She Was Terrified of Capsizing. Now She Teaches It. Trina Hahn at SSTIKS 2026

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What turns a paddler who’s terrified of capsizing into an instructor who loves rough water? For Trina Hahn, it starts with a Greenland roll—and a community that believes in her.

Recorded at SSTIKS 2026 on the banks of the Columbia River, this episode finds Dubside talking with Trina about her rapid journey from nervous beginner to passionate kayak instructor. She shares how learning to roll changed her relationship with fear, why Deception Pass is her favorite place to paddle, and the unforgettable whirlpool encounter that earned her and a friend matching “But did you die?” keychains.

But some of her biggest thrills come from watching her students find their confidence. From rubber-duck kayak games to the women’s rough-water gathering Surf Sirens, Trina explains how play, patience, and supportive coaching can turn “I hate kayaking” into “Can I try that again?”

It’s a conversation about getting scared, getting back in the boat, and giving back to the people who helped you get started.

Transcript

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[HENRY ROMER]
Kinnguffik Paarlallugu/Nerfallaallugu. That’s the standard Greenland roll.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, here we are in Vista Park. We're on the Columbia River. And it's going to be SSTIKS 2026.

And it's Thursday afternoon, just before dinner time. And I am seeing a familiar face from last year who I picked out as somebody who's really cool. It's Trina Hahn.

[TRINA]
Hahn, yes.

[DUBSIDE]
What brings you here?

[TRINA]
Oh, when I first started paddling, I was using a Greenland paddle. And I'm sure I was doing it completely inefficiently. And so I decided that I wanted to learn more about Greenland paddling and how to do it efficiently.

And learning more about how to respect the instrument and the tool that I've been using. And that's how I kind of came across the Qajaq USA family. And I started learning more how to be more efficient.

And then I fell in love with the community. And at the time, SSTIKS was non-existent.

[DUBSIDE]
In the dormant phase, the post-COVID, trying to find its way back.

[TRINA]
And there were a couple people, Don and Joanne, who were wanting to bring it back. And they were also kind of wanting to pass the reins on because they had been putting it on for so long. And so they kind of reached out to my ragtag group of friends.

And the rest is history. I was here last year, and I couldn't imagine not being here with this awesome event and all of these really cool people. So it's a big part of what I look forward to every year.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. And so for the Greenland thing, do you find one part of that more appealing than the other, such as there's strokes, there's rolling, there's harpoon throwing? What are you into?

[TRINA]
Well, I haven't tried a lot of harpoon throwing, so that might be my thing. I'm not sure. But I really like the rolling aspect, and I know that that's what a lot of people say.

But I was really nervous when I first started kayaking, and I wasn't a very intuitive paddler, and there are a lot of people who are. And my body didn't register the way a lot of people do, and I was really struggling with edging. I was too afraid to learn how to edge my kayak.

I wouldn't do it, even in a pool. I was just like, no, I'm going to capsize, and I'm going to die. I didn't want to do it.

And so my friend, who's actually here at this event, Don Short, he saw that I was using a Greenland paddle, and he came over to me, and he introduced himself, and he was like, I'm going to teach you how to roll. And when he taught me how to roll, everything else became less scary.

[DUBSIDE]
So tell me about learning that first roll. How did that work? Did it happen pretty quickly?

[TRINA]
I would say so.

[DUBSIDE]
I'm sorry to hear that. Some of us had to work a long time to get it to happen.

[TRINA]
I had a really good teacher. Don is really, really wonderful, as you know. And yeah, once we went through it a few times, he had me using a paddle float, and I think I just, my body had to know how it felt, and once my body had that muscle memory, I was able to do it without the paddle float, and the rest is kind of history.

[DUBSIDE]
So that was the standard Greenland roll?

[TRINA]
Yeah, it was just a standard.

I struggle, honestly, with some of the other more nuanced rolls, which is why I love coming to SSTIKS, because I get to work with people who really help me more than just my standard, tried-and-true layback.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, if you want to really impress me right now, tell me the standard Greenland roll in Greenlandic. You'll have to work on that.

[TRINA]
I'm not going to impress you.

