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Hints & Tips

Sea Kayaking by Glenmore Lodge National Outdoor Centre

Coaching

Edging. Practice and experiment with your edge. Mastering edge control will improve your paddling. With the boat flat this gets a score of zero. Try then increasing the edge in three stages 1,2,3 and get used to holding the boat still on edge at each of the levels. Next you can try going smoothly from edge to edge e.g. edge 1 on the left to edge 2 on the right. You can do this either statically or on the move. Finally try turning the kayak in a number of ways using inside or outside edge or even keeping the boat flat. Try spending about 10 -15 minutes on this exercise and revisit it each time you go on the water.

Equipment

Have you ever wondered what bent/crank shafted paddles can do for you?
The grip angle is altered from a straight shaft and reduces harmful sideways bending of the wrist and stress on the tendons. For example, hold your hand out as if to shake someones hand, if you relax your hand and cup your fingers what position do they like to adopt? The same as a bent shaft! You can see by moving your hand upwards at the wrist the position required for a straight shaft!
There are generally three types of bent shaft

• Neutral where the blade is in line (along the same axis) with the grip.
• Normal Cranked - where the blade is behind the grip i.e. toward the back of the boat. This requires greater grip strength to control the blade but the idea is that power comes on early in the forward stroke. When might that be useful?
• Modified crank - where the blade is in front of the grip. This latter case is considered the most beneficial as it requires a lighter grip.

Safety

Always carry a VHF radio
If somebody capsizes a long way behind you consider paddling backwards immediately to initiate the turnthis means that you are always travelling towards them and will get there sooner.

Open Canoeing by Glenmore Lodge National Outdoor Centre

Coaching

The Need for Speed (control)!
Master your control of boat speed relative to the water speed and you will master many other techniques. Try these approaches for yourself.

• Slower in bigger water can mean a drier run and more time to think/plan ahead and make reverse moves.
• Same speed allows change of position using prys and draws.
• Faster for when you want to cross those eddy lines, make progress and climb over waves.

Equipment

Pad out your kneeling thwart to give better boat to hip/body contact and increased boat control.

Safety

Consider carrying a bum bag with pruning saw, pulleys, krabs, prussiks and rescue line.

Equipment

Paddle shafts if you have small hands try smaller shaft diameters.
Paddle blades again if you are a smaller paddler consider smaller blades that you will find easier to control.

Coaching

On an easy stretch of river challenge your group to use as many water features as possibleworking the stretch to its max, crossing eddy lines, surfing, ferry gliding, paddling forwards, backwards sideways. Challenge them to link as many different moves as possible while always maintaining progressive movement of the boat. The benefit of this exercise is that it helps develop linking of paddle strokes (Blade); identification and use of water features (Brain); boat edge (Boat) and trim (Body) control! As they improve move onto more difficult water.

Surf Kayaking by Glenmore Lodge National Outdoor Centre

Coaching

Location, location, location! Choose a quality friendly environment.
As a coach, if you feel it is safe for you to be on the beach, take time to get out and observe your group. Get people off the water to observe others as it is often this visual element that is missing when coaching surfing. If you have a video camera use it!

Equipment

Get into a boat designed for surfing. E.g. a Mega Cyclone. A boat with fast hull speed will mean you can go fast and still pick up shallow angled waves that are also better for learning on.

Safety

Weve all seen the Guinness advertGood things come to those who wait. Sit, wait and watch. Check the beach out at low tide for hazards e.g. rocks. Look for light on-shore breezes.

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