<http://schema.org/articleBody>
" It&amp;#039;s fool&amp;#039;s optimism, born of seeing one too many cheesy eighties movies with time-lapse training montages, and I&amp;#039;ve got it bad. Winding down the where-the-hell-am-I back roads of Charlotte, North Carolina, I&amp;#039;ve decided that I am going to be very good at white-water kayaking very quickly. My instructor is going to be rightfully impressed at what a natural I am. Maybe even a little threatened. The guy who taught Tony Hawk how to skateboard probably just feels like a big doofus these days.  My destination, the U.S. National Whitewater Center, is a three-hundred-acre facility built along the Catawba River that hosts World Cup competitions and Olympic qualifiers in addition to a slew of weekending paddlers and novice rafters. It&amp;#039;s the largest man-made white-water course in the world -- three different concrete chutes mined with artificial rapids and rocks that kayakers and rafters descend many times, each time making their way back on a huge conveyor belt. Truthfully, the cyclical motion of it all reminds you more of a log flume or the lazy river at a water park. Well, minus the lazy part. The rapids span from Class II to Class IV. For the hydrophobic, the center also offers biking and hiking trails, a climbing wall, and a ropes course, but those just seem like unnecessary distractions to me. I&amp;#039;m here to make white-water history. I glance in the rearview and whisper, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s do this.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;m the most confident man ever to drive a gold Ford Focus.  At least I&amp;#039;m in good hands. The USNWC is crawling with professional kayakers who use the center as I intend to: as a training tool. Many prefer man-made white-water courses to old-school river runs because they&amp;#039;re controlled environments. The guides know every swirl and eddy, which means fewer chances of misjudging an obstacle and getting hurt. Artificial courses also eliminate the erosive concerns of natural rivers, such as foot traps and deep holes, so if I go under, I&amp;#039;ll probably come back up. It&amp;#039;s the ideal starting point for a beginner like me. Not that I&amp;#039;m feeling like a beginner.  Upon arrival, I&amp;#039;m introduced to Sarah Harper, the center&amp;#039;s head white-water instructor. Her first task is to get me properly outfitted, which means a helmet, splash guard, personal flotation device (not a &amp;quot;life jacket,&amp;quot; Sarah tells me, &amp;quot;because it won&amp;#039;t, in fact, save your life&amp;quot; -- good to know), and, of course, a kayak and paddle. We begin on flat water, learning the most basic kayaking technique and probably the most useful: the wet exit. This is an enjoyable exercise in which the instructor flips the student&amp;#039;s kayak over and the student gets the hell out before drowning. There are defined steps -- don&amp;#039;t panic, abandon paddle, tuck forward, and reach for a loop on the skirt that detaches it from the kayak lip -- but it all pretty much happens in one spastic, flailing motion.  That mastered, it&amp;#039;s on to other lessons: posture, balance, paddle strokes, body rotation. Sarah has little tests for each lesson -- &amp;quot;Take five strong forward strokes that direction, sweep stroke, lean into the turn, and keep your eyes on your destination&amp;quot; -- and most of them end with me tipping over and wet-exiting. It&amp;#039;s all a little frustrating, and Sarah starts offering me praise you&amp;#039;d give a child who just lost his training wheels. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re doing well! We&amp;#039;re having fun!&amp;quot; They sound more like hopeful suggestions, and I tell her this isn&amp;#039;t anything like the Gatorade Fierce commercial I saw the night before. She suggests that I need a mantra and even offers to let me use hers: &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m a strong, confident woman, and I can do this.&amp;quot;  After several hours spent soaking, shivering, and trying desperately to flip my kayak back over to the side optimal for human respiration, I reach a painful conclusion: I suck. White water cannot be mastered in the span of a Journey song. The student will not become the teacher today. I am, however, just masochistic enough to ask if I can blast through one good churn. I feel like a four-year-old asking permission to run the Steak Knife Relay. She explains that three or four private lessons are required before you get to do the big-boy stuff. I&amp;#039;m a little disappointed, but at that moment I see an empty kayak float by, followed by a paddle but no person, and I decide that might be enough for one day.  