[DUBSIDE]
Kinnguffik Paarlallugu/Nerfallaallugu. You'll learn it next time.

[TRINA]
At the end of the weekend, I'll know it, yeah, probably.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. And so what roll are you working on now?

[TRINA]
I am working on a couple. My friend carved me this really beautiful norsaq paddle, so I really want to start working on some norsaq rolls, but I want to really, like, develop a strong storm roll and butterfly roll. My husband is a very intuitive roller, and he can do some of these fun, like, the shotgun roll and things like that, so I want to kind of catch up to him.

[DUBSIDE]
You haven't got the shotgun roll yet?

[TRINA]
I have not got the shotgun roll. 

[DUBSIDE]
We should be able to fix that this weekend. 

[TRINA] 
So things like that and make them all bomb-proof on both sides is kind of what I'm developing.

It's consistency and a lot of confidence is what I want to work on.

[DUBSIDE]
So what's your main kayak now that you paddle?

[TRINA]
My main kayak is probably my NDK Romany Sport. It's a little big, so I might need to start getting some cool Greenland kayaks. I do have a Rebel Ilaga.

That makes things a lot easier for rolling, but I feel like it's my “cheat boat” almost.

[DUBSIDE]
It's been called that.

[TRINA]
Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
All right, cool. Do you do, like, trips and things, paddle places? Have you done any of that?

[TRINA]
I love to volunteer with, like, local clubs and the Mountaineers because that's been a huge resource for me when I first started paddling. I was, like, a poor 22-year-old who had very little money, and the buy-in kayaking was really expensive. So I promised the community that I would become this big hotshot instructor and that I would start donating my time and my skills to passing it on to the next generation.

And so I do trips with, like, the Mountaineers, and I've done a few things with other local clubs. I've even gone to California and hung out with some of their clubs as well. So I'm not a very big touring kayaker because I'm all over the place all the time, and I'd love to be able to do, like, a 10-day adventure, or I dream of doing the Inside Passage one day, but I have very, like, short periods of time where I'm in one place, so it's hard to, like, take time off work and do the longer touring adventures.

But I think that's kind of my next goal is to take time to experience the beauty of kayaking and maybe less skill drill.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. Are you in the closer to the Portland area or up north to Seattle?

[TRINA]
I live in Tacoma, so kind of, like, in the middle.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay, yeah. What are your favorite places to paddle around there?

[TRINA]
Less so, actually, in Tacoma. I really like paddling on the Kitsap Peninsula. So I really like paddling even just, like, local marinas and stuff and checking out, like, the boats, but out on the Great Peninsula, like La Push, or my favorite is Freshwater Bay.

It's so beautiful, and it can be so dynamic, or it can be really calm, and so you can go to, like, tide pooling and to check out all the cool wildlife, or you can go because you want to, you know, learn some sick rock gardening features, and I really like how that venue changes a lot. I really like paddling and surfing out of Hobuck and Neah Bay as well. 

But my favorite place, like, if you asked me if I had to choose one place to paddle for the rest of my life, it would probably be Deception Pass is my favorite. It's a really diverse venue, and it's really beautiful, and it's probably my favorite.

[DUBSIDE]
All right, yeah. You go for, like, Deception Pass at maximum tides, currents?

[TRINA]
Yeah. Especially the ebb, it's a lot cleaner in Deception Pass out on the Canoe Pass side than the flood can get a little messy.

[DUBSIDE]
Cleaner, you mean what?

[TRINA]
Like, it has this big, beautiful, clean, like, eddy.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, on the Canoe Pass side?

[TRINA]
Right, on the Canoe Pass side, and then it has, like, a beautiful back eddy that you can kind of hang out in as well, and it's wide enough that you can get multiple boats, and you're not kind of getting pushed into the wall. On the flood, it's a little bit different. It is a little bit more, like, messy and boily, which is fun, but it's more like, go, go, go, rather than, like, lollygagging.

So I like the ebb, but I like the flood a lot, too, and people like to do it on, like, the Room of Doom side, but there's just so much boat traffic, and we've had so many close calls, it makes me a little nervous to be over there, honestly. So I'm an ebb girl.

[DUBSIDE]
Uh-huh. Well, who first took you there?

