Category: Technique

“The scramble is pretty much useless outside of a swimming pool,” an instructor we’ll call Andy (names are changed here to respect privacy) stated flatly to the group of seven other instructors who stood on the beach, dripping in drysuits after our rescue practice session.

Beyond the protection of our little cove, the open Pacific slam-danced in the afternoon wind—20 knots from the northwest—a confusion of steep, five-foot wind waves constantly bouncing off the cliffs and back into the fray. To my surprise, one of the other instructors, Mark, nodded in agreement with Andy, while the other four just looked confused.

“What are you talking about?” one of the four, Bryan, asked. I just smiled and kept my mouth shut for a change, realizing that this was one battle I wasn’t going to have to fight. We had just finished rough-water recovery practice as part of a Level 5 American Canoe Association instructor training course, a context that turns out to be relevant, as will become clear shortly.

In the confusion of whitecaps and waves, a variety of self- and assisted recoveries had been tried, and it was impossible to keep track of who had done what. As one of the instructor trainers facilitating the course, I stepped in and asked only for a show of hands for who had completed a scramble.

Four hands shot up. The only hands that didn’t, I noted, were Andy’s and Mark’s. Now it was their turn to look surprised.

This pooh-poohing of the cowboy scramble as a viable rough-water recovery for sea kayakers seems to be a fairly common refrain among many skilled paddlers. In another recent class a group of intermediate kayakers looking to improve their rough-water recovery skills looked surprised that we’d be “wasting time,” as one put it, working on scrambles.

He even showed me the page in a popular instructional manual where the scramble is dismissed as useless in rough seas. I told my students that the practice would be “good for improving your balance, even if it doesn’t end up working out for you in rough water,” and they all agreed to try.

As we landed after class, I ran into a paddling acquaintance who’d just finished his weekly trip along a stretch of exposed cliffs. After asking what kind of class I’d been teaching, he quipped, “Of course those are all basically ‘placebo rescues.’

I mean, they’re like, pretty useless in the kind of stuff you and I like to paddle in. Unless you happen to dump in flat water and miss your roll for some reason, everything except a reenter and roll is basically a pool trick.”

I merely shrugged and said, “We were just out there practicing cowboy scrambles, but it really wasn’t all that rough; only a few whitecaps.” Actually it had been blowing a steady 15 knots for several hours, so it was whitecapping continuously with one to three feet of steep chop, conditions that would be moderate to fairly challenging depending on your skill set.

“Really?” he said, a bit surprised.

“Yeah, after a little practice in the harbor this morning,” I added, “pretty much everyone in class was able to pull off at least one cowboy out there.” While I’d be the first to agree that it really wasn’t all that rough, it certainly weren’t no swimming pool neither.

Theory of Pooh and the Secret to a Successful Scramble

My theory about why many skilled paddlers don’t consider the cowboy scramble a viable rough-water technique is based on several observations. First, I’ve noticed that those dismissing the scramble generally have learned how to roll and/or how to reenter and roll.

Second, pretty much none of them have yet learned how to scramble in anything but flat water, if that. Those who’ve spent maybe 20 minutes, at most, trying the scramble in rough water conclude too quickly that the scramble is ineffective.

No one expects to learn how to roll effectively after 20 minutes of practice. But I’ve seen that most of those who dedicate as much time in the scramble as they do in rolling will find it useful and effective in rough water. It just takes practice.

Most students get the hang of it in much less time than it took them to learn to roll. And many paddlers who haven’t had much luck learning to roll find the scramble an easier, albeit less efficient, means of capsize recovery.

Tips for Cowboys and Girls: Keys to an effective learning progression

A few tips and techniques can make a difference. Practice each step separately in the shallows first, much the same way you’d practice the pieces of a roll, working on hip snaps, sculling and other exercises in the swimming pool before trying to put the whole complex skill together.

After you’re comfortable with the pieces, practice the whole thing starting in about two feet of water in a calm area, so you can cheat if you need to, before gradually moving into deeper water.

It is important to spend some time hanging out on your back deck. Once you’ve spent 10 to 20 minutes to as much as an hour getting comfortable balancing, bracing and paddling on the back deck, you’ll probably have more luck putting the whole technique together (see sidebar: 4 HOURS TO SCRAMBLE SUCCESS, page 45).

Step-by-Step Scramble

Bow Lift Drain I like to start by getting most of the water out of the cockpit so I don’t have to pump as much out once I get back aboard. The bow lift is a nifty trick but it can be challenging to master.

You can skip this part until you are comfortable with the rest of the rescue. The basic idea is to lift your bow to drain some or all of the water from the cockpit before reentry.

Simply grab the bow of your capsized kayak and reach for the sky. OK, so this is harder than it sounds. A lot of people just end up getting their heads pushed under water. It sometimes helps to twist the kayak sideways first to break the seal at the cockpit, then immediately lift the bow with one hand (I use my stronger, right arm) while sculling with the other hand and simultaneously doing the eggbeater kick (described below).

In one quick motion, punch the bow skyward, and as your kayak reaches its apex, spin it so it lands upright. Rough seas actually help this, if you can time the waves right. To keep from losing my paddle, I corral/put it on my right shoulder when I lift to keep it between my arm and my ear. Some paddlers like to put the shaft on their opposite shoulder and pull down on the blade face with the free hand to create some lift.

Mounting the Horse: Plan A

For many, the hardest part of the scramble is lunging onto the aft deck without pulling their kayak on top of them. Rather than trying to pull your body up onto the boat, try to push the boat down and pull it under your body.

It’s a subtle but important difference. With your paddle held perpendicular across the back of the cockpit with one hand, grip both the paddle and the coaming behind the seat; the other hand will be about shoulder-width away on the back deck.

Kick your feet to the surface to get your body nearly horizontal and then quickly lunge across the deck, pushing down on your back deck and pulling it underneath you while still kicking. Some have better luck if they bob their kayak up and down a couple times first to get a rhythm going before the final lunge.

The idea is to try to land with your belly across the back deck. If you only get your chest on deck, you’ll probably end up pulling the boat over on top of you.

Mounting the Horse: Plan B

If you have trouble getting on the deck just aft of your cockpit, try farther back where the kayak is narrower and lower, or even climbing in directly over the stern. A rudder won’t help, but with a little practice you’ll likely figure out how to negotiate it without losing your ability to procreate.

