ACA Instructor training course at Crooked River State Park

ACA Instructor Training -Up the Creek Xpeditions, in St. Marys, Georgia, is pleased to announce that we will be hosting an ACA Instructor training course at Crooked River State Park.  St. Marys is a lovely historic town in close proximity to the Jacksonville  Florida airport (40 min), Orlando is only 3 hours, Savannah is less than 4 hours.  Take a paddling vacation and get certified.

Rick Wiebush (Cross Currents Sea Kayaking) and Tom Nickles (Riverwind Kayak) will be conducting the course, which will take place from Wednesday Oct. 12 through Sunday Oct. 16, 2011. This is a great opportunity for those who have considered becoming an instructor or for those who just want to ramp up their skills. You will have top-notch trainers delivering the comprehensive and proven ACA instructor training curriculum. The St. Mary’s area is a dynamic paddling and learning environment since it offers multiple types of venues e.g., rivers, bays and open ocean. And the air and water temperatures are perfect in mid-October.

This course is intended for those wishing to become certified as ACA Level 1, 2 or 3 instructors. The course is either 3-days (for L1 and 2) or 5 days (for L3).

ACA Instructor Certification is a two-part process: the Instructor Development Workshop (IDW) and the Instructor Certification Exam (ICE). In the IDW portion of the course, the trainers: 1) help fine tune the candidates’ personal skills; and 2) explain and demonstrate effective methods for teaching those skills. The candidates are then given multiple opportunities over several days to practice their teaching skills. The final day is devoted to the formal evaluation of skills (ICE). Certification is based upon both paddling and teaching skills and is not guaranteed.

To give you some idea of what’s involved, the following link provides the instructor criteria for Level 3. The criteria for Levels 1 and 2 are also available at this website:

http://www.americancanoe.org/resource/resmgr/sei-courses/l3_ck_instcrit.pdf

The cost of the training is $115 per day. Register with a friend and both will receive a 15% discount.

For further information or to register, please contact Rick Wiebush at 410.788.1241 or email him at crosscurrentsseakayaking@gmail.com.   We hope you can join us for this exciting event and look forward to working with you.

I have personally taken classes with both Tom and Rick and feel very lucky to have this caliber of ACA Instructor sharing their time and wisdom with us.  Jennifer