Are you sure slalom is so technical?

I'm aware I start with polemics, but I'm just willing to give my point of view about technique, tactics and strategy in our sport.

These words are typically from team sports, but I do think they have place in our sport. Of course this is a matter of what I reckon. Everything is on what meaning we give them. What I putting on the stake right now is the sentence 'Canoe Slalom is all about technique'. Is it?


Yes, it's mucho more about technique than physiological condition, but any athletics event or, attention to this, flatwater canoeing are much more technical than canoe slalom. Why is that? Because ours is not about getting the closest to a perfect technical model the better. In that sense, we are closer to football than flatwater. Our goal is to adapt our technique and make the best choice to get the best in any situation. Technique must be adapt to individual conditions and to the situation.

Here is where I can introduce tactics and strategy. The decisions that are made regarding our technique and the situation. A proposal to split water training and stop calling everything 'technique'.

• Technique itself is when I try to approach the ideal model for a stroke or movement, and also when I improve my propioception, which has much to do with technique, because it gives us information about my body position, movement or acceleration without the need of observe. We can work it out:
• Pure technique: Technical model proposal (sweep, pivot...) and execution/analysis/execution.
• Transfers: Change paddle, paddle with water resistance, everything that gives stimulation on the technique and make me adapt. However, it must always be followed by regular exectution.
• Strategy has to do with the analysis of the situation I do before it takes place. Walking the course, deciding which is the best option for a move, rhythm, or even the warm up.
• Working the strategy is normally about simulating race conditions the closest the better.
• Tactics would be somewhere between the two of them. The decision-making I make during the action. Technique adaptation, rhythm that wasn't on the race plan and so on. Tactics depend even more on past experiences than the other two. My mind is going to be comparing the current situation with those on the past, and wether they were successful or not, it's going to made a decision based on it. So, the more you paddled, the more courses you were on, the more races to take part in, the better.

Being: Toma de decisiones (decision-making), Planificación de la acción (action planification). Others are pretty clear.

I think it's important to differentiate between them, in order to establish different goals on the specific workouts. This way, if we did a course many times, it gets more technical than the first. If we do it just once with some time before, is more about strategy. If I say the course when the guys are about to go, it's more about tactics.

We can even go further, and sort this contents during the season. Away from the main races, we should improve the technique, somehow create the 'paddling style'. Once we get close to the races, we should be consistent on this technique, and make it more about strategy, or how an athlete gets ready or behaves during the race. Warm ups, analysis, feedback and so on.