Some people hold their spray skirt grab loop in their teeth to keep it from getting in the way or getting tangled in the rudder. The farther back you go, the easier it tends to be to climb on deck, but the more you’ll have to scramble to reach the cockpit, so once you develop your Plan B routine, work your way forward until you can lunge aboard by the cockpit.

Balancing on your Belly Button

Once on the back deck, you want to move smoothly, avoiding jerky motions, and keep your weight—centered on your belly button—on the midline of the boat.

This may feel off balance, but if you start to fall face-first over the far side, you can arch your back for balance. Spin your legs slowly around behind you, kicking your feet gently on the water for balance, until you can straddle the back deck.

Keep Your Feet in the Stirrups

As the name Cowboy/girl suggests, you want to straddle your kayak as you would a horse. It’s important to keep your feet down deep in the water, more or less where the stirrups of a saddle would be. One common mistake that’ll screw up a scramble faster than rotten eggs is holding your feet straight out behind you, like a surfer lying on a surfboard.

Use an Eggbeater

Your feet are your main stabilizers, so in addition to keeping them down, keep them gently kicking and sculling for balance. Water polo goalies use a circular sculling motion called an “eggbeater” kick, and with practice can lift their bodies out of the water nearly to the waist. A less aggressive eggbeater is all you need to keep your scrambles sunny-side up.

Use Your Paddle to Brace

The best place for your paddle is in your hands, across your deck, facedown, ready to brace. Some books and videos show the paddle in the cockpit or under the front deck bungees. While a paddle in the hand might not offer much support, it is better than nothing. Unfeathered blades will have a slight advantage.

Inchworm Crawl

With feet down beating eggs and paddle in hands, lean forward onto your forearms. Like an inchworm, slide your elbows forward and scootch your bottom forward to follow. Repeat as necessary until your butt is clear of the seat-back.

Drop and Brace

Set yourself up with your paddle blade facedown, ready for a high brace on your strong side. Moving slowly here will create wobble, which is difficult to control, so drop your butt into the seat in one smooth, quick motion, while simultaneously slapping a high brace with your paddle for balance.

This is the crux move, especially in rough conditions. As you drop into your seat, turn your high brace into a sculling brace for continued support. If you have good balance you won’t need the support of the paddle in calm water, but practice bracing anyway; it is essential for success in rougher seas.

Feet In…or Not

Once your rear is down in the seat, you’ll be much more stable. Use a sculling brace on one side for support while you work your opposite leg into the cockpit and find your foot brace.

Lying back on the deck and sculling on the opposite side leaves more room to lift your knee. To create even more room and additional support, use an extended paddle position on your brace, holding the end of the blade with your inside hand.

If you are in a tide rip, surf zone or rock garden with calmer water and/or paddling partners nearby, one option is to paddle with your feet dangling out until you reach more favorable conditions.

This may also be the required option for those with cockpits too small to get their legs in without sitting up on the back deck first, an extremely unstable position in rough water.

I will be the first to admit that the cowboy scramble has its limitations, as do all recovery techniques, especially for certain kayaks—those with small cockpits, for example—and certain body types. Stocky men tend to have more trouble with balance. Big and/or tall types in general typically require up to twice the practice time as smaller, more agile students, and, like with the roll, a few students may never get there.

But I’m 6’3″ and recently taught a student who was 6’6″ some tricks that allowed him to be successful after only an hour or two of practice.

Paddlers who lack the flexibility, agility and/or upper-body strength to access their back decks during a paddle-float recovery without using a sling, will first need to develop those abilities before attempting to scramble. But I’ve found that the main thing most students lack in being successful is a little bit of coaching and a few hours of practice.

Epilogue

By the end of the instructor course, neither Andy nor Mark passed his Level 5 instructor exam that weekend. Although talented teachers and strong rough-water paddlers with fairly reliable rolls, both are stocky, middle-aged men with limited flexibility.

However, after a couple months of practicing in the pool and at sea, both were eventually able to master the scramble in “rough water.” While both still prefer a reenter and roll as their first choice of reentry after missing a roll, because of their body type, they both agree that the amount of water that enters the kayak is one of the disadvantages of that technique.

They may be back in their boat faster, but it is a boat full of water, whereas those able to learn the quick “bow lift” method to drain their kayaks prior to a scramble, can be back in their kayaks, skirt on, ready to paddle without needing to pump in about 30 seconds (see link to “30-Second Scramble” video below).

Even without the bow lift, the fact that a scramble generally requires a lot less pumping afterward can make it almost as fast as a reenter and roll if you consider the time it takes to get the water out. It also begs the question: If you missed your roll in the first place, why is it suddenly going to work now?

And if you’re going to take the time to do a paddle-float reenter and roll, then any time advantage is long gone. The Scramble may not be the best first choice for some paddlers, but over the years I’ve been able to teach hundreds of intermediate and advanced students to scramble quickly in moderate to rough seas. And having both techniques in your reentry arsenal gives you more options than either one alone.

See a video of the author using this technique under the Golden Gate Bridge.

Roger Schumann is the author of Sea Kayak Rescue and Sea Kayaking Guide to Central and Northern California. An ACA Instructor Trainer, he leads classes and tours in Baja and teaches courses in marine natural history at Prescott College.

4 Hours to Scramble Success

Current sports learning research suggests that it is often better to practice new skills in small bits than to struggle through in big chunks. Doing two or three sets of ten to twenty minutes of practice, in other words, interspersed with some regular paddling, would probably be more beneficial than practicing for an hour straight.

Expect to struggle at times (it is what we teachers call “learning”), but stop if you start to get too frustrated. It is supposed to be fun. Also, turning the corners of your mouth up equally on each side helps your balance! The scramble might not work for you, but don’t write it off as a mere “pool trick” until you’ve put in a few hours of practice. At the very least, you improve your balance and bracing. And you might surprise yourself with how well you can get it to work in rough water.

20 minutes to one hour of Back-Deck Balancing Practice

Start by getting comfortable balancing on your back deck, so that when you get there in the context of a scramble, it won’t feel so foreign. Start in a foot or two of water. You want the water to be deep enough for you to float with your feet off the bottom, but shallow enough so you can stand up if you start to lose your balance.

