Words & photos:
Marty Cuff

Pine Barrens Functional FreeStyle Workshop

FreeStyle kept me paddling

In 2017, I was struggling to stay interested in canoeing. A few years earlier, I had sold my canoes, and in 2016 I purchased a couple of Pack Boats, which I soon realised didn’t suit the way I wanted to paddle. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but I knew it didn’t include a double-bladed paddle or sitting on my butt in the bottom of the boat.

Later that year, while doing some YouTube surfing, I came across Jonathan Hammond paddling a choreographed routine to a piece of music from ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ and was mesmerised by how he controlled his canoe. I soon watched other ‘FreeStyle’ videos and thought I might be able to do that. It sure looked like a lot of fun, and I had always enjoyed just ‘playing’ with my canoe.

I purchased a new solo canoe, went out on a quiet lake, and tried to replicate some of the moves that I had seen with absolutely no success. I figured I needed to find someone to teach me, as it had become obvious that just watching YouTube videos wasn’t going to cut it.

I came across Marc Ornstein’s phone number, whose videos I had been watching, and called him, wondering if he would be interested in giving me a lesson or two – his reply was, “That’s what I do.” After spending a day with Marc at his home in upstate NY – relearning what I thought I knew and trying to learn new things I didn’t – he mentioned that there was a symposium later that autumn in the NJ Pine Barrens on the Functional aspects of FreeStyle that I might be interested in.

After coming home from my first Pine Barrens event, I was encouraged to find that the new skills I had been exposed to there, while still very new to me, enabled me to traverse my local streams with greater finesse – sideslipping obstructions or navigating a bend with a Christie or a Post – it was all so much easier.

Paddling with grace and efficiency
More lessons ensued, and while I had been initially captivated by those amazing choreographed performances, my focus shifted to how to use the various strokes and manoeuvres I was learning in my paddling. I found ‘paddling with grace and efficiency’ to be not only fun but almost a game of which stroke/manoeuvre might be the best for the situation.

I smile to myself when I hear paddlers behind me exclaim, as they are flailing away with their paddles, “Look, he’s not paddling at all. He’s just sitting there with his paddle in the water, and the boat’s turning on its own,” as we navigate an obstruction. I get great satisfaction from just giving the boat a nudge, a gentle heel, and carving around a gentle bend, while others work much harder to accomplish the same thing. ‘Paddling with grace and efficiency’ can also help conserve energy, and when you’re out paddling with people 10-20-30 years younger than you are, you need all the help you can get. Learning new techniques and refining what I already know keeps my mind engaged and inspires me to learn more.

At 77 now, I don’t know if I’ll ever put a choreographed routine together, but that doesn’t matter. I know I’m a better paddler today than I was – you really can teach an old dog new tricks. If I hadn’t made that first phone call and if I hadn’t gone to that first FreeStyle event, I probably wouldn’t be paddling today, so a profound thank you to all of the FreeStyle community and especially to those who have helped me along the way to become a better paddler.