5 Mistakes Every New Kayaker Makes... And How To Avoid Them

rhythm [Music] you see me coming up stop we're about to shut down this whole block with the sound they want to hear to be clear [Music] hey guys dan here from headwaters kayak and today we're going to be discussing five beginner mistakes that almost everyone makes and how to avoid them [Music] today we're talking five beginner mistakes and how to avoid them and i'm not trying to poke fun i know we've kind of made some fun in the video but really we're excited you guys are here we're excited you're in paddle sports and what we want to do is make your time better on the water so if you can change or adjust these five things you're guaranteed to have a better time out on the water today so beginner mistake number one is not having the right gear you see behind me i have the field and streams blade which is a 12 foot recreational kayak perfectly suited for flat water paddling like we're doing here today but oftentimes i see people that bought maybe a white water boat off craigslist and it has no keel and they spend their whole day just you know going left and right spinning out not having a good time so you want to make sure you have the right boat for the type of water you're going to be in another common mistake i see people make is neoprene life jackets this is a very typical life jacket for boating and wakeboarding and maybe that's what a lot of you or have experienced with the downside to paddling in neoprene life jacket is it's incredibly hot on a hot day unless you're in the water this thing is insulated to keep you warm the other problem with the neoprene life jack is when i sit in the boat it comes up around my shoulders and it really chafes underneath my shoulder blades so if i was wearing a tank top or shirtless then i'm going to have a lot of chafing going on under my armpits and the last and most important thing is when i sit down this thing is up in my way uncomfortable it's just not the right tool for the job so if you're buying your first kayak do yourself a favor get yourself a paddling specific pfd you can get them anywhere obviously kayak stores have them they're available online even costco has some good ones the onyx brand dick's sporting goods just make sure it's specific for paddling has good shoulder cutouts and is out of the way of your seat back so here i have a paddling specific pfd this was one out of our rental fleet just to show you guys oftentimes paddling pfds can be a little bit more but we're talking 20 bucks and the comfort is so much better you see when i put this one on oh i feel so much cooler already but big shoulder cut outs here so i'm not going to be chafing it's adjusted so i can keep it down it's not going to want to ride up and then most importantly when i sit on the backrest it's a nice thin back that's going to allow me to sit there without feeling like i have all this bulk behind me so much more appropriate for kayaking the other mistake i see people make is going really really cheap on their paddles people think like okay i'll get the kayak and then the paddle in the life jacket is an afterthought you know inexpensive paddles or paddles that people throw in are typically cheap for a reason the flex in this blade causes you to lose so much traction and power in the water so the paddle i'm holding is perfectly sufficient to move the kayak across the water but a nicer paddle is going to have way less flex it's going to have a lot more power and overall it's going to be significantly lighter so you're not going to have to beat yourself up over the course of the day paddling with something heavy so you don't have to spend a ton of money to get a good paddle but you want to make sure you get something quality i always recommend the bendy branches whisperer paddle if you're looking for an inexpensive but high quality paddle is going to last you a long time we use those in the rental fleet and they work great for today i'm going to use this paddle you definitely don't have to go this fancy guys this is just what i had in the garage this one's a carbon shaft fiberglass blades and you see there's just zero flex again you do not have to spend this much money this is just what i personally have been using so i had it in the garage so i guess what i'm trying to encourage you to do is consider more than just a boat a lot of people start off with thinking kayak i'll use whatever paddle pfd i've got but consider the whole package get a decent pfd in a paddle without a ton of flex and you'll be a lot happier with your investment so now that you have the right gear it's important to talk about gear adjustment the second mistake people make is not adjusting their stuff properly and not getting the most out of their time on the water so we need to make sure that we're well adjusted in the kayak that our gear is well adjusted to us and then we're ready to go paddling so first let's talk about paddles even this cheap paddle that came with a 100 inflatable kayak i bought has the ability to feather right so that means turn the blades on the paddle most people starting off are probably just going to start with a zero feather if you want you can play with a 45 degree feather but it's important to know there's a left hand feather and a right-handed feather okay so if i'm right-handed that means my knuckles are lined up at the top of the right blade which means i would want my left paddle rotated forward so when i'm taking a stroke my right hand lifts out of the water and i can take a stroke on the left side you don't necessarily need to start with feathering and i did a whole video on feathering on why i do it but just know you have that ability to offset and if you're right-handed use a right-handed feather if you're left-handed use a left-handed feather or better yet just put it at zero and get started and feel it out so next we're going to talk about life jackets if they're not adjusted properly when you hit the water these things will go up around your head and that's what we don't want so what i like to do is get the life jacket low on your body and then start from the bottom and work your way up tightening the straps to where they're snug but they're not choking you out i always tell people you can always when you're in the water cinch