Kayaking Adventure,  Sea Kayaking Skills

 Whether you’re in a canoe or kayak, the following concepts will help you develop good form as you take to the water.

• Sit up straight. Your mother was right: Posture is important- for balance, efficiency and safety. Imagine that the heaviest parts

of your body-head, chest, abdomen, hips and rear end— are blocks in a tower. Keep them evenly stacked for beginning techniques; it’s when

they come out of alignment that the tower (and your boat) is more likely to topple. Staying loose in the hips allows the

boat to rock under you.

• Use the big muscles. Instead of bicycling your hands out and back with each stroke, keep

arms relatively straight. Paddling with arms alone is inefficient

and fatiguing.Your chest, back and stomach muscles are much

sturdier, so they’re better suited for the task. Paddling slightly

stiff-armed is a method for learning efficient strokes. It

forces use of the larger muscles.

• Be shoulder safe. Shoulder injuries are not uncommon in paddlesports. To protect your shoulders, keep your hands in front of your body. When placing a paddle blade behind you, turn to look at it, rotating your shoulders into a safe position.

• Different strokes. An entire vocabulary of strokes exists for every direction a boat can

travel. Take a class to learn them all properly. Until then, remember these rules:

• Keep the paddle blade perpendicular to the desired direction of travel. Forward strokes run parallel to the boat’s centerline. To move

sideways away from the bank or dock, put the blade in the water parallel to your boat and pull

yourself over to the blade. This is called a draw stroke.

• Steer at the ends. You’ll get more mechanical advantage from turning strokes by doing them close to the ends of your boat. Sweep strokes

are great for turning, tracing broad arcs to and from the bow or stern most of each stroke, keep the shaft as vertical as possible. Stack your

hands, with your grip directly above the shaft hand during the power portion of the stroke. The incorrect tendency to keep the top hand in front of the body angles the shaft and turns the canoe off course.

• Do the twist. Rotate your shoulders away from the paddle at the catch of your forward stroke by twisting at the waist. Place the blade in the water well forward of your knee. Unwind your torso to power the stroke, keeping arms straight.

• Keep it short. When the blade is at your knee, the stroke is over. Making the stroke short and out in front keeps the blade square and the stroke parallel to the canoe’s centerline. Carrying the blade behind the body pulls the boat off course.

++  Kayaking 

Getting In

Before getting it wet, hop into your kayak on flat ground to adjust the foot pegs and back band to fit you. Then, with kayak in the water parallel to shore, place your paddle shaft behind the cockpit or seat, extending one blade to rest shoreside on firm ground to lend stability when entering.

Get a Grip

A white-knuckled death grip can lead to discomfort. Relax. Hold the paddle shaft with thumbs and forefingers forming rings, like you’re making the "OK" sign, and keep

your other fingers loose. Now you can orient your blades and gain reach without stressing your

wrists. To find the right hand position, put the center of the shaft on top of your head, then hold it

so that your arms form right angles at the elbow.

Use the Blades Properly

Many kayak paddle blades are asymmetrical. The spooned powerface is designed for grabbing water with each forward stroke. The other side (backface) is used also for certain strokes. Some blades look lopsided, a feature affording hydrodynamic advantage. Keep the long edge on top.

Going Forward

Plant the blade as far forward as you can comfortably reach, rotating your torso without leaning forward. Keep the path of your stroke parallel to the boat. Use a more relaxed shaft angle (45 to 60 degrees) for touring, and bring it more vertical—which places the blade closer to the boat—for a power boost.

++ Canoeing 

Getting Into It

Align the canoe parallel to shore before entering or exiting, with the bow partner holding the boat steady for the stern.You can brace your paddle shaft across the gunwales as you step into the

center with the outer foot first. For maximum safety, settle into a three- point stance, knees spread and rear end resting on the front edge of the seat. Adjust people and gear to trim your boat, keeping the stern slightly deeper in the water than the bow.

Holding On

Place one hand on top of the paddle’s grip (not around the upper shaft), and the other hand loosely on the shaft (and not down at the throat, where the shaft meets the blade).Your hands should only be about an arm’s length apart.

Paddling as Partners Good tandem

canoeists paddle on opposite sides, in synchronicity, causing their canoe to run straight, fast, and stable. The bow partner sets the rhythm and chooses a side; the stern takes the other side and matches the cadence. Going It Alone When paddling a tandem canoe solo, you’ll control it best if you move as close to the middle of the boat as possible. Shift gear to get the right trim.