[TRINA]
Oh, Don, Don Short. And then another, he was supposed to be a mentor this weekend, but I don't think he could make it. Carson Ducey is a local paddler as well, and so he texted me one night, and he was like, “What are you doing on Saturday?”

And I was like, “Nothing.”

And he said, “No, you're coming to Deception Pass.”

And I said, “Okay, I guess I'm going to Deception Pass.”

[DUBSIDE]
Was it intimidating the first time?

[TRINA]
It was horrifying. I was so scared, and I didn't even have a helmet, and so they had to, like, give me a helmet because I didn't even think. I had never really paddled Deception Pass.

I didn't know what to expect, and yeah, it was quite intimidating, and we had gotten there kind of right at max, so there was no easing into it.

[DUBSIDE]
You had been there, like, you had seen it before.

[TRINA]
I had seen it from the bridge, but I had never, like, been in it before.

[DUBSIDE]
That bridge is, what, like, 100 feet?

[TRINA]
It's something like that. It's big, but it, yeah, being there was, for the first time, really intimidating, and I certainly did not have the skills to be out there. I didn't have a roll at the time, and as I told you, even before I was rolling, I didn't want to edge or know how to edge, and I just remember my friend, Chloe, she said, “Look at that whirlpool over there,”

And I was like, “What whirlpool?”

And just went straight in in, like, the first five minutes, and I got a really good look at that whirlpool in many sense.

[DUBSIDE]
Uh-huh. See, now, the first time I went to Deception Pass, Warren Williamson was with me, and so we're paddling, you know, up to get up into it. It might have been an ebb or something, but, you know, you're going against the current, right by the edge of the thing, trying to work your way up, and so the closer you get, the better it is, but if you get too close, you got those barnacles there, like razor blades.

[TRINA]
Yes.

[DUBSIDE]
And I had my Feathercraft folding kayak, and it took some slices out of the tips of those, and I remember Warren had, he had, like, big wads of duct tape wrapped around the ends of his, I guess, skin-on frame to protect it from being sliced up, but in a fiberglass kayak, it'll still chip up the fiberglass, but...

[TRINA]
There's definitely some, like, cheese grater on the bottom of my kayak. I've unfortunately left more of my kayak than I care to admit in Deception Pass, but I don't think there's been a single time that I've been there, even just with, like, random groups where I haven't seen Warren hanging out, doing his thing. He really likes the Room of Doom, and he puts on a good show and makes all of us just look so small.

He's incredibly talented, just a fascinating person, and a great paddler.

[DUBSIDE]
Have you had any, like, close calls?

[TRINA]
We've had some interesting incidents and, like, some swims that we've definitely had to kind of, like, debrief and learn from. There was one time in Deception Pass that I got taken out by a whirlpool that was a lot bigger than, I think, myself or my friend was expecting, and he had called out behind me, like, “Oh, man, look at that whirlpool!” 

And by the time that I could turn around and see what he was talking about, it was just sucking down the stern of my kayak, and I was looking at the sky, and I was bracing on nothing, and I was just like, “This is cool.”

And I just remember getting, like, sucked in.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, it's pulling you down in the center.

[TRINA]
I tell people that it touched the bottom of Deception Pass, which obviously didn't happen.

[DUBSIDE]
You felt like you touched the bottom.

[TRINA]
I felt like it.

[DUBSIDE]
That's not shallow water there.

[TRINA]
But I felt like I just got flushed down the drain, and I...

[DUBSIDE]
So you're just holding your breath, going down.

[TRINA]
And just opening my eyes and just seeing whitewater above me, and I had pulled my skirt, and the kayak released, but the whirlpool didn't release me. Even with my life jacket, I still wasn't floating up to the top.

[DUBSIDE]
So you weren't trying to wet exit. You just got pulled out of your kayak.

[TRINA]
I think I wet. I was trying to wet exit. And I just remember being pulled down even though I was no longer in my kayak, and I was like, well, the only kind of flotation besides my life jacket I have is my kayak.

So I was just trying to feel above my head for my kayak, and I ended up doing like a pull-up with it. I grabbed the bow of it.

