Words: Mike Shaw

Cartwheel sequence photos:
Jen Leal

Other photos:
Tom Clare
Beth Kirby

In this series of articles we shall explore the fundamental techniques, individual moves and tricks that make up the sport of freestyle kayaking, with technical knowledge and top tips from the world’s best freestyle paddlers.

Bio

Mike Shaw started paddling at the age of 12 with his local Scout group. Turning it into his full time career, passing on his skills to groups of all ages and abilities. Mike is most at home in his Jackson Rockstar. Turning his hand to freestyle, nothing is more satisfying that getting huge air! He is supported by Jackson Kayaks, Mitchell Blades and Square Rock.

Head over heels
Aspects of freestyle by Mike Shaw.
Number one: the cartwheel

In this, the first of the series, we will be looking in depth at the cartwheel with the wise words of GB team members Rob Crowe and Harry Price, as well as techniques you can use to improve your sessions so you can optimise your practice time each session. So no matter where you are on your freestyle journey, you should find some useful nuggets of information and tools to use within this article.

What is a Cartwheel?

The cartwheel, one of the oldest moves now considered ‘playboating’ or ‘freestyle’, with its roots in 1970s slalom paddling, is beautiful in its simplicity. If you have seen a cartwheel in gymnastics chances are you can already picture a cartwheel in a kayak. It is a sideways rotational movement of the boat, where the boat is moved from vertical on the bow to vertical on the stern in a fluid motion. You can keep switching from each end of the kayak for as long as you want to.

The ICF (International Canoe Federation) have technical descriptions for each move. For them to score during competition they must meet the criteria within that definition. Judges are very strict. so it is worth paying attention to, and becoming familiar with, each move’s specific criteria.

ICF definition

“At least two consecutive ends in the same rotational direction, and both ends at vertical angle between 45° and 100°.”

How to cartwheel

The first and arguably most challenging step to getting a cartwheel is the double pump. This is where you lift the bow and push it back down under the water to bring the boat to the vertical position.

There are a ton of YouTube videos on the cartwheel and double pump technique so I recommend spending some time watching them to get your head around the move.

Step 1. Put the boat on edge

Step 2. Lift the bow by pulling on the blade: at the same, time lift your knees and engage your core.

Step 3. Rotate your body down towards the water as you rotate the paddle onto the back of the blade.

Step 4. Push on the blade and push down on your feet as you unwind your body. Once you’ve had success with the double pump and have begun getting the bow down consistently we can easily turn this into a cartwheel by adding on a few extra steps.

Step 5. Release the paddle by feathering it out of the water.

Step 6. Look over the shoulder on the same side you are pushing the bow down then rotate your body around as you do a quick pull stroke with the opposite blade.

Step 7. Engage your core and your knees, as you pull the boat up to vertical with the bow now in the air.

Step 8. Follow the rotation and allow the boat to come down to flat.

Some common mistakes with the double pump

Not committing to the move! You will fall over! You will get wet! This is part of the process. Commit to the move and accept that you are going to get a lot of rolling practice at this stage.

Accept that you will fail at first. Like the ollie in skateboarding, this is something that needs to be tried hundreds of time before it works and it’s just as important to your future development as a freestyle paddler. Just because it didn’t work the previous 30 times, does not mean that it will automatically fail on the 31st attempt.

Not lifting the bow and not engaging the core.

Getting to a point of resistance on the paddle blade and not pushing through. Keep pushing and don’t stop!

Body position! Don’t lean back, The key to learning is to keep trying different tactics until you find one that works. Experiment with your body trim and position. As a general rule you don’t want to be leaning too far forwards or back.

Cartwheeling on white water

Once you have had some success with cartwheel-based moves on flat water, you’ll want to take it to white water and onto a feature. There are plenty of places you can throw cartwheels, but we are going to look specifically at holes. Unlike great waves, these can be found in abundance on almost any river or whitewater course. DO not be afraid to try cartwheels in holes and over waves before you’ve learned how to do the move on flat water. You can learn both simultaneously if you have access to white water. Learning both at the same time will help you and it is often easier to cartwheel on whitewater than on flat water.

Step 1. Read the feature. Every feature is different. Some may be shallow and slow, others bouncy and fast and anywhere in between. Some features allow you to throw moves much more easily in one direction than the other. An easy way to read a feature is to watch it and ask other paddlers about it. Another joy of the cartwheel is that you can do it in a huge variety of features: small, big, deep or shallow.

