How is it that I am no longer a beginner? I still feel like my knowledge is pitiful, but I can scrape by with strokes that work, even if they aren't textbook. When there is a beginners' course on, I see the people on the course looking at me wide eyed at the amazing things I can accomplish, like sculling for support or rolling.
It wasn't that long ago that I was looking at others in the pool in the same way. At some point, without knowing it, I look experienced. I feel a fraud. My confidence levels have shot up recently, with the river trips I have been on, but my pool skills developed slowly, with lots of practice.
Any person starting this sport has my respect. There are many that would not even try, and even if you are comfortable in the water, sitting in a boat that feels unstable, can be a little unnerving. We have all been there.
It is a slow process. Learning the capsize, forwards then backwards paddling, brace strokes sideways strokes. Each of these has to be learned by rote at first. Then by practicing they become more natural until it feels like you have always done it.
I had heard that kayaking was good exercise, but after each session, I didn't feel like I had done anything. Now, though, after each session my shoulders ache. As my confidence has increased, so has the level of effort that I put into the strokes.
When you turn up at the club and most of us are charging around, trying to swamp each other's boats or just practicing our rolls, just think that we had to start somewhere, and the skills and confidence we have come from practice.