SUP Guides, Nashville, TN

Want to walk on water?

by Margaret Littman | April 28, 2011

It has been only a couple of months, yet I may have already bored all of my friends and acquaintances by waxing poetic about the new love of my life: stand up paddling (SUP). Well, that’s what a blog is for, right? To share thoughts with the public that no one else wants to hear?

Seriously, maybe it is because I'm a Pisces, but when I’m near, on or in water, I feel better. I’m constantly looking for the best swimming pool or hole, volunteering with the Cumberland River Compact to keep the waterways clean, planning my next water-centric vacation and looking at new ways to try to get on the water. I love to raft the whitewater of the Ocoee (Eastern Tennessee) or the parts of the Cumberland (in Kentucky) and kayak closer to home. Recently, while in Gulf Shores, Ala., I got an assignment to write an article about stand up paddling, which is kind of a hybrid between surfing and kayaking. The first time out I stood on a board in a bay off the Gulf of Mexico and felt like I was walking on water.

I got home and I wanted to do it again (and again and again). Fortunately, I found SUP Guides, which offers stand up paddling lessons (both private and group) and board rental and sales in the Nashville suburbs. SUP Guides owner and board guru Tim Inskeep helps people who have no inherent athletic ability (like me) get out on flat water such as Old Hickory Lake and Percy Priest before moving on to Middle Tennessee’s rivers. More adventuresome paddlers can take advantage of his extensive surfing expertise on more challenging local waters (and also on custom surfing trips he leads to Hawaii and Florida). Paddling is a great core workout, but also easy enough for kids and seniors and others to try. Inskeep is an intuitive instructor who knows how to tailor his lessons to help each student best learn the essentials. Group lessons for the season start Saturday, May 7.

If you already know (and love) SUP, you can rent gear from SUP Guides for part a day, a weekend or a week. SUP Guides also sells gear...once you get hooked.

This week Inskeep also opened The Coffee Cabin (4130 Lebanon Pike, Hermitage), a gluten-free (and largely organic) drive-thru coffeeshop which will serve as the homebase for SUP Guides. You can reach him on Facebook or the Web as well as through the coffeeshop.