Melinda Moree didn’t start paddling young. In 2009, at 44, a simple realization sent Melinda to the Mountaineers’ introductory kayaking course: “I didn’t want to die without having learned to kayak.”
Fifteen years later, Melinda is an ACA Level 4 Open Water Coastal Kayaking Instructor Trainer Candidate and a Level 3 Surf Kayaking Instructor Trainer. Based in the Pacific Northwest, Melinda teaches most often along the Oregon and Washington coasts and around the Columbia River Gorge, and also competes in surf kayaking and sea kayak surfing.
Melinda is drawn to rock gardens, current, and surf, places where the environment itself becomes part of the lesson. Technical skills matter, but Melinda is even more interested in teaching people to read the environment, make decisions, and adapt.
Competition feeds that approach. Surf kayaking has been an especially honest teacher. “You can know exactly what you should do and still discover that your timing, boat control, body position, or decision-making isn’t quite there when a wave is moving underneath you,” Melinda says. “That’s incredibly useful feedback.”
That experience shapes every lesson. “I don’t want to teach skills simply because they’re on a syllabus. I want to understand what those skills look like when you’re trying to use them in real conditions.”
For Melinda, the best teaching moments are often quiet ones: a nervous student realizes they can handle dynamic water, or a student who has been waiting for an answer makes the decision on their own.
“I want to create a learning environment where people are challenged without being overwhelmed, supported without being coddled, and trusted enough to figure things out for themselves.”
Melinda is also committed to developing paddling leaders from communities that have been underrepresented in the sport, not just welcoming people to paddling but helping them become instructors, mentors, and advocates in their own communities. “To me, that is a much more sustainable way of growing the sport.” Melinda recently took part in an ACA-sponsored training focused on developing leaders from underrepresented communities.
That work is guided by a motto from friend and mentor Deb Volturno: “inclusion over exclusion.” In Melinda’s words, “Community isn’t about making everyone the same or lowering the bar. It’s about making the circle bigger and then helping people rise to the challenge.”
Melinda is still a little amazed by where kayaking has led, from a first course at 44 to instructor certifications, teaching other instructors, and competition. “There is always another edge,” Melinda says. “It might be a more challenging piece of water, a competition, a new skill, a different boat, or figuring out how to help someone else have a breakthrough.”
Thank you, Melinda, for modeling what it looks like to keep learning and to bring others along. Congratulations on being named ACA Instructor of the Month!