Words: Rolf Kraiker

Photos: Rolf Kraiker

The inline pivot

Years ago, I had an idea for an instructional exercise that would be the ultimate test of a solo paddler’s ability to control a canoe, but I’ll give you some background behind that first.

Ontario, Canada, has a long history of summer camps using traditional 16 ft cedar and canvas canoes. Many camps were located in world-class canoe-tripping destinations like Temagami and Algonquin Park. Participants at those camps benefited from extensive training by some of the best canoe guides and paddlers anywhere. Most often, the end goal was to prepare them for a multi-week wilderness trip in remote locations, but it might take more than a year before the campers were ready for that. While the trips would be made paddling canoes in tandem, participants would also get to spend many hours learning the finer points of precise handling using those same 16-foot canoes paddled solo.

Over time it became apparent that it would be beneficial to develop some standards for skill development, and that was the impetus for creating two notable organisations, the Canadian Recreational Canoeing Association (CRCA) and the Ontario Recreational Canoeing Association (ORCA), which would both go on to develop a comprehensive curriculum of canoeing programs.

I was long involved with ORCA and taught many of their courses, including several instructor courses. During my time with ORCA, the Style paddling component was called Lakewater to differentiate it from Basic Canoeing, White Water or Canoe Tripping. The Lakewater Style of paddling is now commonly called Canadian Style. The Lakewater Instructor Course back then was ten days long and very intensive. Besides being graded on their lesson planning and teaching strategies, participants had to be able to precisely move a canoe successfully through various corridors where they would be graded. The corridors were never more than one metre wide, meaning a paddler’s body couldn’t wander left or right more than one metre for the duration of the exercise. These corridors would all be done in a traditional 16-foot tripping canoe paddled solo. Paddlers would kneel in the tumblehome just behind the centre thwart, the canoe would be heeled over, and all the paddling would be done on only one side of the canoe. Canoes had to be paddled at a constant speed throughout the entire corridor. There could be no yaw or roll during the corridor, and there should be next to no paddle splashes.

loating markers would define the corridors. Exercises included paddling in a straight line, both forwards and reverse, onside and offside sidewards displacement, stationary pivots in both directions, side slips, dock turn and stop at 90 and 45-degree angles and figure 8s.

Instructor candidates usually found the stationary pivot most challenging. To ensure that one-metre corridor, a hula hoop would be suspended above the water. Candidates would paddle under it and position their heads inside the middle of the hoop. Then they would need to pivot their canoe 360 degrees in both directions at a constant speed while keeping their head inside the hoop without moving their body. Not an easy task.

Over the years I spent teaching that paddling style, it became apparent there were several key instruction opportunities to help students greatly improve their technique. The two areas that would cause problems for most participants were paddling in reverse with the same speed and precision as paddling forward and being able to exactly match the inside turn of the figure 8 with the outside turn of the figure 8. The most helpful way to get participants to paddle equally well during both components was to have them visualise a mirror image of the part of the exercise they were doing well.

straight-line travel

For the straight-line travel, the goal was to start the canoe with as little sidewards movement as possible and then keep it under control throughout. Going forward, if you just plant the paddle and start with a power stroke, you can correct that at the stroke’s end, but the canoe’s bow will move sideways (yaw) before moving ahead. You can fix that with a short draw before applying power. Done with finesse, the bow barely moves sideways before gaining momentum.

The mirror of that when going backwards is to apply a slight draw at the stern with the power face. Blade placement and motion are similar to a stern sweep, except you begin outboard and draw the paddle towards the canoe instead of pushing it away. The strength of that reverse draw should match the bow draw that was working for forward travel. Once the correction happens, it rolls into the power stroke and ends with a reverse J at the front of the canoe for correction. It helps to ask the paddler to carefully watch what is working and form a mental image. Next, picture the mirror image where you will be doing precisely the same things but at opposite ends of the canoe and opposite side of the paddle.

Most paddlers don’t have a problem doing the inside circle of figure 8 (that’s done in the direction of the side you are paddling on). To visualise what the corridor for the figure 8 looks like, imagine two 16-foot canoes stationary in the water facing each other with a gap between the two wide enough to paddle through. The candidates would have to paddle a perfect circle starting at the gap, go around one canoe and back through the same gap before paddling a perfect circle around the other, making two evenly matched circles about 20 feet in diameter.