Straddle your back deck immediately behind your cockpit, sit down and lift your feet off the bottom. Spend one to five minutes practicing a combination of high braces, low braces and sculling braces. It is assumed here that you are already somewhat comfortable with basic bracing techniques.

Next, try paddling gently forward using a “braced” forward stroke, with the blade slapping the water at about a 45-degree angle for support. It is okay to wobble and fine to fall, especially at first.

But stick with it for five minutes or so, and you will notice a marked improvement in balance and comfort. Be sure that you don’t rely on balance alone: Use this braced-stroke technique even if your balance is good and you don’t really need to use it. The idea is for the technique to become reflexive, so your brace will work in rough water.

Forward-backward

Once you are able to paddle 20 to 30 strokes forward with feet lifted but without falling off your back deck, try going backward, again using a braced-stroke technique, this time slapping the back of your blade for support. Get to where you feel comfortable paddling 10 strokes forward and 10 strokes backward, then 20 each. Now you’re ready for spins.

Braced Spin Turns

Alternating a combination of braced forward and reverse sweep strokes, spin your kayak 180 degrees, paddle forward 10 strokes and spin back in the other direction. Practice using your eggbeater kick to help spin. Once you can link four of these spins in a row, you are ready for the next step.

The Next Step: Raising your feet

To really get comfortable balancing on the back deck, practice lifting your toes out of the water in front of you, with your legs straight. You’ll notice a sudden decrease in balance. You can always drop your feet back down into the water when you need to.

Now repeat all of the above exercises until you can do them with your toes in the air. The idea is to force yourself to use your braced-stroke technique (which will also make you feel more comfortable in rough water, in general) instead of just your balance.

Scramble Launch: 30 minutes to 1 hour

Practice launching and landing using the scramble method. To figure out how to get your feet in and out of the cockpit, straddle your cockpit with your boat on shore and sit down in the seat with your feet still on the ground, then fold your legs into the cockpit, one leg in at a time while using your paddle as a brace. (If your cockpit is too small, see below.)

Next, put your kayak in a foot or so of water, where it won’t touch bottom, and straddle the cockpit over the seat. Get your paddle in high-brace position, power-face down. Sit down all the way into the seat while simultaneously slapping a high brace on your strong side.

Again, practice this even if your balance is good enough that you don’t need it, in order to build reflexive bracing skills for rough water. Turn your high brace into a sculling brace while you work your feet into the cockpit. Using an extended paddle position—holding the end of the blade—can add a very powerful tool to your arsenal.

To get out of the cockpit, reverse the steps. Scull on one side while you work your feet out of the cockpit, straddle your cockpit and then stand up in the shallows. Launch and land this way whenever you can for the next month or two until it becomes second nature.

You’ll find that it not only builds your scramble recovery skills, but it is a quicker, easier way to get in and out of your kayak once you get used to it. Having the kayak afloat as you get in and out of it will also reduce the wear and tear caused by launching and landing while aground.

Tricks for small cockpits and long or inflexible legs

If your legs are too long to get into your cockpit, here are a few tricks that might help. I’m 6’3″ and to get my knees to clear the coaming, I need to raise my butt up off the seat a couple inches and lie back on the deck in most standard-sized cockpits.

Practice this first on dry land to work out the bugs before moving to the shallows. Some students find that they also need to reach down with one hand to guide their foot into the cockpit; the trick here is to practice doing a sculling brace with one hand (see photo page 43) while grabbing the ankle with the other. Awkward for most people at first, one-handed sculling is not as hard as it looks.

Put the shaft of your off-side blade on your shoulder behind your head and use your neck as a fulcrum. Add an extra 10-20 minutes of practice time for this. If you just can’t get your feet in your cockpit, practice paddling around with your feet dangling on either side.

You might not be able to complete a full scramble, but you might be able to scramble far enough to quickly paddle out of a dicey situation.

How to Unscramble: 1-2 Hours

An “unscramble” is basically a scramble in reverse, and it’s great practice for dialing in your scramble. In shallow water, practice sculling while you take your feet out of your kayak like you would for a scramble landing. With your feet in the water, put your paddle across your lap, put your hands behind you on the coaming, and push yourself out of the seat onto the back deck.

Quickly grab your paddle and start bracing, ideally before you fall in. The first time you practice this, have someone hold your bow to give you a little extra support while you work out the balance points. This might take 10 or 20 repetitions, so don’t expect instant success.

If you’ve spent some time with the back deck balance drills listed above, you should feel pretty comfortable on your back deck by now.

Continue unscrambling. Lean forward onto your elbows, and inch backward onto the back deck. Now lie down, center your belly button and spin your legs off to one side of your kayak, without losing your balance or touching bottom (but it is there if you need it).

Then spin back to the straddle position on your back deck, sit up and take a few strokes with your paddle, then lie belly-down again and spin both legs out to one side. Repeat this motion a few times until you can do it three times in a row without support or touching bottom. Then scramble all the way back until you drop your butt into the cockpit, but not your feet, and unscramble all the way back to the legs-to-the-side position.

The next steps are to take this scramble/unscramble into waist-deep water until you can do the entire sequence three times without falling or touching bottom. Then take it into deep water. From your perch on the back deck, paddle around and do some spins.

It is a great way to stretch your legs between landings on long passages. Continue to unscramble until you are in the water next to your kayak, then scramble back in. When you can do this in calm water, you are ready for some virtual rough water. Back in waist-deep water, have a friend bounce your bow up and down gently while you repeat the scramble-unscramble sequence a few times.

You’re looking for a little challenge but not so much bounce that you fall in. As you figure out how to compensate for the bouncing, your partner can start to bounce harder. After this you can try it in some choppy seas with a partner at your bow to help stabilize you at first, eventually weaning off of any support and moving into increasingly rougher seas.

Most paddlers get tired after two or three repetitions and performance starts to nose-dive. Take a rest if this starts to happen and try again later or another day. Flailing continually in rough water doesn’t really teach you anything except frustration, so back off to a level of challenge where you are successful.              –R.S.

Once while teaching the sculling draw in an instructor certification workshop, I was taken aback when a student—who’d proclaimed earlier about having spent the entire previous winter “guiding professionally” in Baja—informed me that, “Oh, I don’t really know all those fancy instructor strokes.”

