our brain, we eliminated the outside world, tensions, and nervousness. I felt that this would help with our racing at the trials.

After two or three more sessions, we had it down pat.

I called a meeting of my athletes and we showed them the process. We practiced against the wall at one of the Olympic Basin hangars behind my 1973 Ford Station Wagon.

My intention was to help us control our tension and to reduce panic adrenalin at the wrong time.

The results were better than I expected; Zen gave us concentration rather than worrying about the races and, we believed that if it helped the Alouettes it would help us. We did this as part of our warm up.

The unexpected result was that athletes who saw us using Zen Meditation felt that we had a powerful secret weapon.

Our results were excellent; we had five athletes on the ’76 team, four from Lachine (Steve King, Jean Fournel, Peter Patasi and Karen Lukanovich) and one from Quebec (Denis Barre), which was more than any other coach.

The morals of this story are therefore several:

1.     Explore new ideas, particularly if they will not hurt, but may help.

2.     What is good for us, may upset our opposition. This was not our objective.

3.     The warm up liturgy (ceremony) is extremely important; it will psych up our side and may freak out the competition.

Eastern Canada SUP Championships

First downwind race ever in Eastern Canada!
Outrigger canoes are welcome to participate as well.
Shuttle service will be available for those that need it.

Online registration will be up shortly and the information will be posted shortly.