[DUBSIDE]
So you got it. You didn't lose the kayak.

[TRINA]
I didn't lose the kayak, but it turned around and smacked me in the face. And I just remember thinking to myself, well, there goes all of my teeth. And I was just so focused on getting back into my kayak that I didn't care about what had just happened to my face.

And my friend got me back in my boat, and he ended up getting stuck in the whirlpool, and we were stuck together for a while. And they usually dissipate after a couple seconds, but that one just really wasn't letting go. And by the time we got back to the rest of our group, we were just like, “You're never going to believe what just happened!”

And I wouldn't say it's a close call, but it was one of the more harrowing stories in Deception Pass that I've had, and one of my favorites.

[DUBSIDE]
So he did a T-rescue kind of thing to get you back in while you're spinning around or while you're flushing further out?

[TRINA]
I think that's what happened. It was a lot happened, and I had been mildly concussed. But he at first didn't want to get in the whirlpool.

He was waiting for it to let go, and he was like, once it lets go, she'll do a re-enter roll or whatever and get back in. But I was just not getting out of that whirlpool. So eventually he kind of put himself, he was trying to like bulldoze me out, and that wasn't really working.

And so he was like, well, I guess it's going to be, I don't know if it was a T-rescue, if he just held on to my kayak and I got back in. And then like once we got out of the whirlpool, emptied out my kayak. But it happened in slow motion and super fast all at the same time.

It was fun.

[DUBSIDE]
Intense moments of concentration. Time slows down and you see things just happening.

[TRINA]
One of the participants in that paddle got him and I matching key chains after that that said, “But did you die?” And I have them on my key and so does he. So you should ask him to see his key chain this weekend because we earned it.

[DUBSIDE]
Wow. So I'm told that Deception Pass, it's very, very, the water's very deep there. But the way those whirlpools work, they don't, typically they're not sucking you down.

There are places in the world where entire boats will go all the way down. Nobody will see them again until they're all drowned. But when I first went to Deception Pass, I was not knowledgeable enough to know how dangerous that is.

So I'm like, “Okay, we'll paddle here and I'll roll up if I go over.”

But it's, yeah, there's some serious water there.

[TRINA]
Yeah. I usually don't see a whole lot of whirlpools like that. Usually they're like big enough to be kind of like, ooh, but if you put your paddle in them, they'll help you with the direction.

[DUBSIDE]
It's like the diameter of a kayak. Yeah.

[TRINA]
And they're fun to kind of like help navigate. Like you make a game out of it. But that one definitely caught me by surprise and it was quite large.

And some are like that, but not very often. I try not to tell stories like that because I don't want to scare people. Because even though like, yes, that was not an anticipated situation and it was a little bit more harrowing than I would have liked it to be.

Like we had it under control and it was fine and we weren't ever worried. It was just strenuous.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, I mean, if you want to go to Deception Pass, you go on a slack tide. I mean, there are times you can go there and see Deception Pass where it's much more mild.

[TRINA]
Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
But when you're looking for the adrenaline and the maximum flood tide.

[TRINA]
You'll find it. Yeah.

[DUBSIDE]
That's where it's at. So tell me something else that you're really into that might have nothing to do with kayaking.

[TRINA]
Ooh, kayaking is like 100% of my personality.

[DUBSIDE]
That's a fair answer. I like that answer-e

[TRINA]
Yeah, I really like education. I used to be a teacher and I just always...

[DUBSIDE]
What were you teaching specifically?

[TRINA]
Like elementary school. But then when I was tutoring, it was mostly English and science and stuff like that.

[DUBSIDE]
So these are younger students.

[TRINA]
I've had... I did some SAT prep tutoring and stuff. So I was pretty young at the time.

I've had students or tutorees that are older than me. But mostly when I was in the classrooms and stuff, they were between the ages of second and fourth grade were kind of what I was working in mostly.

[DUBSIDE]
Now have you been doing any kayak instruction, teaching people?

[TRINA]
That's kind of like my whole thing. So when I got into kayaking, I wanted to be a kayaking instructor because I love teaching and I love kayaking, and the two seems to work out really well together. So I quit my full-time job at the time and looked for a job in the industry, which I found and started working as an instructor for them and then started building my own skills as an instructor and do stuff on my own now.

