Bottom line: This stuff is not frou-frou detail that gnar Class V boaters scoff at, it is actually the reason they are as good as they are. <\/strong> And fortunately it works for all levels – these are drills you can practice on flat water, not boof strokes or waterfall landings or playboating moves.<\/p>\nWorking hard on Scott Shipley’s flat water drill a few times transferred directly into feeling stronger and paddling better on Class IV for me – even to the point that Rob mentioned I was paddling great and keeping my elbows in. Before reading the book I didn’t even know you were supposed to keep your elbows in, and I sure never expected Rob to notice it. (Rob is a fish and does everything on and in water naturally.)<\/p>\n
Also, I found that just one afternoon with awesome instructor Craig Allen on not even Class II on the Chilliwack B.C. slalom course doing basically two moves in my creekboat – super easy water but trying to be extremely precise and hit the exact same spot under the gate each time (way harder than it sounds) helped me be surprisingly more competent on a low-water technical Class IV that Mike and I did shortly afterwards.<\/p>\n
Usually technical stuff is the kind of thing that makes my teeth chatter, I’m way better at plowing through bigger water than catching tight eddies – and I found it amazing that what I learned from a few hours of trying to be super accurate on easy water gave me noticeable results on a significantly harder river.<\/p>\n
So, if you want to be a strong whitewater kayaker, my best advice is to learn and work on a strong forward stroke as much and as early as possible.<\/strong> I don’t think it’s possible to progress very far without it. Then use it to practice breaking across eddy lines, making ferries, catching eddies and making attainments.<\/p>\nAnd if you have access to any kind of slalom practice or instruction, GO FOR IT.<\/p>\n
Slalom is to whitewater kayaking what gymnastics is to parkour. <\/strong>There’s a good reason why a lot of the paddlers winning extreme creeking races have a slalom background.<\/p>\nRegardless, whether your ultimate goal is to enjoy yourself on Class II+ or on Class V, it’s always more fun to use form that helps you make moves and feel confident.<\/p>\n
Disclaimer – I have by no means mastered these skills and do not expect to make the cover of Kayaking Technique Magazine anytime soon. (Although if I do, I hope it’s the prized Dirtbag Paddler edition. :) But I work on them regularly and am for sure a better kayaker and enjoying myself more as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The great kayakers winning extreme creeking races in big, technical whitewater all have a powerful forward stroke fueling their moves. It’s the key to virtually everything that gets you where you want to go in kayaking, including the boof stroke. But the forward stroke gets overlooked when people are learning because it seems like a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3908,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[353,387,60,336,274,120,388],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ireneskayakingblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}