By Matthew Brook
Bio
Matt is a whitewater kayak coach based on the south coast of England, specialising in downriver freestyle. You can find out more about his range of programmes and courses here: whitewatercoach.co.uk or follow him on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whitewatercoach.co.uk. Matt is a member of the Immersion Research EU team. immersionresearch.eu/
What’s the point of flatwater freestyle?
Back when all this lockdown business began, there was a lot of talk about the lessons we will be taking forward from this pandemic. Despite the many frustrations and negatives, we all came to realise lots of human benefits. An enforced simplicity of life hammered home the importance of simple pleasures, family time, and prioritising mental wellbeing.
Yet almost a year on, as restrictions lift, the paradigm has shifted. It seems we are no longer talking about the values and lessons we will preserve from lockdown. Instead, the overwhelming consensus appears to be, “Let’s get back to normal as soon as possible.” I do not mean to knock that; the desire to see friends again and get back out on river trips is very much one I share! Personally, however, I do not want to lose the narrative of, “What can I learn and take forward from this moment.”
Why am I saying all this? Well, being confined to local areas pushed paddlers out onto lakes, ponds and canal in freestyle boats, rather than to the creeks and rivers they preferred to frequent previously! It was exciting to see so many more people exploring the realm of flatwater freestyle and experiencing the fitness and skill benefits it brings. Now that we can return to the river, it would be all too easy to leave that flatwater freestyle training behind and allow those skills to atrophy. To my mind, that seems like a massive missed opportunity.
As someone who grew up without rivers in my local area (but an ample helping of sea and canals!), flatwater training has always been my go-to. It’s not glamorous, nor is it necessarily the thing I want to be doing the most! Often, I find myself yearning for a river environment, even during a flatwater session. But there are two values that I heavily associate with flatwater:
- learning to enjoy what is on the doorstep and
- being disciplined in training, even if it isn’t the most thrilling.
These two values were hammered home for me during the lockdown, and perhaps, looking back, they will resonate with other people too.
Everything we do informs everything we do
Flatwater freestyle holds immense value in the kayaker’s toolkit. I am a firm believer that dedicated practice in any discipline of kayaking will have a knock-on effect in all other disciplines. Freestyle teaches you to use river features well, surf enables you to read and tackle big-volume whitewater better, touring improves your forward paddling downriver. Everything feeds into producing better-rounded paddlers.
Unsurprisingly, deliberately throwing yourself into the kinds of weird, contorted positions that the river sometimes thrusts upon you is vital training for more challenging whitewater. It promotes a physical self-awareness that maximises control over not only your own body but the boat as well.
On top of that, pushing for new freestyle tricks has the inevitable side-effect of developing a solid roll. Repeatedly falling on your face as you try for your first bowstall, pursue the elusive third end on your cartwheel or dial in the loop means an awful lot of roll practice! And not just run-of-the-mill roll practice either! No, this is confusing, unprepared, twisted-up-every-which-way roll practice (the best kind!), the sort of roll practice that develops a truly bombproof roll when it transitions to a river environment. From experience, this is the sort of dedicated practice that will allow you to keep composure in a challenging hole, even having lost your paddle!
Beyond kayaking, flatwater freestyle is simply a phenomenal way to keep in shape. When you are starting to string moves together, it becomes serious aerobic exercise, while the range of movements provide muscle-toning for the whole body, but especially the core. Plus, very few other sports offer the same benefit of getting fit whilst still technically sat down!
Let’s get technical
Getting started in flatwater freestyle has never been more accessible than it is currently.
Not only do we have an abundance of excellent modern playboat designs to choose from, but the resurgence of old-school freestyle boats and the popularity of slicing makes finding an appropriate boat easy. For budget paddlers, most playboats designed within the last 15 years more or less fit the ‘modern’ mould, i.e. short and voluminous, which is precisely the right thing. Besides that, having a paddle with a reasonably shallow feather – 30 degrees or less – is advantageous, but it is far from necessary for the novice freestyler.
Probably the best place to start learning flatwater freestyle is with a few simple drills. First and foremost, you will want to gain mastery over trim, edging and balance in your kayak.
To do so, you can practice throwing your weight forwards and backwards. Get accustomed to the feeling of pushing down through the heels to drive down the nose of the kayak and then leaning back slightly and pulling the knees up towards the torso to raise the nose again.
As to edging and balance, these can be practised by paddling forwards whilst holding an edge. Lift one or other knee whilst maintaining a steady forward pace; experiment with paddling on both sides or just on the opposite side to the raised knee. With a bit of practice, you’ll be amazed how high you can raise that edge and still comfortably paddle forward. This drill can be taken to the next level by removing the forward momentum. Try holding a consistent edge for 10 seconds, then once you have that mastered, push for 20 seconds, and so on.
With those two drills in the bag, you will be ready to try one of the most fundamental freestyle skills: the lean clean. This combines those trim, edge and balance techniques to spin the kayak on the spot without a paddle.
What’s the upper limit?
With the basics mastered, you can begin to progress onto such skills as the cartwheel, bowstall and sternstall. From there, tricks like the loop, pirouette and splitwheel open up. After that, you enter the realm of complex combos like the phonics monkey.
Throughout lockdown, incredible athletes worldwide have put their minds to it, meaning there has been some phenomenal innovation on flatwater in the past year. Moves that were inconceivable in 2019 have entered into the collective imagination. For instance, British athletes like Harry Price and Ottilie Robinson-Shaw have been showing off some blistering hot no-paddle combos! Inspiration is not hard to come by, and it seems like the upper limit of flatwater freestyle may be further away than anyone assumed!