His tone clearly indicated that he considered draw strokes to be rather superfluous: good for showing off to impress your paddling buddies, perhaps, but not of much practical use. Like most of us he apparently spent the vast majority of his time in a kayak plodding straight ahead, forward stroke following forward stroke meditatively, ad infinitum toward the ever receding horizon.

I was bewildered, not just because it seemed that someone guiding professionally would know how to make a boat move sideways for safety if not purely aesthetic reasons. Mostly, I was baffled, because I hadn’t even begun to get superfluous with any fancy instructor strokes.

Beyond learning the standard draw (or beam draw), that pull-and-slice draw stroke most of us get shown in our first beginner class, a lot of folks don’t spend much time working on going sideways. We can paddle literally hundreds if not thousands of miles interrupting our forward strokes with only the occasional sweep or rudder stroke to correct our course.

Draw strokes may not get used that often, but knowing how to do them is like knowing how to change a tire, when you need one, you really need one. They can be invaluable in rescue situations for getting to a capsized partner’s bow quickly to do a T-rescue, crucial for maintaining a safe position in an eddy beside a tide rip or behind a rock in an ocean rock garden, and merely handy for rafting up with a buddy before he finishes off the last snack bar.

But even those paddling aesthetes who bother venturing beyond learning the standard draw to learn the more advanced sculling draw tend to stop there. Yet lurking beyond the sculling draw like stills in the hills, hides a whole family of fancy draw strokes, with more relatives and more aliases than a redneck wedding, sporting colorful nicknames like “sideslip,” “Duffek,” and “hanging” draw.

Canoeists of course are familiar with esoteric strokes like cross-bow draws, but then they only have one blade in the water, so to speak. We sea kayakers, with twice the blade opportunities, are obviously at an advantage (if not possibly also more intelligent in our choice of craft). But we tend to be a less dexterous lot.

Learning to do things like reaching across your bow to steer can improve physical as well as mental flexibility, for one thing; and taking the time to become acquainted with techniques like running or static draws—not to mention all their cross-bow, backward and one-handed cousins—can help you learn to glide your kayak gracefully in just about any direction imaginable save up or down, while the blade finesse gained can enhance other skills like bracing and rolling as well.

Beyond being simply useful, draws look good and are good for you. Draws are sexy. Draws make people smile. Besides being more fluid on the water, knowing at least the names, if not having quite mastered all the techniques, will make you more fluent in conversations with serious paddle geeks, all of which can be great for superfluous showing off in order to impress your paddling partners both on and off the water.

Sculling Draw

Let’s start with the sculling draw before moving on to a handful of its more eccentric relatives. Sculling develops a subtle feel for controlling the blade, and better blade control translates directly into better boat control and less wasted effort overall. It also forms the core of all the fancy running or static draws that follow.

Assuming some overall familiarity with the standard draw stroke, a brief review of a few technical nuances is in order. With all draw strokes you want to turn your shoulders to the side and “face your work,” do your best to get a fairly vertical shaft angle by reaching both hands out over the water (with your top arm below eye height and your bottom hand nearly touching the water), fully submerge your blade and, of course, by definition, use the face of your blade, not the back.

The key to mastering the sculling draw is learning to skim your blade evenly—not merely moving sideways, but doing so in a straight line without changing the angle of your kayak. Use a dock or a partner’s boat for reference. It’s common to angle the blade too much, especially when moving it from bow to stern so that it digs in like the much more familiar forward stroke, which pulls the stern around and turns the boat.

Flatten the face of the blade relative to the side of your kayak, with just enough angle that it barely begins to bite into the water; the subtle feel you are looking for is often described as “spreading peanut butter” rather than scraping it off the bread. If you find your bow or stern pivoting toward your paddle, then you are not sculling evenly and are probably angling your blade too much on that side.

Another common mistake is sculling from knee to hip, which draws the boat diagonally forward. To move straight sideways, the hip needs to be at the center of the stroke rather than at the end, which means you need to rotate further back, reaching an equal distance behind you. The final fix for a flawed draw has to do with “slicing” at the point of transition.

At the end of the stroke in either direction, it is important to set the new blade angle before powering the next stroke, or you’ll feel the blade slice for a few inches (to a few feet) before it catches again in the new direction. Practice going slowly and pausing briefly at the end of each stroke to find the proper blade angle before applying power.

Later you can start to speed it up. But the rhythm should always remain relaxed, like a waltz (one, two, three…one, two, three) rather than fast like the twist. Think of Lawrence Welk, in other words, not Chubby Checker.

Directional Sculling and Advanced Techniques

When you can scull your kayak straight sideways, try a variation—sculling at a 45-degree angle backward (or forward), again, without changing your boat angle. Skilled paddlers use this directional sculling to position themselves more precisely in narrow sea caves and rock gardens or in tide rip eddies, or to grab a bow or a piece of floating trash on the side that is just out of reach behind them.

To further develop blade finesse, practice sculling with one hand. Finding the balance point is tricky and subtle, but struggling with it using only one hand will make the two-handed version seem much less awkward.

This also helps teach paddlers using feathered blades to control their off-side sculling (usually the left) with off-side hand, which will ultimately give them more control and a better feel for their off-side blade during strokes and rolls. This one-handed sculling, so I’ve been told, looks kinda cool as well.

Cross-Bow Sculling

Another more challenging technique is cross-bow sculling. Admittedly somewhat superfluous on its own, it develops the skills and feel for the blade that lie at the heart of more advanced techniques.

Invented by canoeists who only had one blade so learned to make the most of it, this technique involves reaching across your bow with the working blade. For example, start sculling on your right side with your right blade. Then pick that blade up out of the water, reach up over your bow as if setting up for a roll, and put the right blade back into the water, blade still facing you, at your left hip.

Generally quite awkward at first, this body- and mind-stretching exercise really helps develop blade finesse. Of course those who want even more challenge (and/or attention) can practice this showy stroke one-handed as well.

Draws Under Way

The ultimate in subtle blade and boat control is gained by applying these various draws when your boat has some forward (or backward) momentum. Precise steering control during carved turns can be achieved using a draw stroke off the bow while under way.

Known by a variety of names, this bow rudder or Duffek is the most efficient way to make subtle course corrections in tight areas, maintaining more speed and directional integrity (allowing your boat to carve on a precise line) than a braking stern rudder stroke, since it pulls your bow into the turn rather than pushing your stern away.