Step 2. Use the blade as little as possible and try it without using the initial stroke to lift the bow. The ‘pick up’ stroke is not always required so experiment and see if you can initiate on edge by pushing down without the initial ‘pick up’ stroke. Experiment with the use of the blade. The size and power of the feature you are surfing will determine the amount of force you will have to transfer through the blade. Play with exaggerating or removing different strokes that make up the double pump.
This gives smoother more controlled cartwheels and means you stay where you want to be in the feature as the pick-up stroke tends to put you further up the green.

Step 3. Go with the speed of the feature. Different features will allow you to cartwheel at different speeds.

So to get the smoothest cartwheels possible go at the speed of the feature.

You’ll know you are too fast because you’ll start feeling out of control and it will be a lot of effort. If you are too slow then you’ll lose fluidity from end to end.

Harry’s top tips for the double pump and cartwheel are:

1. Don’t be afraid to fall over, most people when learning do not put on enough edge throughout the entire move. Falling over on your face is a good sign!
2. Look where you want to go, this is essential for the double pump and cartwheel. Look up as you bring the bow up, then look down at the blade you are pushing off.
3. Practise, practise, practise. The movement will feel weird at first. To overcome this, practice Is key. Keep doing it, trust the process, work hard and it will come.

Rob’s top tips for linking ends and cartwheeling in holes:

One of the joys of cartwheels is that they flow nicely into a ton of other tricks: split wheels, tricky woos, McNasties and loops just to name a few. I’m going to run you through three of my top tips for linking cartwheels to other moves.

1. Spot your landing. I can’t exaggerate enough how important head movement is for cartwheels and pretty much all freestyle tricks. A ballerina moving his/her head while doing a pirouette is very similar to how a kayaker should move their head when cartwheeling. From the start you want to be looking at a point until the boat has rotated to a position where it is impossible to look at that point anymore, then you quickly rotate your head in the direction of rotation until you find that point again. When linking in a hole you may need to stay on a specific spot in the hole, I recommend trying to spot where you want the nose of the boat to go.
2. Don’t go angle crazy. Cartwheels at a high angle look ridiculously cool. However, if you want to become a linking master it might be time to turn it down a notch. Reducing the vertical angle will make your cartwheels far easier to control resulting in it being much easier to link to the next trick. To achieve this, try varying the amount of edge you have on your double pump. This tip also applies for people trying to get more than the first two ends of the cartwheel. Remember once you are flowing nicely and feel you have control you can start to build the angle back up again.
3. Vary your starting position. Learning new freestyle tricks is nearly always a process of trial and error. One of the variables you can change between cartwheel attempts is where you start your double pump in the hole. Do you want to be slamming the nose down above the seam line or a foot downstream of it? The answer to this is different for every person and every feature. In holes with a strong tow back, starting further back will give you more time to rotate your body and spot your landing before you get sucked into the feature. In less retentive and smaller features it often makes sense to start on the seam line so you don’t flush out the back. It’s up to you to get experimenting and work out what works best for you and your local play spot!

Some common mistakes with the cartwheel on white water:

One thing that I often still have to remind myself to do is to keep focusing on something in the distance upstream. I find I forget this, especially as I am learning new links, and as soon as I remember everything always gets smoother and easier.

Very rarely now do I use a paddle stroke on the stern end, by this point I’m reaching around to the bow, or preparing for the next linked move.

Some common errors I’ve noticed is that some paddlers stand up too much on the bow end, meaning they’re pushing too hard on the first blade and then standing up too much. This stalls the rotation. If they come through onto the stern end the boat tends to be over vertical which makes it almost impossible
to recover.

Round-up

Don’t give up, do it forever! It might feel like you’re getting nowhere, but the breakthrough will come. Visualise yourself doing the cartwheel, practice, practise, practise, go over the steps, top tips and techniques in this article, refocus if you ever get frustrated with it and with a bit of effort you will
be cartwheeling!

Harry’s fun challenges

Maybe you are getting cartwheel ends consistently and are now looking for an extra challenge. Here are a few of my favourite ideas to make the cartwheel a little more difficult:

1. Lose the paddle! Cartwheeling without your paddle is extremely fun and is great way to fine tune your boat control.
2. Spin your paddle. Take some inspiration from squirt boating, where they do some really cool tricks with their paddles while performing complex moves.
3. Learn on both sides. I recommend that from the start of your cartwheeling journey you practice on both sides. However, if you have got the point where ends feel easy of one side but you haven’t considered trying the other side. It is definitely time to learn that other side. Falling over is fun!