S8 Ep2 Ducks, a Throw Line, and a Rock with Lucy Downer

In this episode of the Coaching Podcast your host, Emma Love, chats with Lucy Downer.

Lucy’s first experience in a boat was a 6-day charity canoe marathon in 2013, having never paddled before. After 127 miles paddling down the Thames, she was hooked! She began coaching a year later and is now a Sheltered Water Performance Coach (Canoe), a Moderate Water Canoe Leader, and the Head Canoe Coach at Falcon Boat Club in Oxford. Over the years, she has dabbled in sea kayaking, white water kayaking and most recently marathon racing, but canoeing always remains her first love, and the focus of her coaching.

Teaching is a big part of Lucy’s life - when not in a boat, she works as a professional musician and woodwind teacher. She enjoys exploring the pedagogical links between canoeing and clarinet-playing and recently completed an MA in Woodwind Teaching in which she studied cross-discipline strategies for performance preparation.

At Falcon, Lucy spends most of her time working with paddlers on the Thames and Cherwell, a largely sheltered water environment - although it can get pretty feisty in the winter! She leads a team of 16 volunteer coaches, supporting over a hundred canoeists at all levels from beginner to advanced. She particularly enjoys the challenge of helping experienced paddlers continue to develop their skills, when the club’s sheltered environment no longer presents much difficulty.

To download the transcript for this episode click here.

Book ref: Rob Gray: The advanced ecological approach to skill development and maintenance (©️2025, Perception Action Consulting & Education LLC)