The bow rudder  is essentially the forward end of the sculling draw held stationary near your foot, which helps explains why it is sometimes known as the stationary bow draw although the boat itself must be moving forward.

To find the proper placement (without forward momentum for now), scull slowly from stern to bow on the right side, as far forward as you can reach, maintaining an “open-faced” blade angle. Freeze and hold that open-faced blade angle about a foot off your foot or shin, depending on your flexibility, and remember this precise spot.

Now with momentum, initiate a carved turn with an edge and sweep stroke on the left, then plant your bow rudder off your foot on the right, creating an elegant, gliding, ever-tightening turn. (Make sure you are using the face of the blade, not the back: Using the back of the blade, by definition, constitutes a “pry” not a draw.) At whatever point you are happy with your new direction, pivot the bow rudder neatly into a forward stroke to regain momentum and start paddling again.

Or, to continue the turn, as you finish blending your bow rudder into a forward stroke on the right, reach across your bow with the left blade, as you did for the cross-bow sculling, and plant a cross-bow rudder with your left blade next to your right foot. Unless engaging in some extremely fancy maneuvering in very tight places, the justification for a practical application for using cross-bow rudders with a double-bladed kayak paddle begins to wear thin and disappears entirely for one-handed versions.

However superfluous and showy, both techniques are excellent “over-compensation” exercises for refining blade finesse, and may wow certain paddling partners, assuming they are rather easily impressed. Similarly, using a stern draw when paddling backward is a great way to glide your boat quickly back into a safe spot in a rock garden between waves, but beyond that it is mainly a good way to practice getting more comfortable in your kayak, not such a bad goal in and of itself.

Sideslips

Moving back to something more practical, a sideslip is essentially the same stroke as a bow rudder, only you do it off your hip instead of up by your feet. Instead of turning the boat, your goal is to have it glide diagonally off course a few feet, to dodge past a submerged rock or stalled kayaker, without actually turning your boat. If you used a turn to go off course to miss an obstacle, you then have to turn back on course.

With a sideslip, you drift off your collision course without actually changing your boat angle, then continue on your way with little loss of momentum. It is also a great way to slide quickly toward something, like the bow of a capsized kayak. I routinely use this for T-rescues in rough water, as it helps keep the waves from knocking me off course and missing my swimmer’s bow.

Like the bow rudder, the blade angle is subtle. A common difficulty when practicing sideslips is that you find your boat turning toward the blade as it does during a bow rudder. This happens because paddlers typically plant the sideslip too far forward, next to their thigh, instead of back by their butt. Each kayak is different, so you’ll need to experiment with finding the “sweet spot” where yours drifts sideways without turning.

One way to practice this is to intentionally plant the blade too far back behind your butt and as you feel the stern start to turn toward the paddle, start to scull gently forward until the turn stops. Another common mistake is edging the kayak. Since you don’t want to turn in this case, don’t initiate one with your lower body. Keep the boat flat.

The advanced manner to initiate a sideslip is to blend the end of your forward stroke into a sideslip at your hip without taking your paddle out of the water. Instead of lifting your blade at the end of your forward stroke, quickly cock your wrist outward and into a sideslip position just as the stroke reaches your hip.

Then glide sideways past whatever obstacle, real or imagined, you are trying to avoid, and resume paddling. Paddlers with a penchant for superfluous skills development or just plain showing off can of course practice whatever combination of one-handed, cross-bow, backward sideslips they fancy in the name of enhancing overall comfort and control.

I sometimes goof around with members of the draw family, like sideslips and bow rudders, as they are an entertaining bunch that helps make the paddling more interesting on long, flat-water tours. By following a few inches off the stern of another paddler, you can judge how much your boat is moving sideways or turning, since this can be difficult to assess on open water. But remember, this is not a big move; you only need to glide sideways a foot or so to avoid an obstacle before continuing on your way, losing as little momentum as possible. For extra momentum, try to sneak in a partial forward stroke at the end of a sideslip as you lift the blade out of the water.

I observe groups of skilled paddlers using a more useful form of this exercise subconsciously. Once, when teaching another group of instructors, I noticed that we were all paddling close enough to chat in more or less conversational tones during a crossing of San Francisco Bay to Angel Island. Everyone was able to maintain a distance of only a few feet between boats.

This was in stark contrast to the group of beginners I’d been teaching the day before, who either crashed into one another if they got too close or drifted so far apart to avoid doing so that most communication had to be done through shouting across the water like an unruly mob of barking sea lions. Instead, our group was conversing in civil tones, discussing the finer points of navigating in tidal currents.

At one point I was listening to a woman on my right describing her experience the past several summers teaching in Alaska, when we drifted close enough to almost touch paddles. Simultaneously we both threw in a quick sideslip, she on her right, me on my left, glided apart a few feet, and kept on paddling. She never broke stride in her story, and it was so quick and smooth I almost didn’t notice what we’d done.

Then I started looking around at others. Without seeming to give it a second thought, or skipping a beat in their conversations, everyone was deftly using the occasional sideslip or bow rudder to keep from running into each other or from drifting too far apart. And it dawned on me that these fancy instructor strokes, not only looked pretty cool, they were pretty darned useful as well.

Whether you’re looking to improve your precision maneuvering in rock gardens and tide rips, trying to achieve more finesse in your roll, or simply hoping to feel more relaxed, graceful and efficient in your kayak, the following exercises, modified from whitewater slalom racers’ warm up routines, will help.

These stroke-blending and blade-finesse drills help build the skills for you to make your kayak dance on the water, either purely for the fun of dancing, or, more practically, to dance your kayak quickly on over to a paddling partner in need of assistance. They also loosen up muscles and minds for learning and having fun.

You should have some proficiency with basic paddle strokes. I’ll include a few fine-tuning tips for newer paddlers but also throw in some twists in each technique to challenge more advanced kayakers.Later, we’ll put it all together in a series of easy to challenging stroke-blending exercises designed to commit the new skills to muscle memory.

Focus on Form

To get the most out of your paddle, it’s important to refine the precision with which you use it. The idea is that if you focus on good form, effective function will follow. Do the drills in slow motion at first as a warm-up, concentrating more on loosening up your muscles and building good “muscle memory” than on how much your boat actually turns.