down your life jacket more grab the sides and get it tighter if you find yourself in a long swim but you want it to be comfortable enough to where it's not going to ride up on you but loose enough where it's not choking you out so that's it's a pretty good fit another common mistake i see is when people get in their boat they don't take the time to adjust it properly we send a ton of rentals out at the headwaters boathouse and if it wasn't for us helping those people out they would all go out on the water like this laid back with their legs straight out their arms close together ready to relax but i like to encourage people that paddling is a physical sport and you want to be adjusted in a nice upright position so one you have comfort but two you have support for good paddling posture so the first thing we need to do is get our butts all the way back in the seat and then we want to adjust the foot pedals to our feet most all cox will either have adjustable foot pedals or some will have molded infant pedals with multiple options but you want your feet to be pressing against the pedals so you can push your butt back into the seat and still have enough bend in your knees where you're contacting the thigh support and you're in a nice upright posture the last thing is to adjust your backrest forward to support this paddling posture so you don't want your seat leaned way back you want to be adjusted upright i've got good back support my feet are engaged my knees are engaged my butt is engaged i'm upright ready to go paddling and then the last part of this is how do i hold my paddle i don't want to hold it in tight because there's too much leverage on my body i want to hold it just wider than shoulder width apart if i were to put this paddle on my head i want to see closely a 90 degree angle here on my arm this gives me a good paddling position to translate power from the paddle blade into my boat and move it forward through the water so now we've got our gear we've got it all adjusted up the third mistake i see people make is how they get in and out of the kayak i see them do stuff like this where their bows up on the front and they're on a boat ramp and they're real tippy and they're trying to get in and they're wobbling back and forth and maybe they're not super flexible and they're they're kind of scared and then this is the worst they drag the nose of their kayak across this cheese grater for kayaks of a boat ramp so the deal when your kayaks on the ramp like this is you've got the tip of the keel and the stern of the boat in the water and the most buoyant part of the boat here is out of the water so it feels really tippy like ball bearings and a lot of people say that's the hardest part or maybe they don't even get on the water because they're like well this thing's too tippy i'm gonna flip right over so what i want you to do instead hear me out get the boat sideways or parallel to the shore and yes you may get your feet wet but you will save your boat get yourself some some neoprene booties if need be but with the boat sideways in parallel with the chore now i can use my paddle here for support i like to float mine out a little bit so i'm not having to pull myself off shore and now i can step into the boat lower myself down into the cockpit get my feet in away i go and now i'm instantly stable i don't have to worry about that awkwardness of launching with my my ballot stream so not everyone has the luxury of a boat ramp so some people may have to launch and land from a dock and this can be incredibly sketchy if you're just learning so i want to try to dial it in for you guys so you can get in and out without getting wet so the mistake i commonly see people make is they just have their boat in the water and they try to just stand up and drop themselves right in but as i'm doing this you can see they're both wanting to move away from me and then i'm relying on my knees to try to drop myself down in it's just very awkward and clumsy so what i want to do is try to create a support here with my paddle so i'm not putting all the pressure on my on my legs and on my boat i do that by putting the paddle behind the seat pressing down on the paddle and the top of the kayak i lower both my feet into the cockpit keep my other hand on shore what that's doing is it's keeping that kayak from sliding out and sliding away from me and then i can drop myself down into the kayak while i always have connection to the boat and to the dock now i'm in the kayak i'm adjusted right i got my pfd all dialed in ready to go paddling so now we're in the boat we're ready to go paddling this gets me to my next common mistake which is people not holding the paddle correctly or just overall not paddling correctly so this is not a stroke video i have a really great kayaking 101 video uh that will link at the end this is just a general how to hold your paddle how to do strokes to move your kayak efficiently across the water the first thing is making sure you're holding your paddle correctly paddles will have a logo that you're either able to read the logo but that the scoop of the paddle if you think of it like a spoon the scoop is always facing you and the long end of the paddles on top the short ends on the bottom that's when you know you have it straight the next thing is having good paddling position you don't want your paddling close to your chest or your arms close together i see lots of this going on and that will just wear you out so quickly what you want is a nice wide paddling position arms 90 degrees your paddles out in front of you with the paddle face facing you this gives you a good position to reach forward catch the water up by your toes and pull yourself through the water all your power while you're paddling comes from your feet to your knees so if you're lean back and your paddle is not hitting the water to your knees you're losing about two-thirds of your stroke so we're sitting upright we're going to reach forward catch the water up at our feet and our top hand is doing an important job too it's going to push while our bottom hand pulls and it's that torso rotation that's going to pull our kayak across the water so if a forward stroke makes us go forward a reverse stroke is going to make us stop and what's a reverse stroke simple we