My favourite moves and how to achieve them

By Eric Jackson

Photos: Eric Jackson,
Jason Ambrose
& Peter Holgate

My favourite moves and how to achieve them

This is the most exciting place in your kayaking career. Learning new moves assures that you are thinking about your kayaking and assuming you have learning left to do. I have found that less than ideal weather, water levels, etc., are easily overlooked when you focus on learning something new, making your paddling more resilient, and the fun factor is maximized. To suggest that I have only a few favourite moves would be inaccurate. I love all of the moves, even the ‘shuv-it’. However, here are four moves that cover the skill spectrum that have me excited to paddle anytime.

The Cartwheel

Able to do it in the flatwater, in a hole, or downstream over waves, this move is so versatile that it always puts a smile on my face. “Nothing but vertical” is a battle cry in training that means 90-degree vertical cartwheels – no low angle ones. Let’s ‘clean it up’ means no paddle strokes in these, or ‘pop it’ means to throw air in the middle of one. ‘Split it’ is a split wheel, and ‘link-’em’ means – let’s see how many we can link in a row. Fun stuff.

The best way to learn a cartwheel is to use my YouTube channel videos for a visual reference. Text in a magazine isn’t your best bet. However, the steps you should take are best delivered in text.

First, learn the Lean Clean in flatwater. Of course, make sure you have a freestyle kayak. The smaller the boat, the easier it is to learn.
Learn the Initiation Stroke.
Learn the Flatwater Cartwheel first and then learn in a hole.

Key skills

Keeping weight over the boat, edge control, leading the rotation with your torso, and spotting your target.

The Air Blunt

There is something about getting your boat off the water and flying in the air on a wave, and this is the easiest move to do it. ‘Catching air’ is addictive, and even the momentary feeling of weightlessness without big air is still quite special. This move is to the wave as a loop is to a hole. Staple move that leads to many others. If you can blunt, you can Pan Am. If you can Pan Am, you can Airscrew, etc.

The bigger the wave, the easier it is to get off the water.
The steeper the wave, the bigger air you can get.
The smoother the wave, the easier it is to set up and time.
However, you can get air on reasonably small waves. It just takes more skill. Learning the non-aerial blunt is your first step to getting air.

Where does the air come from?

A combo of things:

Physical energy from your body – lifting the bow up hard, which gets your butt off the water and then throwing the bow down hard, which lifts the stern off the water. For a moment, your entire boat will be off the water from your efforts – like an Ollie on a skateboard or a ‘bunny hop’ on a bicycle.
The drop of the wave. Waves are curved and like a ramp. If you are up high on the wave, start coming down it, and change your movement from following the wave to going straight ahead, you will find yourself off the water. The energy that changes your trajectory is the same as #1 above, but since the water has a lot of energy in it, your boat will rebound off that water and be sent much higher if your timing is right.

Learning the Air Blunt:

Practice going to the very top of a wave without falling off the back. Then practice going down the face and back up again. If you can do this, you can set up the air blunt.
Practice dropping an edge, leaning back, and lifting your bow up as you drop down the wave. If you can pull that off at or near the top of the wave, you can air blunt.
Practice switching edges from one side to the other super quickly after you lift the bow up. Switching will try to force the bow back down. If you add to the force by throwing in a back sweep and stomping your feet down fast, you’ll rotate quickly and likely get air.

Getting BIG air

Work on higher on the waves, find the biggest wave you can, and accentuate each part of the move. Finally, you’ll realize that the timing of every step of the move will affect how high you get.

The Backflip/Stunt Double

Ok – so this isn’t a move many of you will try; that is fine. It is one of my favourites, in part because it was many years in the making, and it gets your adrenaline going every time.

This move requires an overhanging ledge of some sort, preferably between 10-20-foot tall. Any lower and you won’t make the rotation easily and any higher, and it gets pretty risky for your back. (Dustin Urban tried this once and hurt his back at about 18-foot). It is surprisingly easy to pull off, by the way, but only if you know how to do a backflip and can spot the landing and hit the landing either on a trampoline or just off rocks into the river when swimming (or diving board).

If you can do that, the feeling of doing it in the kayak is very similar, and its control is the same. Here are your steps if you decide to do it. (Remember that it needs to be deep enough at the landing).