For the inside circle, turning on the side they are paddling, most participants will be using a variation of the Silent/Hunting/Indian stroke. The blade stays in the water and rotates 180 degrees for every stroke. That makes it easy to do a draw stroke correction at the beginning of the stroke, and there’s minimal correction at the end. When done that way, the canoe’s stern will track nicely, and the bow does most of the steering. I tell the students to listen to their stern; if there’s a gurgling sound coming from the back, the canoe is yawing.

circle in the opposite direction

When they do the circle in the opposite direction to the side they are paddling, there’s almost always a lot of yaw happening. You can hear a gurgle at the stern whenever a power stroke is applied. The tendency is to apply a sweep stroke at the front to make that tight turn. That will move the canoe around, but it’s not really under precise control because the stern swings out at every stroke applied.

To fix that, it’s back to the mirror image. What was working on the inside turn was being able to do a draw at the bow to pull it around, leaving the stern to follow along. The opposite of that would be a bow J stroke done at the same location where a draw was applied when doing the inside circle. The bow J will push the bow around, again leaving the stern to follow along.

Using the bow draw for the inside circle and the bow J for the outside circle makes the figure 8 look smooth and symmetrical all the way through in both circles.

Pitch control of the blade and leverage on the canoe and the paddle are two things I like students to work on. Pitch is a matter of feeling, and it’s often challenging to help students get a feel for what they are doing. Leverage is easier; the critical part is to help them understand they have to think about both leverage on the paddle and the leverage the paddle has on the canoe.

With the bottom hand gripping the shaft down near the blade, you will gain mechanical advantage on the paddle, but your reach is shortened, so you lose mechanical advantage on the canoe. I like to get students to think of moving their bottom hand up or down the shaft, depending on their needs. It’s like playing a guitar, you can get the same notes up and down the neck, but they feel different. There will be times when you need to get the most mechanical advantage on the canoe, and the best way to do that is to slide your bottom hand up the shaft, which lets you apply force closer to the ends of the canoe, where you get more mechanical advantage. Additionally, your contact time with the water is longer as you can move your paddle through a longer arc than if you grip it near the blade.

The inline pivot

With all of the stuff I’d been teaching to help participants work through successfully conquering the corridors, I decided to come up with one challenge that would encompass pretty much all the skills that they were working on. I called it the inline pivot. This would be the ultimate test of canoe control. The goal is to start paddling forward in a straight line and end paddling forward in that same straight and retain constant speed throughout.

Between the start and end points, your body will move through that one-metre corridor in a straight line, but you will rotate the canoe through 360 degrees without changing speed. That means you will start with a side slip move to prevent side slipping, turning into full sidewards displacement, which turns into side slipping in reverse without letting it slip sideways. Now you paddle in backwards, where you’ll have to go through the sideslip, sideward displacement, and sideslip until you are facing forward again.

The only way to successfully be able to do this exercise is to have complete control of all the individual elements that are required in the things I’ve described above, but each of those elements needs to be modified as your transition through the various components has to be fluid. Pitch control of the blade is the most essential factor for success. The canoe will start at 180 degrees facing forward, then be at 90 degrees, then be at 180 degrees facing backwards, 90 degrees again, then end at 180 facing forward. All transitions from 180 to 90 will require using elements from one stroke at the bow but will require using elements of a different stroke at the stern, which takes practice.

The ultimate test of your ability

There is no practical application of an inline pivot; you’d never need to do something like that in real-world paddling. It is, however, an ultimate test of your ability to control a canoe in any situation without changing paddling sides. There’s nothing wrong with doing cross strokes; I use them all the time. In some situations, I’ll change paddling sides, but there is a huge benefit in becoming a master at controlling your canoe in any situation on the side you are paddling on. There won’t be time to switch anything up if something requires an immediate fix. If you’ve invested the time in mastering control on one side, your fix will happen instinctively. While you’ll probably never be doing an online pivot for a practical application, at least you might be able to impress the odd paddling buddy with your finesse.