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The 162 page May issue 8 of ThePaddler ezine Fantastic features include: Open canoeing in Scotland (Lynne Percival), the Trans Canada Expedition part 2 (Pete Marshall), Starboard SUP HQ visit (Ollie O'Reilly), The best place in the UK and abroad to go Sit on Top paddling (Tez Plavenieks), Chilean WW (Seth Ashworth), Peru WW (Matt Wilson), Kenyan SUP (Craig Rogers), Interview with Maila Gurung (Nepal National Kayak Champion), Indian SUP festival (Sanjay Ray), Llangorse fishing festival (Terry Wright), National Student Rodeo (Sarah Wall), Cornwall sea kayaking (Simon Osbourne) Plus reviews of the Gatz Racoon open canoe, Pyranha Loki kayak, Red Paddle 10' Surfer and much more! Share on Facebook

Rapid Education –
Key concepts in WW kayaking 5

By BCU Coach Tom Parker: Timing

Tom Parker –
Coaching and Guiding offer high quality personal coaching at all levels, coupled with a comprehensive range of BCU and Rescue 3 courses.

Tom would like to thank Pyranha, Palm Equipment, System X and Smith Optics for all their support.

Mobile: 07811 829865
Telephone: 01978 823203

tom@tomparkercoaching.co.uk

"White water kayaking is an adventure sport, strangely enough. We place ourselves in a hazardous environment, which creates pressures we have to deal with."

tom parker coaching

Photo 1: Back of eddy launch pad. Now look at where the move finishes below.

tom parker coaching

Photo 2: Right out in flow.

Visualisation

Over the past couple of issues, we’ve discovered that there are three key concepts behind white water kayaking – balance, accuracy and timing. now, we’ll take a look at the concept of timing, along with some other handy things to bear in mind. Are you sitting comfortably?

A question for you all to consider:
“Where did NASA launch their shuttles from?”

Cape Canaveral in Florida, right?

Now, more importantly, consider why they launched them from there…

The answer is simple enough – NASA launched their shuttles from Cape Canaveral because they’ve worked out through geographical position that was the best place to launch shuttles from successfully!

So what does this have to do with kayaking, I hear you ask. Well, the concept of timing on a river is very much like NASA launching rockets. Each move on the river has an ideal ‘launch pad' that will give you the best chance of success. You need to imagine that you are NASA and search out that perfect spot, that Cape Canaveral.

It is important to realise that the launch pad will change depending on the speed and angle needed go get you to your chosen destination. For example, if, when breaking in to the flow, you need to end up out in the middle of the river, you will need quite a bit of speed and a very narrow angle. Consequently, the launch pad will be a long way back in the eddy. Take a look at photos 1 and 2.

Something becomes apparent at this point – it’s pretty easy to work out your launch pad while you are in an eddy, but pretty tricky in the flow. In an eddy, you have a luxury – time. How you use this time is vital…

“You cannot save time, only spend it. Spending it wisely is another matter.”

Lao Tse

You may have heard of the phrase ‘Proper planning prevents poor performance’. This can be applied to white water kayaking. Plenty of people leave an eddy having not thought about what they are going to do next. They are pretty easy to spot, flailing their arms at the least and normally floating along next to their boat. You can avoid joining their ranks by taking the time in an eddy to plan where you want to go, where your launch pad will be in the flow to get there and how you are going to leave your eddy and get to the launch pad in the flow. Taking a minute to plan will pay dividends, believe me!

Where we physically take our strokes:

If you were to ask someone how they do a ‘textbook’ break in or out, they’d probably say “sweep stroke to turn the boat, edge into the turn and hold the paddle to brace – a low brace turn”. Let’s have a think about this. Where do we learn how to do a low brace turn? On flat water. Flat water doesn’t have any flow, so we use a sweep stroke to initiate a turn, right?