And I get to mentor at places like SSTIKS. And my favorite kind of coaching is... Probably I really like the foundations because people get so excited and they have like this...

They're so scared. They're just so scared. They're scared to wet exit.

They're scared to get in a kayak. They're scared to put a spray skirt on. I had a student who was like, “I hate this and I hate you and I hate kayaking and my wife is making me do this and I hate her.”

And after the first class with me, he was like, “I want to take private lessons. I'm going to buy a dry suit. I'm going to get a paddle.”

And then he did. He signed up for private lessons. He joined the Mountaineers and he was just like...

And that change, that whole 180 change is like I live for it. It's like this adrenaline that you can get from being sucked into a whirlpool is seeing someone being really scared and then feeling this confidence and excitement about a sport that I'm really passionate about. It's really rewarding.

And so I like coaching foundations a lot, but also like surfing. I'm a big surf girly. So I like that.

[DUBSIDE]
The times I've taught kids, I'm not used to that. I'm used to more adults, but the kids like the whole attention span is different. They got to be occupied.

How do you see the differences there?

[TRINA]
I feel like a lot of people who are doing any kind of rough water sports also have attention spans that need to be occupied. And I can see it, especially if I'm coaching a bigger class. If it's not a one-on-one, if I have a course that is being taught with multiple people, it's keeping everybody in the course occupied or they start to tune out.

And if they tune out, then they're losing that kind of valuable, fresh knowledge that is not going to resonate when they're no longer part of the class. So I do find games and like gameplay, which I get is a lot of this weekend, which is why I like SSTIKS so much. So I do like a lot of games to keep people interested.

And when I was working in classrooms, if we had like particularly fast learning students who were really picking up skills quickly, we would kind of pair them with a student who was really struggling with a concept because then the student who might've finished their homework or their assignment who would have otherwise been bored now has this kind of mentorship role that's helping solidify that learning. And then you as a teacher can go help other students while this student who might've been struggling is getting assistance from a student who was exceeding in that particular skill. And I find that to be very similar in kayaking as well.

And a lot of times you learn better when you're teaching it. I became a better paddler when I became an instructor because I could be my own instructor. Like I think like, “What would coach Trina say?” and be able to coach myself.

So I do find that the attention span of children and the attention span of adult kayakers is the same.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. So give me a good kayak game that you've used.

[TRINA]
I really like tennis balls or rubber duckies. And then unleashing them in a group and then having people sit on the back of their kayaks and have their whole cockpit open.

[DUBSIDE]
Get out of their cockpit and climb onto the back deck.
[TRINA]
Yes. Because then you're kind of focusing on balance. And then everyone, it's like a free for all. They take the rubber duckies or the tennis balls and their mission is to get it into the cockpit of another paddler.

[DUBSIDE]
Like basketball.

[TRINA]
Like basketball. 

[DUBSIDE] Okay. Wow. I haven't heard of that before. That's pretty cool. 

[TRINA] 
Learning all these skills or you're implementing all these skills that you've already learned like draw strokes and balance and like reverse sweep strokes and things like that.

And it's all becoming intuitive. It's not an instructor sitting there saying, “You must do this now.”

 And like your body and your nervous system acts so differently when someone is saying, “Perform for me right now.”

Then when you yourself are playing with it to see how fast can I get that tennis ball before my opponent gets the tennis ball so I can throw this. So that's one of my favorite games. It really loosens people up.

[DUBSIDE] 
Did you develop that game? 

[TRINA] 
I absolutely did not.

[DUBSIDE]
Okay.

[TRINA]
I've seen it definitely done by a few different instructors. The first one that I saw this with was Jesse Janicula at Fidalgo Paddle Sports when I was taking, I think, my very first instructor course with him. I saw him do that and I was like, “This is the greatest game ever.”

And it reminds me a lot of like dead fish polo. And I think it's just a fun way to get people like not stressed out because classes can really stress people out. And playing games is a great way to make things fun.

[DUBSIDE]
Do you find in general that you could categorize or speak in general terms about the difference between the way men approach kayaking and women approach kayaking? Or in teaching them, any differences there?

