Kayaking Expert Advice: Basic Strokes

hi I'm Brad with REI outdoor school today we're going to talk about paddle strokes we're going to talk about the forward stroke we're going to talk about some turning strokes and also some boat control strokes to help you get your boat to go where you want it to go when you want it to go there first we will be demonstrating the forward stroke one of the tips of the forward stroke is to actually think about placing a paddle in the water and actually moving past it as opposed to placing a paddle in the water and pulling the blade through the water this will enable you to get far more efficiency while on the water the forward stroke is comprised of mainly three elements the wind up the catch phase or the part where you place your blade in the water and the unwind you start off by winding your torso placing the blade right about barrel to my foot and unwinding my torso getting good rotation that's going to push me forward the paddle comes out of the water when my right hand reaches my right hip just pops right out of the water and you'll find that you're already wound up for the next sketch linking them together it looks just like this I'm concentrating on rotating my torso I'm winding up placing the blade and unwinding this time let's focus a little bit more about what the arms are doing we can think of it as sort of a push with the upper hand and a pull with the with the lower hand that will also encourage proper torso rotation so it's a push with the top pull on the bottom while rotating the torso here's what it looks like let me put it together it's going to be very efficient powerful with not a whole lot of effort this is definitely a sport where technique is much more important than upper body strength now we're going to talk about how to turn your kayak with turning strokes the most basic way to turn your kayak once you have some forward momentum is simply to drop a blade in the water on one side of the bow to the other whatever side the blade is placed in the water the kayak will turn in that direction such as this the problem with that / is that you lose all your forward momentum so let's talk about a turning stroke that enables you to keep your momentum and still control the direction of your boat the sweep stroke is a turning stroke that enables you to keep your forward momentum it begins far in the front of the boat sweeps way wide and continues all the way until a paddle touches the stern of the back end of the kayak that will enable us to turn our boat effectively but continuing forward momentum decide to turn to the left I'll initiate reaching a little bit further I'll sweep wide and can you do that stroke all the way to the stern continue with my forward stroke on the left and sweep on the right a nice gradual arcing turn without losing momentum not like to share a few tips about turning strokes interesting thing about kayaks is that they don't turn from the front like a car they turn far more effectively from the back of the boat so when you're beginning your turning stroke your forward sweep it's really important to place your paddle as far forward as you can get a nice lean the most important most effective part of that sweep stroke is that backward about twenty or thirty degrees that's the most effective part of the turning stroke so don't forget to complete that stroke all the way until your paddle touches the stern of the Kyle just like that now let's talk about a few strokes that will help you get your boat into position if you want to pull up next to a dock or another paddler they're called draw strokes and there are two basic draw strokes the first is a simple reach out and pull towards you there are a few tips with this stroke most importantly if the paddle blade starts to get sucked underneath your boat and you pry on it it will pull your boat down into the water it's a good way to tip so you want to pull your paddle out of the water before it gets too close to you if it does get a little too close whoops just let it go and start over again again that pry put you in the water pretty quickly the other draw stroke is called a sculling draw stroke this one is a little bit more powerful a little bit more effective the core is just a little bit more technique the technique you can sort of think of it as spreading a little bit of peanut butter on your bread your paddle is going to move back and forth across the water but always there's going to be a climbing angle to the paddle blade like this the reason for that is if you if you don't create a climbing blade angle the blade will dive into the water so it's going to be the same motion back and forth but you're going to get the paddle blade more vertical and now we can act and draw your kayak very powerfully and effectively in towards the dock or another paddler which we'll show you in just a moment I'll demonstrate a great use of the draw stroke use this sculling draw bring ourselves right up next to another Packer okay the final stroke we'll go over today is how to get your kayak to come to a stop once you've got forward momentum it's done simply by placing the paddle on one side of the boat and then the other and you can actually back paddle as well this is simply a reverse of the forward stroke once you've got forward momentum this is what it looks like so I want to come to a stop reverse reverse and reverse again utilizing that torso rotation basically just a reverse of what we've done in the forward stroke

Channel: REI

Views: 115,243

Rating: 4.8793807 out of 5

Keywords: rei, outdoors, sporting goods, adventure, kayaking strokes, how to kayak in a straight line, learn kayaking basics

Id: EHfXuH7SS4M

Length: 5min 42sec (342 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 16 2016