Biography
Name: Tanya Shuman
Profession: Freestyle Kayaker
Current residence: Fayetteville, West Virginia / USA
“I love perpetual motion and the sense of fluidity…..the spontaneity of a big wave gives me this,” says freestyle kayaker Tanya Shuman. “Waves are like rollercoasters that spit you out like watermelon seeds and send you shooting down their face in lightning speeds and launch you sky rocketing up into the air.” With that kind of attitude, it’s no wonder that Shuman was crowned the 2004 World Champion of Aerial Freestyle Kayaking for launching the year’s biggest trick. She’s taking the sport to new levels and loving every minute of it.
Shuman’s everyday roller-coaster ride involves more than paddling for personal thrills. A five-time U.S. team member, she represents her country around the world, does sponsor and charity demos, and is an adept photojournalist as well as a popular subject for other photographers. She is living out her childhood dreams of being a pro athlete – except that in her dreams she was wearing soccer shorts, not a spray skirt.
Finding her future Shuman was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1972 and spent her childhood in nearby Potomac, Maryland. “Whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I told them I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” she recounts. Never mind that there wasn’t a pro women’s league yet – Shuman was a visionary. She played Division I soccer for Villanova; but after graduating with a business degree, she accepted a position with a top corporate consulting firm. She lasted one year.
“Six months into the job – it was 1995 – I got a kayak for my twenty-third birthday, and within another six months I was addicted. Kayaking had already become a lifestyle,” she acknowledges. Everybody thought she was throwing away her future, but Shuman realized that she’d found it.
Although she was a latecomer to the sport, Shuman had a natural feel for the water. She was first named to the U.S. Freestyle Kayak team in 2000 and has represented the United States every year since. In the 2001 season, she made the top four in all of the national and international competitions that she entered, taking fourth at Worlds and capturing the U.S. National Championship. In 2002 she won the largest surf event in the U.S., the Santa Cruz Surf Competition, and in 2003 she took bronze at the Canadian National Championship and gold at the Teva Mountain Games on her way to earning a top-five world ranking for the next three years.
Making her mark
Despite several successful years of international competition under her belt, in 2004 Shuman served notice that, in fact, she’s just getting warmed up. Winning the Aerial World Championship was her proudest accomplishment yet. “It’s awarded for the best trick out of a whole year’s worth of contests, not just from one event,” she explains. “Because of that, it’s super competitive, and the winner is recognized as someone who is truly progressive.” The video that locked Shuman’s victory was taken from a run on Canada’s Ottawa River.
“My forte really is big waves and surfing,” she acknowledges. “I enjoy the adrenaline of being on a wave rather than the adrenaline of plunging down a waterfall.” Her current base of Fayetteville, West Virginia, where she shares a home with other boaters "it’s the ideal boat house,” and a perfect spot for savoring that feeling. “I tried living in Los Angeles for a few months,” says the blonde, 5’7” paddler, dubbed by the press as “the glamour girl of freestyle kayaking.” “But I’m a country girl at heart. I’d rather spend my time pushing the sport than all dressed up for the spotlight.”
She doesn’t much like sitting still, either. At home in the U.S., Shuman is constantly hitting the road for demos and events. Her dog, Kota, and the police officers who regularly stop her for speeding violations keep her company. When she travels abroad, she’s always on the lookout for new paddling opportunities. Within the last year, she has been to six different countries; Uganda, Africa, Australia, Switzerland, Italy, France, and Canada in pursuit of following her dreams of pushing the limits of freestyle kayaking.
Currently, Shuman is busy preparing for 2006 season as she just got back from US National Championships. She placed second just missing a spot at a gold medal. A bit disappointed but her response was "the friendships formed and bonded over this past season was worth more than any gold medal could give me. It was an unbelievable time."
Although she could be heartbroken not becoming the US National Champion, her competition record was flawless in 2005. In every competition except two, she was on the podium stand. And once again, she was crowned World Champion of Aerial Freestyle Kayaking which is one of the biggest honors in kayaking. And lastly, she was nominated by her peers as Freestyle Kayaker of the year. Quite an accomplishment for someone constantly on the go.
She told me, "This season was hard for me. I was never in one place for more than a week which meant training was hard. Also I was in and out of prototype boats which made it difficult to excel." However, she indicates that next year is going to be her biggest year thus far. After a year of R&D, Wave Sport has designed her dream boat, the Project 45, a high performance boat for women. She tells me that this boat will take her to new levels in the sport of freestyle kayaking.
She is ready for another big year as well as fitting in articles and photography for magazines and the American Whitewater conservation organization when possible. “At this point in my life, every year is completely different,” she says happily. In true paddler fashion, she adds, “I just have to go with the flow.”