[TRINA]
I think, for the most part, there are some men that really surprise me who are truly just very soft and empathetic and gentle. But I think for the most part that that's a very natural and intuitive thing for women. I've also met women instructors who are not empathetic and gentle.

So it's not a blanket statement that I would make. But I think that it's, for the most part, I think that a female instructor brings a certain softness to learning. I really like having like not good cop, bad cop, but like hard instructor, soft instructor, and having two different types of instructors coaching one class because people learn better from different approaches and personalities.

And maybe my approach is too passive and too gentle. And you really just need someone to be like, “Do this, this is how you do it, you do it now.

And I think that that can be done by both sexes.

But I know a lot of women sometimes prefer to learn from a female instructor. And that can be understandable.

[DUBSIDE]
Have you ever been to like an all-women's event?

[TRINA]
I have, yeah. I'm one of the instructors.

[DUBSIDE]
I can't say that I have.

[TRINA]
I'm one of the instructors for an event, an all-women's rough water event called Surf Sirens. So I participate in that every year. I started as a participant and I kind of got hooked.

And so now I return as an instructor when I can. And it's wonderful. And a lot of women have a really wonderful time.

And you can just see relaxed bodies. And it's hard to describe if you haven't witnessed it. Not that men are toxic or evil or hard to work with or anything like that.

[DUBSIDE]
It's just a different environment.

[TRINA]
It's a different environment. And a lot of women are just like humans in general, are stubborn and they can be prideful. And like not picking up on skills the first time you're taught them can be really hard.

And it can be embarrassing in front of men, especially if you're working with a male instructor who is less than empathetic. And a lot of women have had negative experiences with male coaches. 

And I think in the Pacific Northwest, we're really lucky. We have some really wonderful coaches of any gender. But at Surf Sirens, you can tell that there are some people who have had not good experiences and they feel like they can mess up and they can make mistakes and there's no pressure and they're not being judged. They're not being looked on differently because of their gender or their age.

And being able to be there to provide that environment is pretty special.

[DUBSIDE]
Do you have any special techniques for dealing with people who are very afraid of the water? Rolling, or at least come to take a class, but you find out that they're just freaking out of the fear of drowning or whatever it is.

[TRINA]
Absolutely. My husband is how I've kind of developed that technique. He is really terrified of deep water.

When I first started kayaking, I kayaked by myself for a long time because he's like, even the deep end of a pool, right, sharks, right? Like, if he can't see the bottom of it, absolutely sharks, alligators, some sort of monster, Kraken. And he has gotten over that fear because of his love for the kayak community, but it's taken a lot of patience.

And so, I think I just start by talking about anything else. Because if you fixate on it…

[DUBSIDE] 
Just get the mind distracted. 

[TRINA] 
Just get the mind distracted.

I talk about things that are exciting and maybe not be like, it's okay, you don't need to be afraid of the water because you're fixating on someone's fear. So if you sit there and you're talking about all the cool things we're gonna do today, “Oh, we're gonna see herons and bald eagles and we're gonna play dead fish polo and we're gonna do this.” Right? All of that stuff, that excitement starts to kind of drown out the noise of the fear.

And then I, a lot of times, and some people definitely have different opinions on that and that's also fine. I like to get the first wet exit or the first capsize just like out of the way because that usually is what holds people back. And once they have that first wet exit or that first capsize the rest of the day can be pretty smooth sailing.

So, and I'll stand there right next to them. I won't even be in my kayak and I'll go over the wet exit on land. And this is how you push your spray skirt forward and then pull it up.

And then you do your little turtle tuck and you're totally fine. I'll be right there. It's two feet of water and then they'll do it.

And then they come out and they're like, “Oh, that was like a second and it wasn't that bad.” 

And I add like little goals during a wet exit. So I say, “When you wet exit, I want you to hold onto your paddle and your boat.”

And then most of the time, especially if they're really afraid of the wet exit, they'll come up and the boat's like way over here and the paddle's way over there. And they're like, and then I'll say something silly like, “Naughty, naughty, you let your boat float away.”

And they'll be like, “Let me try it again! Let me try it again!” 