Rushing through these techniques can lead to poor blade placement; sloppy strokes will be less effective when you put them to use at speed. By concentrating on precision they’ll soon become second nature.

Spin Turns: A great warm-up drill for loosening up the all-important torso muscles is to spin your kayak in place by alternating forward and backward sweeps. Sweeps are the basic turning strokes. They’re used to initiate most of the maneuvers and fancy stroke blends described later.

Many paddlers rush their sweeps, merely pulling harder on one side, too close to the boat, in just a slightly modified forward stroke. Turning your boat effectively requires leverage.

Extend your paddle and sweep it in a wide arc from your front hatch, out as far to the side as you can, and then reach it all the way back toward your stern as far as possible, following the blade with your eyes until it actually clunks into your kayak by the rear hatch.

Practice this “clunk-clunk” drill, tapping your kayak fore and aft with each sweep to assure a full range of motion.  For a backward sweep, reverse the process.

Alternating forward sweeps on one side and backward sweeps on the other, spin 360 degrees in one direction, then back in the other direction. Start in slow motion, less than one-quarter speed, and focus on wide, bow-to-stern arcs with your blade fully submerged.

Then repeat these spins in each direction at half speed, making sure to anchor the blade firmly and pull gently. If you pull too hard on either sweep, you’ll create a splash instead of a turn. This splash is an indication of your energy going to waste instead of into turning your kayak. The goal for now is to focus on finesse rather than on how much your boat is turning: if you extend fully and remain splashless, turning will take care of itself.

More Advanced Sweeps.

Edging your kayak can really improve the effectiveness of your sweeps. Putting a boat up on edge results in lifting the ends out of the water, shortening its waterline and decreasing the resistance to turning. (Note the important difference here between properly edging your kayak—by lifting your knee while keeping your head centered over the boat to maintain balance—and leaning your head and upper body out over the water and letting yourself get off-balance.)

Generally, the further you can edge your kayak toward your sweep strokes (forward or backward), the better it will respond Go easy at first, but to really learn how far on edge you can get your boat, you’ll want to actually tip over every now and then. (It’s a great way to lead into a little roll or recovery practice.)

Compensate for the outward lean by adding an element of bracing to your sweep strokes. Angle the top edge in the direction of the sweep—about 45-degrees or more—to give yourself some support. What turning power you may lose in a less-vertical blade angle will be compensated for in reduced hull resistance if you can get your kayak well up on edge.

Gliding Low-Brace Turn: Next we’ll try some sweep turns on the move. One of the more useful and elegant maneuvers in kayaking is the low-brace turn. Not only does it look really cool, it is also the quickest way to turn around to retrieve a dropped piece of gear or get to a capsized partner (when you are too far away or the seas are too rough to simply back up).

Speed, blade angle, edging, and glide are four keys to an effective low-brace turn; but the “ignition” for those keys is a solid sweep stroke.

To turn to the left, begin with a good head of steam. Then “initiate the turn” (an important concept we’ll apply from here on out) by sweeping and edging on the left—lifting the left knee to angle the right side of the kayak downward—to start your boat carving to the left. (A good trick for us dyslexic paddlers who have trouble remembering which knee to lift is simply not to think about it. Think instead about reaching out as far as you can for more extension on the sweep; as you reach, the boat will naturally edge to the correct side.)

Next, as you reach your left blade back well behind you, edge your boat back to the left and gently plant the back of your blade flat on the water at about 7 o’clock (your bow is 12 o’clock). Reach back as far as is comfortable (this is essentially the beginning of a backward sweep, so again, leverage is important).

You want to be reaching across your bow with both hands so the knuckles of your right hand will be almost skimming the water on the left side and the paddle shaft is nearly horizontal. Now lean some weight gently onto your horizontal blade, held parallel to the surface like an outrigger, and use your momentum to “ride the glide” for several seconds.

A common mistake is pushing down on your blade too soon, dragging it through the water, which kills your forward momentum and ruins the efficient and stylish glide we are shooting for. The idea is learning to trust that the paddle will support your lean and being patient: allow the turn to happen rather than trying to force it.

If you lean on the paddle and ride the glide too long, obviously you’ll capsize when your momentum gives out, so this is where the “low-brace” part of the technique comes in.

As you start to sink into the water at the end of your glide, counteract the capsize and brace yourself back upright by pushing gradually against the left blade with a slow, full, backward sweep stroke all the way to your bow as you did with the stationary spin turns earlier. At first, practice the finesse of riding the glide for as long as you can.

Then practice bracing back up as smoothly, and with as little splash, as possible. Later, experiment with getting your boat as far up on edge as you dare, even if that means some frantic bracing and occasional capsizing. Eventually this teaches you how to get your boat further on edge while still being able to brace back up smoothly.

Bow Rudders

Developed by whitewater slalom racers who need to make constant quick and subtle course corrections, bow rudders—sometimes known as the running draw, hanging draw, static draw or Duffek—can come in extremely handy for sea kayakers.

While convenient for things like reaching a partner’s bow more efficiently for a T recovery (or for sliding up alongside her before she finishes the last bite of her snack bar), as well as being fun to mess around with, bow rudders are essential for the tight maneuvering required by advanced rock-garden paddlers.

If the core of turning is the sweep stroke, then true blade finesse—necessary for the bow rudder and the other maneuvers below—begins with sculling. Developing this finesse and a better “feel for the blade” can also help your roll. Some familiarity with sculling draws is assumed, i.e., you know that feeling of “spreading peanut butter” with the face of your blade toward you at slightly less than a 45-degree angle. Turn your shoulders sideways to “face your work” and keep your paddle shaft fairly vertical by reaching your top hand out over the water on the sculling side.

To find the right position for a bow rudder, start a sculling draw slowly on your right. As you scull from behind your hip back toward your bow, lean slightly forward as you slide the right blade forward to about your foot and about one foot away from the side of the boat.

The blade should be facing you and the leading edge (the bottom of the blade) should still be angled away from your bow slightly. If your bow is at 12 o’clock, then your blade should be opened up to an angle of no more than 1 o’clock (on the right side; 11 o’clock on the left). Hold that 1 o’clock position and remember it, because for this to work, you’ll now need to get some momentum, and then put the blade back in precisely the same place by your foot so that the slightly angled face of the blade catches the water now rushing by. (Another way to find the right angle is to plant the blade parallel to your bow so that it slices through the water, then slowly roll your palm outward until you just start to feel the paddle pulling.)