Skills

Camping by Canoe or Sea Kayak
How to organize your own multi-day paddling adventure that you’ve bought a boat, taken a lesson and enjoyed a few day trips it’s time to think about going for a weekend trip or more.You want to wake up and hear the chuckling of a stream mixed  with the trills of early morning birds outside your tent. You begin to wonder what you would need and how to get started camping with your boat.

When you close your eyes and imagine yourself camping thanks to your sea kayak or canoe, what do you see? Settling on a destination can be the most difficult part of planning the trip. Do you see yourself on a glassy early morning lake with the moon just sinking, casting a line? Or are you ready to launch beside a short set of rapids with the morning fog gently lifting off the water? Maybe you’re beside a tent just finishing brunch and thinking about dinner. If you have one of these visions, or something like it, you can canoe or sea-kayak camp with just a little planning.

Once you’ve decided on your destination, assemble your team. Maybe it’s you and your spouse or you and some buddies. Make sure you’re comfortable with your companions (you’ll be spending a lot of time with them in close quarters) and that you all share the same vision for the trip. If your spouse thinks the best part of camping is sleeping late and great meals and you want to cover as much ground as possible with only jerky, rice cakes and water on the menu, it’ll be difficult for either of you to have a good time. Create a well-rounded team, one that includes folks who have all the skills the trip needs: planning and organizing, rescue, first aid, navigation, cooking and entertainment. It’s good to share the responsibility if you’re designing your own trip, but it can also be fun to go with somebody who has experience and knowledge to guide and teach you about tripping.

The usual worries of first-time kayak or canoe campers include: Am I strong (or skilled) enough for this trip? Who will I be partnered with—will they do their share and will they be fun to be with? Will

the paddlers be equally strong, or might I be left behind? Will the paddling be leisurely or constant? Will there be enough to eat? Will the food be palatable? What will we do if a canoe capsizes? These are excellent questions and should be discussed by the team beforehand, with plans made to accommodate everyone. If goals are clear and agreed upon, all team members are more likely to be happy campers.

Many popular trips have established and maintained campsites. If at all possible, use these campsites to avoid additional impact on the waterway. If you have some camping experience already, you can transfer what you know and like to canoe and sea-kayak camping. If not, it’s still an easy leap: The trick is to make a few lists to help you get organized. I like to think in these terms: kitchen, bedroom, transportation, repair and personal gear. I keep an inventory of all my camping/canoeing equipment and go down the lists to make sure that

I don’t forget anything. Of course, there’s a lot of stuff on my list that

I’d never take canoeing, but I think about each item and leave it

behind on purpose, not because I forgot it. This mental process makes

it more likely that I’ll have everything I need

++ Teaching Kids

here are as many different ideas about how best to teach kids to paddle as there are teachers. Many of the ideas will sound familiar to anyone involved in teaching kids any activity. Most agree that frequent praise is critical. Small group sizes on the water (five or fewer boats in a group, with one or two instructors per group) provide a level of safety and an ability to give individual attention that’s not possible with larger groups. The great thing about kids is that they are like sponges—put them near water and they will absorb.

No matter what your educational philosophy, longtime ACA Instructor Trainer  Becky Molina believes that the proof is in the pudding. "Teaching is not merely the practice of presenting material, but rather ensures that learning will occur," she says. "If students can leave the class performing a skill on their own without the instructor, practicing the skill correctly and applying it when necessary to new situations, and perhaps even able to teach the skill to others, then we can be sure that learning has occurred." Becky has developed some basic principles that have proven to work well when teaching kids

 • Hands-on: Most kids are hands-on learners; they tend to be better than adults at playing and they are good at

figuring things out if guided and allowed to do so.  For example, if you demonstrate a stroke and have kids practice it, they often can give you examples of when the stroke might be useful, then even go further to suggest how a complementary stroke would serve the same purpose in the other direction. Kids are usually quicker learners than adults.

• Language:  We can’t teach kids without changing the language we use with them.  Our kid language needs to be limited (do more, talk less), age-appropriate (6-year-olds

may not understand "parallel" and "perpendicular"), and consistent (not using multiple terms for the same thing).

• Focus attention: Kids are more prone than adults to distraction, so the instruction needs to be exciting and focused. Multiplying a child’s age by two gives a rough idea of their attention span in minutes. So with 10-year-olds, the activity should change approximately every 20 minutes.

• Encouragement: Most kids aren’t practiced in separating their social and emotional needs from the task at hand. They need down time to hang out with peers and recharge.They need to be treated with respect, encouragement and a high level of enthusiasm.