So what turns the boat when you break into or out of the flow? That’s right, the flow. If you don’t believe me, go and try some break ins/outs with and without the sweep. Do you actually need it? I reckon that all the sweep stroke does is mess up your carefully planned speed and angle by changing it at the last minute. Somewhere else where timing is critical is hitting diagonal flows. Have a look at the following sequence:

Punching a diagonal sequence

As the nose of the boat hits the diagonal, the boater takes a power stroke and applies body tension to counter the flow, allowing them to hit their target.

Once you’ve set your speed and angle, maintain it!

Mental fortitude on the river…

White water kayaking is an adventure sport, strangely enough. We place ourselves in a hazardous environment, which creates pressures we have to deal with. There is a real gap in the coaching available in the UK when it comes to learning how to deal with the pressure and fear created by being on the river. It seems that anyone can tell you how to move your boat around, but few can tell you how to remain focused on the task. Here are some things to bear in mind:

If you are looking at a drop or rapid that you feel is near the limit of your ability, it can be really easy to look at it and get freaked out by the noise and seemingly meaningless mess of water. No worries, that’s what the past few articles have been about! Take time to work out where you want to end up and how you are going to get there, bearing in mind balance, accuracy and timing and what the water is doing. If you decide that you really can’t get to your destination, don’t run it. If your mates give you stick, find someone else to go boating with!

Making a plan on the bank is the easy part. Remaining focused on the line is where many people come unstuck. There are a few Jedi mind tricks that you can use to help:

Visualisation

This is the subtle art of picturing what you are going to do before you do it. You can practice it pretty much anywhere. Next time you are at your desk, shut your eyes and use your mind’s eye to see your favourite rapid. Picture yourself running down it. Well done, you have just visualised a rapid! Take this to the river. Look at the rapid and plan your route. Now turn away, shut your eyes and visualise your run down the rapid. People see themselves on their run in two ways; from above and behind, like a computer driving game, or from their eye view. Try each and see which you prefer.

What’s the point of all this? Well, visualisation helps you remember complex lines and gives you a cheeky preview run of the rapid. It takes practice but really pays dividends.

Focus

Right, try this experiment for me. I want you to stand in the corner for five minutes and you’re not allowed to think about Polar Bears. Whatever you do, don’t think about Polar Bears!

So what did you think about? Polar Bears? You need to work on your focus! When running rivers, we need to control both our visual and mental focus. We need to be able to concentrate on looking at and thinking about our line. This is particularly important on complex lines, with many hazards. If we start to worry about ending up off line, we will, mainly because we were not able to focus totally on where we wanted to be and go.

So how can we practice our focus? Well, working on our visual focus is easy. You need a pencil and a television. Sit in your favourite arm chair, switch the television on and watch for a bit. Then hold the pencil at arm’s length in front of your face. Switch your focus from the television to the pencil. After a minute, switch back. You get the idea…

Improving our mental focus can be done in a similar way, alternating our total concentration between two disparate subjects. Abstract, but it works.

Now all of this is all well and good in the living room, but once you bring fear into the equation, it can become tricky. Controlling that fear is important. Here’s a trick I use on occasion:

Before your run, sit quietly in the eddy, and think only of breathing. While you do this, shut your eyes, breathe in and visualise your lungs inflating until they can take no more. Hold for a few seconds then breathe out and visualise your lungs emptying totally. Repeat this three times. It’s a yogic exercise, designed to relax the body and clear the mind, enabling focus on the task.

All of these concepts are very useful but the most important thing on the river is confidence. You have to really believe that you can make the line that you have planned. If you don’t believe, you won’t make it. Once you have committed to running a line, focus only on the positive outcome! If you walk back to your boat thinking 'what if...' and then go for it, you will get nailed!

So that’s pretty much all I want to say at the moment. I think it’s important to remember that you are the pilot of your boat – it’s up to you to make it go where you want. In order to do that more effectively, you need to appreciate what the river is doing and to think about what you are going to do before you do it, in terms of balance, accuracy and timing. Hopefully, these articles will have got you thinking in terms of moving the boat, rather than using proscribed strokes.

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