The benefits of being a Multi-Trick Pony

"A broad skill base and how you can draw from one platform to the next – women often pigeon hole themselves"

- Annabel Anderson

If I told you that my teenage years spent ski racing would be one of the biggest contributing factors to my success as a stand-up paddle athlete, I’m sure I would get many a blank look.

If I told you that athletics was the foundation of my preparation for skiing, I’d likely get an equally sideways glance. You see, we live in a time that loves to get stuck in the age-old conundrum of labels and pigeon holes.

“You’re the paddler”

“You’re the mountain biker”

“You’re the skier”

“You’re the climber” etc.

Ladies (and gentlemen) listen up. I’m here to tell you that you are here to be all of these (possibly more) if we begin to drop the labels and embrace the possibility of diversifying the scope of the activities we do. The only caveat is that this contemplation of possibility requires “embracing the suck of learning new things” as well as “doing hard things”.

You’re right, all new things are hard at first. But so were most of the things we have begun to master over time. With the commitment to learning new skills, movements, and environments mastery comes as a convenient by-product of time spent learning the patterns that are the foundations of these.

But people are a funny species and they will always label you with the thing they associate most closely with you. To many, I’m simply known at the ‘paddler’ or the ‘girl who paddles’. Once upon a time I was the ‘triathlete’ and before that I was the ‘skier’.

When I first started paddling in the UK back in 2010 I was doing it all wrong (according to the early self-considered experts at the time).