And before they know it, they're no longer afraid of capsizing and they're not afraid to get back into the kayak in the water. And then I usually try to do an edging exercise because with edging will absolutely come a natural capsize.

Someone's going to capsize. I've never taught edging where someone doesn't capsize. And so I'll start to like really have people push their edge and then somebody will capsize.

And then it kind of gets like, gets silly. Like, “Daryl's over there. He look at him! He's that's the next part, you're ahead of the class!”

And so adding that kind of fun element of like capsizing is silly and capsizing is something we can aim to do to work on our skills really takes away from that fear of capsizing. I have a group that I'm a part of that meets on every Tuesdays just in this little marina and we get as absolutely silly with it as possible.

How many different ways can we fall out of our kayak? How many different ways can we get back in our kayak? Sometimes people have paddle boards or inflatable kayaks or whatever.

It's just like bring whatever and we're going to play silly games and we're going to do shenanigans. And then when they like go to capsize in the wild, it's not like, “Oh no, I've capsized.”
It's like, “Oh, this is just like, you know, every Tuesday with my friends”, like, oh, it's silly. Let me get back into my kayak. 

We have a participant here actually. She started the first time she started kayaking was at that Tuesday event. And we had so much fun that summer that she joined the Mountaineers and then she's taken multiple classes. She signed up for Surf Sirens one year and then she did an introduction to rock gardening. And I was one of the coaches for that.

And she just like absolutely wiped out. And I knew she was going to wipe out before she knew she was going to wipe out. So it was already there by the time she had like popped back up her kayak.

And I could see like this, like panic stricken. I think this was one of her first like real capsizes in this kind of environment. And she looked at me like, “What do I do?”

And I just whispered to her just like TSP, which was Tuesday skills practice. And I saw her like immediately go calm. And like, she just jumped onto the back of my kayak and I pushed her kayak out of there and someone else grabbed it.

And she like, it was totally fine because of all this fun that we had had. It just made the capsize more natural and it made what could have been a scary situation for her just like a silly situation. And when she was finally back in her kayak and it was kind of a longer swim just because it was in a slot. So we had to like get out of the slot. She was back in her kayak and she looked at me and she said, “Is it okay if I try that again? Can I try that again?”

And I was like, “Of course you can try that again. I'm so excited that you want to try that again.” So.

[DUBSIDE]
Yeah, cool. So give me your projection for say three years or five years from now. Are you gonna keep on, are you gonna like higher skill level or more clientele?

Or it just like, what's your…

[TRINA]
I don't know.

[DUBSIDE]
No plan, that's okay.

[TRINA]
All my plans are always, they never work out and like new things happen.

[DUBSIDE]
You're ready to go to Greenland then. If your plans never work out!

[TRINA]
I totally am. Let's go! You're gonna teach me all the norsaq rolls this weekend.

Then we're gonna go. I'm gonna come with you next week. That's gonna be great.

[DUBSIDE]
All right.

[TRINA]
But I've been paddling for just over three years and I definitely like grew in a lot of ways faster than I wanted to or maybe than I expected. And there were some things that kind of got left behind during that fast trajectory. So I also became an instructor at a different rate than I thought.

So if I set myself like a goal, I think weird things are gonna happen. But right now I'm kind of scaling back and working on my personal skills because I became an instructor at such a quick rate. I wanna make sure I'm a good instructor and that I'm not missing anything in my own personal skills that will affect my instruction.

And then, yeah, I think I wanna coach more and I really wanna travel. I wanna go to Greenland. And there's this symposium in Iceland that I really wanna do.

And I want to go to New Zealand because Surf Sirens does a New Zealand thing. And I'm just starting doing travel. I'm excited to go to Minnesota and hang out with you there and Japan and all that cool stuff.

So I think that ultimately the community means the most to me. I am who I am today because of the paddling community. So traveling and meeting as many members of my kayaking family as possible, I think is the goal and live life while I still can.

[DUBSIDE]
Well, we hope to see you for many, many years to come.

[TRINA]
Me too.

[DUBSIDE]
All right. Thank you for being on the Dubcast with Dubside.

[TRINA]
Thank you so much.