If you keep the paddle stationary it should gently turn your bow to the side your blade is planted on. A common mistake is trying to force the turn by rotating the blade too far outward (to the 2 or 3 o’clock position) and grabbing too much water, ripping the paddle out of your hand.

For the cross-bow rudder, establish momentum, edge and sweep to the right, then bring your right blade back up over the bow as if setting up for a roll, and plant the cross-bow rudder by your left foot. Work on maintaining your edge on the right so your boat continues to carve.

Like the glide on the low-brace turn above, the bow rudder maneuvers also require the patience and finesse to allow them to happen. You’re going for a gliding course correction here with little loss of speed.

Once you’ve got a feel for proper blade placement, to make the bow rudder really work, you’ll want to initiate the turn with an edge and sweep on the left before planting your bow rudder on the right.

Think of it this way: You’re not using the bow rudder to make the turn, it’s simply being used to tighten and control the turn you’ve already stared carving with your lower body. Practice carving turns using “offside lean” (edging away from the bow rudder), maintaining the edge to the left you had when initiating the turn with the sweep stroke as you glide on the bow rudder on the right—the more extreme the edge, the sharper the turn.

Since this is not a very powerful turning stroke on its own, it takes good edging to be effective. Keep your paddle as vertical as possible, reach well forward and immerse the blade completely so that it applies more turning leverage on the bow. A common mistake is to plant only the tip of the blade by the knee instead of burying the blade by your foot.

There are two styles in which to practice bow-rudder turns: one to maximize the turn, the other to maintain momentum. First, practice turning as far as possible until your momentum dies out; see if you can turn 90 degrees. Next try for subtle and precise course corrections of only a boat width (just enough to slip past a submerged rock or another kayak, for instance) while maintaining as much forward momentum as possible. This is the style you’ll use in “real life.” For more sudden changes in direction, you’ll use the low-brace turn.

Doing the bow rudders with one hand, and the free hand on the aft deck refines technique and makes for a good show. For a one-handed bow rudder of either kind, start by planting the paddle as above with both hands, then, when you think you’ve found equilibrium, let go with the top hand. Lean the top blade away slightly, to help balance out the force of the water on the bottom blade. Finding this equilibrium requires you to develop extreme finesse and a better “feel” for the blade.

Blending Strokes

The next level of difficulty involves “stroke blending.” As you finish a bow-rudder turn, you’ll be reaching forward by your right foot, with your body all wound up and in perfect position to begin a forward stroke that will set the kayak on its new course.

You might as well take advantage of that position. Smoothly pivot the face of your right blade to transition your bow rudder into a smooth forward stroke. As you exit the turn with the forward stroke you’ll regain the momentum you lost while gliding on the bow rudder.

Practice on both sides, using this S-turn drill: Get some speed up, sweep and edge to the left to initiate the turn to the right, bow rudder right, glide, and blend it into a forward stroke—still with the right blade—and take a few hard forward strokes on both sides to get your speed back. Then sweep and edge on the right, bow rudder left, glide, and blend into a forward stroke on the left. Repeat several times on either side, trying to use as few forward strokes in between turns as possible (try to get it down to only two strokes) while still maintaining momentum.

Do this drill in the maximum-momentum style, making only slight S-turns back and forth. Remember to keep your kayak carving on its offside edge instead of allowing it to flatten out as you plant your bow rudder.

To further refine blade finesse, this S-turn drill can be practiced with a cross-bow rudder. As your glide starts to wane as you hold the cross-bow rudder, notice that you are all wound up as you would be for a forward sweep stroke, but reaching across your deck.

Hop the paddle over the deck and blend into a sweep stroke on the right to regain momentum and continue the turn. Another technique to unwind out of the cross-bow glide, say with your right blade in by your left foot, is to lower the left blade into a low-brace left turn. Warning: this is a good way to capsize, so try it slowly and carefully at first, or when you’re prepared to practice recoveries.

This blended stroke is particularly valuable for developing the blade finesse needed for stroke blending but my intermediate students often ask, “So when would you actually use that?” Well, never, if you haven’t practiced it first. But more advanced paddlers find it useful in tight quarters, like sea caves.

Blending It All Together: Sweep Circles and Figure 8s
A multilevel exercise I call “sweep circles,” is a warm-up routine designed to work on stroke combinations, edging and carving all at the same time.

Get some speed. Sweep and edge on the right to start your boat carving, and take a forward stroke on the left, followed by another sweep on the right. Repeat this combination—alternating long, slow, wide sweeps on the right with short, vertical forward strokes on the left—until you’ve completed a full circle.

Then reverse it, sweeping on the left and forward stroking on the right until you’ve completed a circle in the other direction. These two circles in opposite directions will form a figure 8. Work on maintaining (or intensifying) your edging throughout the 8, and see if you can make tighter and tighter circles. Eventually see how few strokes you can use to complete each circle.

Remember: no splashing!

Add a level of complexity by doing sweep circles with a bow rudder. Start a sweep circle as before, but this time throw in a bow rudder to further tighten the turn. Edge and sweep right, bow rudder left, glide for several seconds (allowing your boat to turn but not so long that you lose too much momentum), blend the bow rudder into a forward stroke, sweep right again, and repeat this three-stroke pattern (sweep, bow rudder and glide, forward) until you’ve completed a circle; then go the other way to finish the figure 8.

The challenge is to maintain your edge and carved turn as well as your momentum, while also remembering which stroke comes next. This can seem a little like the old trick of patting your head with one hand while rubbing your belly with the other.

To get over this awkwardness, expect to spend a good 5-10 minutes practicing in slow motion at first, again focusing only on getting the stroke combination in order and not worrying yet about how much your boat is actually turning. Having trouble maintaining momentum?

Start with more speed and focus on stronger sweep and forward strokes and more subtle bow draws, or take several sprinting forward strokes to reestablish momentum any time you start bogging down.

Sweep circles with a combination of bow and cross-bow rudders is a stroke-blending drill designed to challenge even the most dexterous paddlers. But with a little practice, this drill will teach you to smoothly blend a variety of strokes, one leading fluidly into the next, until it all starts to feel like a dance.