Get in your kayak near the ledge and work yourself backwards to the tipping point, but not past. If you are not at the tipping point (where a slight back lean makes you tip-off), you will ‘camber up’ when you go for the backflip and likely not succeed in making the rotation (you will land on your head).
You can use your paddle or not – I was more comfortable with no paddle for years but decided I liked the paddle after a while. No paddle is less likely to hurt yourself, with the paddle, of course.
Start with your body all of the way forwards, face on the front deck hands or paddle on the front deck.
Lift your head and body straight upwards fast and then just ‘coast’ from sitting vertically to going on the backpack. This keeps your boat from sliding forwards on the rock and stopping the rotation. For every action, there is an equal and opposite one- lifting up fast pushes your boat down on the rock- just maintaining that momentum once vertical has no effect on your boat until you hit the back deck and it tips off.
Stay on your back deck, eyes open, looking for your landing spot. Keep rotating until you feel you can lift your knees up and pull the bow under you to execute a vertical landing.
Avoid over rotating by waiting to the last second to complete the rotation.

Stunt double?

You might as well attempt to land perfectly so you can pogo flip out of it (Stunt Double). This takes a lot of practice and assumes you can pogo flip. It is about landing correctly. If your take-off spot is high, like ours was at Rock Island, your body will create a big hole in the water at the landing, and it makes keeping the boat under control on the way back out hard. Water covers your back in an explosion, and it is easy to ‘flatten out’.

If you keep flattening out, you have to go more vertical. It is a ‘fine line’. A tad more vertical, and your bow may not penetrate the water, and you land on your head. If you haven’t landed on your head, you likely haven’t done a stunt double yet. What is special about this movie? Again, a commitment move that combines the backflip with a Pogo flip (which was next on my list of ‘favourites’, but I decided to include it here because the Stunt Double is just a more bad assed version of the Pogo Flip.

Mary Lou

Named after ‘Mary Lou Retton’ a gold medalist in the 1984 Olympics in Gymnastics and appeared in ‘Scrooged’ as Tiny Tim. If you were not alive in 1984, now you know who Mary Lou is. I had a crush on her back then.

This is another one of those ‘party tricks’ that aren’t on any score sheet but always impresses the crowd. What is it? It is a front loop over somebody’s boat or another floating object. Yes, it is super fun and ‘not too hard’, but you have to be a bit careful as it is essentially a ‘headspring’, and you want to take care of your neck.

Prerequisites are a front loop in a hole or flatwater and the ability to get your boat vertical by holding onto another person’s bow or a floating object.

The Steps:

Get vertical using another’s ‘Creekboat’ or a high volume floating object. Place your hands flat on the very top of the boat/object and shoulder-distance apart. Remember, you could fall onto the person you are using, so warn them and try to stay near the bow of their boat.
Begin bouncing up and down – maximum bounce is the goal. You should be able to get the bow almost out of the water.
Once you can do the bounce in control and big, you are ready. Get the bounce to its max and when you are almost to the top of your bounce, throw your head and body forward and down as hard as you can but put a lot of the weight onto your hands (to avoid slamming your head on the deck). Your boat will rotate up and over your head. Pushing hard on your hands and head, throw your body to the back deck (like a loop) to push your bow down to land on your hull. You will have looped over the boat/object and be floating away.
If you are strong enough to support your weight on your hands, you can keep your stern dry and do a ‘BIG’ one that truly impresses your friends.

‘Double or Nothing’.

My latest creation at the time of writing this, while at the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show, where it is primarily Yachts, I was bored and had my freestyle kayak and learned to rotate on my head when the boat was flipping in the air. This allowed me to bring my bow back down in the same position I started in, which meant I could repeat the process and do the Mary Lou over and over again. It is pretty cool, but you’ll need to be a bit of a gymnast to learn that one. Also, having the ‘Aquabana’ floating dock versus a slippery round kayak helped.

Every move I didn’t list is also one of my ‘favourites’, but Paddler Magazine wanted me to pick favourites. Next, they’ll ask me who my favourite kid is. Hmmm… Definitely Emily, and Dane, and KC :).