start at the back of the boat put our paddle in the water and we sweep it forward to our toes as i'm coming in with speed i can use these reverse sweep strokes alternating side to act like a break for my kayak and to bring me to a stop now if i'm coming in hot somewhere and i don't want to hit seth my cameraman i can just drag a paddle on the left and my boat's going to carve a nice turn and come to a stop let's try it coming in hot i want to stop couple of backstrokes and it's just like hitting the brakes you're just applying the brakes stopping the craft i see a lot of people coming in hot and they see somebody and they don't want to hit them and then they just freeze up and they hit them i've got a rule and a kayak wherever you look is where the kayak goes so if you want to go somewhere and you look there the kayak will go there if you don't want to go somewhere and you look there the kayak will go there so just be sure to look where you want to go and the kayak's going to go there okay so we get the boat going forward we get the boat stopping the last thing we need to know is how to turn the boat and there's two ways to do it a forward sweep stroke is going to turn the boat and keep the boat moving forward a reverse street sweepstroke can turn the boat but it's going to stop you so let's uh let's take a couple strokes here and if i want my boat to go left i sweep out far away like a big rainbow i start at my feet and i sweep all the way to the stern again that top hand is pushing and if i use my right foot and i push against that foot pedal as i sweep you'll see a bow really wants to come around the mistake i see people doing if they want to turn they're doing this they're not engaging that lower body and they're just sort of paddling on one side you want to really engage with your core and rotate and that's how you're going to get the power see how much more effective that is as opposed to just paddling on one side now again the reverse short stroke if i want to turn sharp can reverse sweep that's going to kill my speed but it's going to turn me really sharp again if i'm coming in tight and i don't want to hit somebody i can apply that reverse sweep stroke slow my speed down turn my boat sharp and away we go okay so you've got yourself the right gear you've learned how to launch you're all adjusted up properly you've got good strokes to have a successful day in the water now the next common mistake i see people make is they ruin their whole day by ramming their boat up on shore and then flipping out of their kayak this is the number one time i see people get wet in their kayaks is getting out so let's make sure you're not that person you're going to be successful getting out of your kayak this is what we see that should be that should be the clip i see it all the time that exact scenario people are getting out they're focused over here and then next thing you know silver tea kettle they're in the water your friends are laughing you've got a viral video for tick-tock let's not do that let's not be that person let's get out the safer way let's do this we're going to come in and remember that reverse sweep we talked about we're going to reverse sweep this thing get our boat sideways or parallel to shore and then you have a couple options from here depending on how good your knees are swing your feet out to the side put your paddle in the water so you can use this for support and now i'm leaning my weight forward towards where i want to get out towards the ramp and i can push myself up and use my paddle for support and then stand up i'm not beating up my kayak and i'm definitely a lot drier the other way you can go because i know there's some of us out here that may not have the same flexibility or may have knee issues is let the kayak float a little bit further from shore because check this out now as i get my feet out i'm not bending past a 90 degree angle i can even go a little deeper if i want so much easier to get out with my knees underneath me as opposed to having my knees way up high again i've got my paddle here for support pressing off the kayak lifting myself up how much nicer is that so those are my top five beginner mistakes but i had so many more there's a few honorable mentions that we have to talk about the first thing is electronics on the water if you're gonna bring out a fancy iphone or even like your wallet or your key fob those are all expensive things that may get wet so do yourself a favor buy yourself a good five liter dry bag put all your valuables in that dry bag and then have access to it throughout the day as needed but you want to protect your gear my second honorable mention is what you're wearing your apparel you want to wear something that dries quickly that if it gets wet it's going to insulate you and something that can protect you from the sun i really like a long sleeve shirt we're out here earlier this morning but normally if it was midday sun i'd be wearing a long sleeve shirt with the hood something that's going to keep the sun off my skin i see a lot of people go out there for their first time they're not used to the reflection of the water on their skin and they come back fried so be sure to wear good sun protection insulating layers and always drink a ton of water and the last beginner mistake that's our honorable mention is such a huge subject that we decided it had to be a video on its own and that's how to transport your kayaks we see lots of awkward loads boats backwards on j-racks j-racks pointed outwards on cars uh you know ratchet straps with just paddle boards flapping in the wind we want to make sure you get to the water safely so be looking out for that video it's going to be the ultimate rack guide for kayaks and paddle boards that should be coming out shortly subscribe to the channel if you're not already so you don't miss a thing so thank you guys so much for watching this is dan from headwaters kayak shop wishing you happy paddling we'll see on the next one [Music]

Channel: Headwaters Kayak

Views: 1,084,416

Keywords: headwaters, kayak, how to kayak, kayaking 101, kayak mistakes, get better at kayaking, new to kayaking, how to start kayaking, kayaking tips

Id: 0O2BX3RLFvo

Length: 17min 17sec (1037 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 21 2022