To appease me, Sarah offers to let me experience the course the next best way -- in a white-water raft, a compromise I accept. My guide is a laid-back guy named Scott Justice who wears Led Zeppelin board shorts and leads us in our strokes through the flat water with calls of &amp;quot;All forwaaaard&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;All baaack.&amp;quot; We paddle in sync to the mouth of the first channel, and I brace for the first set of rapids. We coast through pretty easily, and the woman in front of me lets out a &amp;quot;Wheee!&amp;quot; like we&amp;#039;re riding the teacups at Disneyland.  And that&amp;#039;s when all hell breaks loose.  If Scott warned us, I didn&amp;#039;t hear him, but those dinky first few rapids quickly give way to some Class IV water, and it occurs to me that I&amp;#039;m either going to die or my shorts are going to fall off or both.   The rushing water is deafening, and every now and then the raft beneath me bucks upward like an ejector seat. Keeping wet ass on rubber is becoming more difficult by the minute -- I almost smack &amp;quot;Wheee!&amp;quot; woman in the head with my paddle. (She&amp;#039;s not making that noise anymore.) I see we&amp;#039;re approaching a big turn ahead, and I notice two things: 1) There are people watching from the shore, some of them with safety ropes, and 2) a photographer is taking pictures. It&amp;#039;s white water&amp;#039;s amen corner; someone sitting near me will not be in this raft much longer.  Turns out it&amp;#039;s Hector, the hefty guy beside me, and I don&amp;#039;t realize he&amp;#039;s gone until we hit calmer waters. No one does; we&amp;#039;re just happy to have survived the spin cycle. But sure enough, there&amp;#039;s an empty wet spot where Hector used to be, and we all crane our necks to see him being helped out of the river. He&amp;#039;s actually holding on to a rope and climbing pretty damn near vertically up a steep wall. He looks like a husky, waterlogged Spider-Man.  We make this run a few more times, and on each pass, another of my raftmates flies out. Hector is pretty much a given, but he&amp;#039;s joined by another and another, until our last trip, when only three of us emerge. There are paddles strewn throughout the water and maybe an errant shoe. It looks like the aftermath of an aquatic Viking battle. I make a mental note to thank Sarah for her good judgment. As we head for shore, Scott takes a casualty count, pointing at empty seats while mouthing, One...two...three, before smiling. &amp;quot;Not bad for fake white water. How to Experience This Adventure Visit the U.S. National Whitewater Center&amp;#039;s Website (usnwc.org) and choose from among several kayaking options based on skill level. Private instruction, group clinics, and guided river runs available. Prices range from $55 to $80. Fly into Charlotte-Douglas Airport and rent a car. Sleep at the Renaissance Hotel (704-357-1414) or the Robin&amp;#039;s Nest Bed &amp;amp;amp; Breakfast (704-827-2420), both short drives to the USNWC and downtown Charlotte. Eat at Cabo Fish Taco (704-332-8868) in the North Davidson area of Charlotte. Try the blackened-mahi tacos and a &amp;quot;Perfect Wave&amp;quot; margarita. Go when it&amp;#039;s warm enough. The center is open year-round, but plan on going sometime between April and October to avoid freezing. More Fake Rapids Unlike the USNWC, most white-water parks are actually tricked-out riverbeds: Engineers use cement to constrict a river&amp;#039;s natural flow, then add a variety of boulders, logs, and fancy hydraulics. Think of them as a happy marriage between science and intelligent design. --Rebecca Scherm Upper Ocoee River, Ducktown, Tennesee After undergoing a massive $13 million transformation in preparation for hosting the 1996 Olympic kayaking events, the amped-up Ocoee River features nearly ten miles of the most ragged Class III and IV rapids in the world.888-723-8622; ocoeeadventurecenter.com.  Arkansas River White Water Park, Salida, Colorado  Salida&amp;#039;s 1,500-foot course, host of the nation&amp;#039;s premier white-water festival, features a pair of world-class hydraulic holes -- essentially huge breaking waves frozen in time.800-428-1479; independentrafting. com. And one to look forward to... Wave Yard, Phoenix (expected 2010)  This $250 million behemoth will include not only the world&amp;#039;s largest artificial river but man-made venues for nearly every outdoor sport, from fly-fishing to snorkeling -- not to mention a whole bunch of condos in case you never want to leave. See waveyard.com for updates. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a2149/esq03075restless/>