Establish momentum, sweep and edge left, bow rudder right, glide and blend into a forward stroke to regain momentum.

Here’s where it gets tricky. As you finish your forward stroke on the left, notice that your right blade is starting to cross your bow. Let it continue down and across your bow into a cross-bow rudder on the left.

Glide on the cross-bow rudder, noticing that you are all wound up for another sweep on the right, which starts the whole process over again: Sweep right, bow rudder left, blend into a forward stroke which blends into the cross-bow rudder with the right blade by your left foot, which after a short glide blends back into the sweep on the right, and so on until you complete the circle and then reverse it into a figure 8. If this is too easy for you, try getting your boat further up on edge or throw in some one-handed bow rudders.

Warm-Up Mind Set

I find that starting my paddling day or my classes with a few spin turns and sweep circles as warm-up exercises seems to set a tone for myself and my students.

It loosens people up and makes everyone more willing to play and experiment with new techniques during our paddle. It is also a subtle reminder that we are out there, each of us, as much for any eventual destination as for the experience of being on the water in a kayak and simply “messing about in boats.”

And, as Ratty noted to Mole in his famous Wind in the Willows bon mot, “There is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing.”

You don’t need a wave machine. Just a webbing sling can be used to make a fairly good simulation of taking a breaking wave broadside. Handling your kayak in the surf zone is dependent upon your ability to stay upright when hit by a wave while in a broached position because, sooner or later, you’ll end up broached with waves hitting you broadside.

If you do not learn this essential skill, you will never feel comfortable or be very successful in the surf zone. In addition to learning how to keep from getting capsized upon the initial impact, knowing how to side-surf to shore while balanced over your kayak will help you stay upright.

Most students are very anxious during their first encounter with the surf zone. The usual dry-land drills never seem to prepare them for the feeling of being hit by a wave while broached. A drill in calm water can simulate the force of the impact from a wave and give you the chance to try side surfing so that you’ll know what to expect before entering the real surf zone.

By practicing in calm water, you will experience less anxiety, you can quickly be righted if a capsize occurs, and you can gain immediate feedback from an instructor, who is right there, and not chasing you through the surf. A fairly good simulation can be done with the aid of a rescue sling, instead of a wave machine.

The keys to side surfing success are a combination of edging your kayak and bracing. You need to lean and brace into the wave to keep it from knocking you over.

The most important element to your success in staying upright is the edging of your kayak. If you do not edge your kayak with the deck leaned toward the wave, you will capsize when hit. Sitting straight up in the kayak with no edging is a guaranteed capsize. Edging the kayak in the wrong direction (deck leaning away from the wave) not only means a capsize, it means a very fast capsize.

After edging your kayak, you need a brace to keep yourself upright after impact, and to help get your upper body back over the balance point of your kayak while it is still edged and side surfing toward shore. In photo A, the kayaker is ready for the wave to impact the side of the kayak.

The kayak is edged correctly. Keep in mind that the larger the wave, the greater the edging that’s needed. Notice how her upper body is balanced over the boat. Upon impact of the wave (photo B), the kayak is knocked out from under the kayaker. She is ready to fall toward the water on the wave side with a brace ready to keep her from going under.

The brace gives her the opportunity to balance her upper body over her kayak again. The sooner she can re-balance over her kayak photo C the more control she will have while side-surfing toward shore. In big waves, edging alone isn’t enough. You may have to throw your body into powerful waves with your paddle in a brace position so you won’t capsize. After the impact of these large waves, you can regain your balance over your kayak, but still maintain the edging as you move quickly toward shore.

One of the great aspects of side surfing is the lift the water dynamics provides to your brace. The faster the side surf, the more powerful the lift on the paddle. As the power of the wave dissipates, the lifting power on the paddle also decreases. At this point, you must be balanced over your kayak or you will do a slow capsize toward the wave.

By quickly getting your balance point back over your kayak, you increase your options. You can side surf toward shore, leaning on the force of the wave. However, you are limited from moving your kayak in any other direction if you need your paddle for constant support. To avoid obstacles (rocks, swimmers, surfers, kayakers, etc.) that you may be approaching, if you are balanced over your kayak, you can initiate a forward or backward stroke while moving sidewards toward shore.

A word of caution regarding side surfing: It’s not uncommon for novices to capsize after successfully surviving the impact zone. While traveling sideways, it’s easy to regain your balance over the boat, but don’t forget to keep the kayak on edge.

Sitting straight up without holding the kayak on edge while side surfing will lead to a capsize. To simulate the feeling of side surfing in calm water, you will need an assistant to help by having him pull your kayak out from under you while you are balanced over your boat in the edged position. First, loosely loop a piece of sling webbing around your boat as seen in photo D. Place the webbing so your kayak will move sideways evenly. (I have found that point to be around the lap of the paddler.)

I use a 15-foot piece of one-inch tubular climbing webbing as my sling. Tie the ends together to create a seven-foot loop. The kayak must have the freedom to roll as needed within the sling. Next, prepare for the simulated wave by edging the boat in a ready-to-brace position.

The trainer then takes hold of the webbing and quickly pulls your boat sideways. Notice how, in photo E, the kayaker’s upper body is no longer balanced over her boat: Her brace keeps her from capsizing.

In order to stay upright, you will need to brace while side surfing (photo F). This is the same technique used in the surf in photo C. The longer and faster you keep the kayak moving sideways, the more lifting power there is to the paddle blade. This will allow you to practice the feeling of side surfing. It will also allow you time to recover to a balanced position over your kayak. Aside from simulating the feeling of side surfing in the ocean when hit by a wave, I have found this exercise to work well for bracing practice, as well.

Try putting the kayak on edge the wrong way when pulled by the sling. The resulting capsize is a lot less traumatic than a real wave, and it will give you the chance to practice how to tuck correctly to set up for a roll before the real thing.

This drill is not a substitute for learning in the surf zone, but you will have greater success during your first surf zone encounter if you practice first in a controlled environment. This drill is of particular value if you never have the chance to practice in a surf zone. When you find yourself in the situation of being hit by a wave or moving through a surf zone, if you have practiced side surfing in calm water, you’ll know what to expect and how to react.