Paddling a kayak in a straight line - Beginner Kayaking Tips - Kayak Hipster

so here's some tips and keeping a kite going in a straight line if you're new to paddling now this question comes up a lot newer paddlers often reach out and say hey what are some tips for me to keep my kayak going in a straight line now later in the video I'll discuss a little bit why a longer kayak will make things a little easier and keeping a straight line but that doesn't mean that a short kayak can't go in a straight line with good technique you should be able to paddle any kayak in a pretty straight line so here's a couple of tips and things that I usually see when I'm guiding or when I'm working with new paddlers the first one that comes up a lot is hand positioning when you're just getting into paddling you might not know exactly where to put your hands on the paddle and then throughout the day your hands might move around on the paddles and that might make it so that you have more of the paddle out of one side than the other that will not help you in going in a straight line so a good rule to follow and it's okay to do this several times throughout the day and as you get more comfortable with it you'll have to do it less and less until eventually your hands will just get used to going to their positions automatically you'll just be able to feel it out but at first it's okay to every so often take the paddle put it up over your head let your arms go into a comfortable position where your elbows are making a right angle and then when you take the paddle down make sure there's the same amount of paddle to either side this should provide you with a comfortable hand position and will create a strong paddler box in front of you another thing I often see with new paddlers is they might not be matching the same kind of strokes on both sides and that's okay that's just because they're just getting started but for example they might be doing a full word stroke with one paddle but then their left hand might be doing a sweep stroke now it's good to go back and understand the difference between a forward stroke and a turning stroke a sweep stroke so a fuller stroke is trying to get the most forward momentum the most forward power out of getting the blade in the water and then get as much forward force out of that stroke a sweep stroke usually keeps the paddle very close to the surface of the water it goes in an arc out and around and away from the kayak and that's a stroke that's used to turn the kayak so keep an eye on your blades and if you're trying to go in a straight line try to match your stroke on both sides another thing that comes up a lot which is actually very funny is sometimes I'll see someone paddling and I see that they're always veering off to one side and if none of the other usual things that will cause the kayak to turn are present it's a lot of times newer paddlers will use their hands they'll use their arms and that dominant hand will probably put in more strength into each stroke meaning the kayak will probably turn away from that particular side one thing that's very important to talk about is as you progress your forward strokes should change from using your hands and using your arms to using your core and using your legs the rest of the body the bigger muscle groups are the ones that should be providing all of that force for your forward stroke your arms and your hands simply going to be transferring all of that from your body to the paddle don't get me wrong we all start there most new paddlers the first time they get on the water they'll be paddling with their arms and that's okay but as you progress look to improve that forward stroke another thing that's interesting to see is you should try to anticipate what the kayak is doing and what I mean is we don't have breaks we don't have immediate actions and responses in the water so I often see new paddlers when they're going and I can see that the boat is starting to turn a certain direction and they don't really notice it until it's a little too late and then they put in lots of correcting strokes on the other side and by the time they realized that they overcorrected now the kayak is going in the opposite direction again so the idea is to simply anticipate what you're trying to do so that you correct ahead of time the more practice you have the more you'll be able to anticipate this and the easier is going to be so for example if you're matching your strokes of stroke you put in now might actually show you what is going to be doing in a couple of strokes later on if you add two three four corrective strokes on one side all of a sudden a couple of seconds later you'll see the boat reacting so anticipate what the poet is doing and asks you progress and as you get better you're gonna get better at doing that as well and the last thing to mention is that longer kayaks will just inherently if they have a longer waterline will just track better that means the longer the waterline that better the kayak will usually tracks so a 10-foot kayak will probably want the turn side-to-side a bit more than let's say a 17 or 18 footer but with proper technique even the shortness of kayaks can't be kept going in a pretty straight line you can look at some whitewater paddlers tiny tiny play boats they can keep them going straight because they've gone to a point they can match each stroke though each side and then keep it going in a straight line I think the main thing is to try to watch to see how much of your power goes actually into going forward and then trying to see if you can match left and right because once you have that kind of down muscle memory will eventually take over and just keep you going in a straight line without you thinking about it now all of these tips mostly apply when conditions are calm and there's no wind if you want to keep a kayak going straight when there's high winds or when there's waves that's a different story and we can talk about that in a different video so I hope that was helpful please subscribe if you'd like a boy's trying to put these videos down if you have any comments are you gonna ask anything further or you want to add anything as you develop your abilities getting a forward stroke please comment below so always look don't archived episodes thank your watching see you next time [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Kayak Hipster

Views: 49,629

Rating: 4.9116721 out of 5

Keywords: kayak, sea kayak, rec kayak, kayak tips, learn to kayak, forward stroke, paddle straight, kayak hipster, kayakhipster, how to kayak, how to paddle, kayak video, kayak beginner, kayak advanced, kayak intermediate, kayak gopro, nrs kayak, sea kayak basics, kayak basics, kayak instruction

Id: 7CThukQ8b0s

Length: 5min 56sec (356 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 17 2019