
Paddlesport Institute
Women and Gender Expansive
Swiftwater Rescue Course

Karyna Todd (she/her) and Jordan Taylor (he/they) co-instructors
May 24-25, 2025
Fee $250, no prerequisite coursework required
Potomac River near Washington DC.
For questions or to book, send me an email: jordantaylorriver@gmail.com
Laura Kurup, Fall 2024 SWR Course Participant
Why Swiftwater Rescue?
When the vibe changes on the river, will you be ready?! With preparation you can be the one to spread calm and coordinate effective rescue efforts for your team.
Never taken a Swiftwater Rescue Course? Has it been a while? Didn’t like how you froze up when your friend had a bad swim? Learn or refresh the foundations of prevention and response for when the vibe turns from fun to scary. Be the one who helps your crew turn a bad day into a win.
More importantly, training rescue is fun. It is a very direct form of play to swim in the same currents that bring us joy in our boats. And ropes? Some of the coolest rescue tools ever invented and when used properly they function like swings!
Why Women?
Contemporary all-gender training environments can tend to favor those who step forward more readily. This course is designed to cultivate a training environment where women in particular are invited to train without also needing to consistently navigate their training opportunities with or around men, who have historically and currently been welcomed for being assertive.
Why Gender Expansive?
In our invitation to women we are interested in also extending a specific invitation to people who are transgender, and also to individuals who are genderfluid or non binary, or who simply don't quite fit into gender defined as a binary. We are extending this invitation explicitly for the same reasons stated above in "Why Women?"—to cultivate a training environment designed with women and genderqueer individuals in mind.
What this course is, and is not:
This is still first, foremost and above all else a course about helping people on the river on what might be their hardest day. The desire to offer this as a gender specific space comes from decades of teaching these techniques, and observing or managing social dynamics that at default tend to over prioritize vocal men, including ones that are sweet, kind and well meaning. While we will make some space for reflection throughout the weekend, it is our intention to focus that reflection on ways gender shows up in prevention and rescue. This is not a two day gender studies course. It is not intended as an "anti-man" space. Lastly, much of this curriculum was initially designed and taught by the first few generations of raft guides and instructors and there are still techniques where the default teaching model is oriented toward body types typically associated with men. Our interest is in presenting and developing the ACA rescue curriculum in ways that do not assume this as a default "with alternate options for others". We will start by centering ourselves as the default.
For questions or to book: jordantaylorriver@gmail.com
BADASS Women of SWR
Katie Mathieson, Director, Davidson College Outdoor Program, ACA Canoe Instructor
Karyna Todd, ACA Rescue Instructor & ACA Kayak Instructor
Emmylou Kronzer (they/she), one of the first two trans women to compete in the women’s category of the Green Race. ACA Kayak Instructor, ACA Rescue Instructor. @creekqueer

Paddlesport Institute
LGBTQ+
Affinity Kayak Instructor Course

October 9-13
Potomac River, MD
$750 + Annual $40 ACA Membership & $25 SEIC Dues. Partial Travel Reimbursement is possible upon completion of the course in good standing. Contact Jordan to Inquire

L4 River Kayak ITE Jordan Taylor (he/they) of Paddlesport Institute will offer a Queer Affinity River Kayak ICW over 5 days in the fall in the DC area on the Potomac River. Also leading the training are L4 IT Ashley McEwan (she/her) and L4 Instructor Emmylou Kronzer (they/she).
Affinity courses are made up of people who share a specific type of identity and are designed to support historically marginalized people, in this case LGBTQ+ individuals. The purpose of offering a Queer Affinity Kayak ICW is to offer queer Instructor Candidates a training opportunity in which we are not a minority. Part of being queer is a daily experience of culture that assumes heterosxuality and a gender binary as a default. Even very well intentioned paddlesport educators frequently base choices of language, storytelling, humor, etc on these assumptions as normalcy. This can, in both subtle and overt ways, send a message that being queer is not accepted as a part of our culture, or as a part of paddlesports. Queer individuals are frequently the ones who are aware of this and repeatedly face choices about whether to bring it up with straight or cisgender peers. One way to counteract this is to have more queer instructors introducing people to paddleaports. For paddlers who are otherwise straight, they will learn implicitly or explicitly about queer perspectives from these queer instructors. Research has shown that for members of dominant identities, receiving training about bias is ineffective at reducing bias—but, having meaningful contact with people who hold different identities is very effective.
In this training queer paddlers will get to focus on training in an environment specifically designed with us in mind without the stress or uncertainty of how our identity will be viewed. In addition, we will be able to network with other queer athletes and instructors. Lastly, we will learn from each others' experiences.

Paddlesport Institute
MAIN SALMON RIVER, ID
Multiday Raft Supported Expedition 2026

Wild & Scenic Whitewater
White Sand Beaches
Focused Kayak and Canoe Instruction
July 28 fly to Missoula, MT
July 30 Launch
August 4 Land
August 5 fly from Boise, ID
Fee $3150