Words:
Jim Miller

Photos:
Jim Miller,
Kirsten Petrie &
Eleri Spencer

Bio

I began my love for the outdoors nearly 30 years ago when being taken up mountains, onto rivers and to the sea as a child. I would regularly run ahead into the mountains, sit on a rock and admire the views and this helped me to develop a true passion for the outdoor environment.

I regularly engage in all disciplines of paddlesports and have the privilege of being a national trainer for white water SUP and other disciplines as well as sitting on different discipline and technical committees. I am a provider in different SCA/BC awards which I deliver in canoe, kayak, SUP and rafts. I am currently on the Hala and Werner (System X) SUP teams for white water paddleboarding and love pushing the limits of what is possible. I am keen to share my passion and enjoyment with as many as possible and I love being on a SUP – a huge smile just crosses my face. I hope to see you all on the water at some point!

Cross deck Vs switching sides Vs edge control – what’s best?

To cross deck or not cross deck on a SUP, that is the question! It is a question that comes around now and then, with some people very set that cross deck is not really a thing on SUP, whereas others are the entire opposite. So why is this the case?

When we first learn to SUP (for some of you reading this, you might have to think back to your first few days on a SUP), it is commonplace to switch sides because you wish to keep going in a straight line, make turning easier, not build an imbalance of muscle on one side of the body, or your stroke simply isn’t efficient enough yet to stick on one side paddling… But what is interesting is that SUP paddlers swap sides more often, unlike canoeing, where people find their preferred side and stick with it.

One of the many huge benefits of SUP
Is this ingrained in us from when we learnt? Or is there more to it than that? So, one of the huge benefits of SUP is the ability to move more easily on the craft than any other craft – but this also comes with a downside when swapping sides in certain circumstances. When we first learn to SUP, we usually learn in the square side on stance – this allows us to change from one side to the other easily, and we don’t have to move anything other than the paddle.

Once we start to paddle more complex white water environments, we tend to adopt a surfing stance with our feet in an offset stance, as it is often referred to. This makes swapping sides slightly trickier as we also need to move our feet to get into position to paddle efficiently on the other side. But this also makes the cross deck slightly trickier, and we would also want to move our feet still if we wanted to maximise efficiency.

A dominant side
Let’s explore this, once we start to paddle far more challenging rapids and more complex whitewater, or simply paddling at whatever our max capacity is, we tend to favour a dominant side. Much like surfing, skateboarding or snowboarding you tend to have a preferred foot forward where you feel more balanced.

In whitewater SUP, this is the exact same – once you start to push the sport, you find your preferred side – now imagine you are in a gnarly rapid and don’t wish to fall but need to put some strokes in on the other side to move that way/turn or avoid an obstacle…

The cross-deck stroke
Swapping the paddle side takes slightly longer and means moving your hands on the paddle and back to your dominant side. Swapping feet is probably a no-go in the moving water as it’s likely too gnarly for us to want to lose our balance – cue the cross-deck stroke, and when it comes in really handy. It is quicker; you don’t have to move your feet if you are only doing one or two strokes so long as you haven’t got a crazy wide surfing stance on the board anyway – yes, not moving your feet makes for a less efficient stroke, but when it is only half strokes you don’t notice much of a difference.

One of the most common occasions we lose balance in white water SUP is on the eddy lines – again, imagine you are in a big gnarly rapid and need to make an eddy but don’t want to swim it. This means keeping your dominant foot position for balance, and again, the cross deck now comes in handy. We often see SUP slalom paddlers using cross-deck strokes to make eddies and turn around the gates efficiently – it saves time and minimises your loss of balance on the board.

So, we might cross-deck because your paddle stroke is on the side you need for balance/more control as you cross eddy lines or need to drive through a feature. You can more easily control the edges of the board in the manner you wish – i.e. making an eddy you want an upstream paddle side edge as you carve across the line – this lifts the downstream edge and allows the board to glide across the eddy line.

If you were to not cross deck or swap sides, then the downstream edge would catch, and you would end up going for a wee swim. Admittedly, swapping sides works well as well – it just takes a little longer and adds things into the mix, like moving your hands on the paddle.

Realising the potential
So why is it then that not a huge number of paddlers on SUP use cross-deck strokes? Well, in all honesty, there probably aren’t enough people pushing the sport yet to truly realise the potential for them. And you don’t need them unless you are operating at that point where balance is crucial, and swims are not necessarily wanted, or time is of the essence, i.e. making a tight eddy at the last minute. So, the majority of people don’t really need to cross-deck. They can paddle on both sides and are probably all the better for it. 

A third option
But there is a third option – this option comes with neither swapping sides nor cross decking and instead thinking more about edge control – you could shift your hips or your weight distribution through your feet to edge the opposite side to the board you are paddling which can help to cross eddy lines easily – this option is one that can help to balance you much like a swap of side or cross deck (because those options both engage the opposite edge to the board as well). But it does not help with board drive necessarily – as if you wanted to use the paddle for stability on the side of the board, it would be slightly less efficient on the opposite side of where your weight distribution is. And in all genuine honesty, it can look a little weird if you take your hips to the opposite side of the board than you are paddling on.

Intermediate to advanced
In short, in the author’s opinion, cross-deck is definitely a stroke that is good for SUP, but it isn’t necessarily all that great for beginners. It is more of an intermediate to advanced paddler technique, which comes in handy when we are operating at max capacity in the river or when we want to swap the edge control/minimise swim time.