Dear girls and boys,

we wake up very early in the morning and we have a day with intense and fun training. All of us have injuries – little ones.

In the afternoon we train in Gordon beach – it has 21 degrees. Be patient for videos and photos but not today – we are tired.

So now a more detailed report of our seventh day in Tel Aviv. We had two different groups. Each group had a teacher. My group did the session with the hasaka first and after that with the Jet ski. With hindsight that was a very good thing, because I could not have done anything afterwards.

So the things I remember about using the hasaka the right way:

Stand with your feet shoulder wide

Grab the paddle with at least 1 m distance between your hands, much wider than you are used to

Put the paddle more than possible in the front into the water and do a slow but strong stroke till the end, more than possible 😉 and tilt the paddle at the end, to use the whole surface of the paddle

The paddle is your third foot, you are more stable, when the paddle is in the water, so there is (almost) no time lapse between the paddles changing

When you lose balance or want to take a break from paddling put it vertical, your third foot on the boat.

When the right paddle is in the water, your right knee is stretched, the left one is bend

There probably have been many more advices, but that are the basic ones I remember.

We first trained to be the second man/woman on the hasaka. So one of us was the drowning person (I was almost eaten by fishes for real) and was rescued. The boys all had red bellies, because of the rough surface, I love swimming suits for that protection. After that each one of us was the first person on the board. As you probably all have watched the video, you know that it seems so be very easy to walk on it elegantly, while the second person is pushing it farther into the water, it is very hard. Nevertheless we had much fun trying it.

After that we did the Jet ski training. For everyone who has been on the IRB before: riding on the back of the Jet ski is almost like being the second man on the boat. You can hold on more easily but you are so near to the person in the front I crushed my chin into his shoulder two times. But riding the buggy board is a different thing. I still admire Kai who only held on to that thing with one hand to hold the GoPro with the other to give you some impressions. I was really holding on for dear life, as I was on the buggy board.

We had Falafel for lunch and went to the Gordon swimming pool, it actually is filled with salty water. It also was nice good for cooling down, the water had something like 19 degrees, because it comes from the sea ground some kilometres away from the coast. We did some basic swimming training and learned, how they teach their children. From 0-6 years it I mostly through playing, that they learn how to keep their head out of the water. After that they teach the right technique. We also did some rescue training. We were shown their jumping, swimming and diving techniques, which are quite similar to ours, or simple to understand, if you know the basic thing. We also learned how to rescue someone with the rescue wheel, conscious or unconscious. Watch the video for that.

And at the end we got some ice cream and relaxed for the rest of the day.