Finding the Rhythm: Coaching vs Photography
I spent a recent day wandering around Margate. Beach walks, good food, a few drinks, a bit of shopping. Nothing rushed. Just enjoying the place and the people.
I also got the camera back out for the first time in a while. It's easy to forget how much you miss capturing the little moments until you're behind the lens again, like really behind it, not just pointing and shooting, but actually looking. Watching light change. Waiting for a moment to arrive instead of chasing it.
It got me thinking about how similar that feeling is to something I believe about constantly in coaching: The Water Doesn't Care Who You Are…
Canoe slalom has shaped how I move through the world first as an athlete, now as a coach. It's a sport that humbles you. The water doesn't care about your reputation, your best time or how well the last race went. It demands presence. Precision. Trust in your instincts, right now, in that moment. You work from a plan but your interpretation and adaptability define the outcome.
That's the thing about “flow state” , you can't force your way into it. You can only build the conditions that make it more likely to arrive. As an athlete, that meant learning to stop narrating my own performance and just read the water in front of me. As a coach, it means something different but related: watching each athlete find that same quiet confidence and helping them get there faster, more often, more reliably.
Every Athlete Reads the Water Differently
What excites me most these days is watching someone find their calm in the chaos. Their flow. Every athlete reads the water differently. Some feel it through their hips before their eyes catch up. Some see the line three gates ahead and trust their body to close the gap. Move correctly and efficiently. None of them read it the same way and the job isn't to make them read it like I did or others do, it's to help them translate their own instinct into something they can understand, refine and repeat.
That's really the core of the technical work, if I'm honest. Long before an athlete steps into a boat, they've usually already built a picture of who they are on the water. Be that fast, technical, smooth, aggressive, patient, whatever it is. That picture is their identity out there. My job is to help them see the river and the gates through that same lens, rather than a generic one. A gate isn't just a gate. To one athlete it's a chance to prove precision. To another it's a moment to attack. The technical insight I bring isn't about replacing that view, it's about sharpening it. Showing them, frame by frame if I have to, exactly where their identity and the water's demands either align or pull apart, and building the training that closes that gap.
That's also where testing earns its keep. A race simulation isn't just a test or time at the end of a session . It's a way of asking: does this athlete's technique still express who they are when fatigue shows up? Because that's when identity gets tested for real. Anyone can look fast and smooth on a open line. The athletes who hold onto that picture of themselves 25 gates deep into a testing run are the ones we're really building toward.
Coaching has deepened my love for this sport in a way competing never quite did. You learn to listen more. Feel more. Connect more with the person in front of you and with the river underneath them. There's a real privilege in being trusted with that translation work.
The Same Instinct, Two Different Tools
Walking around Margate with a camera again, I noticed the same muscle working. Photography and flow both live in the same place: presence over narration. The moment you start thinking about the shot instead of seeing it, you've already missed it. The moment an athlete starts thinking about the result instead of the water, they've left the flow that would have gotten them there.
Maybe that's why the two sides of what I do have never felt separate to me. Whether I'm on a riverbank with a stopwatch or a wedding with a camera, I'm doing the same thing: trying to be present enough to catch what's actually happening, rather than what I expected to happen.
Nothing rushed. Just paying attention.
AJ
