Canoeing Fundamentals Instruction

When you're new to the sport of canoeing, or when you want to improve your skills, I think it's important to start with as few strokes as possible. Of course you need to be able to move the canoe in every direction, but the fewer strokes to remember, the better.

The real basics of canoeing

I approach canoeing fundamentals in 2 steps. In the first step, a one day course, we work towards 5, and only 5 strokes to move your boat around. In my experience it's useless to teach paddlers 10 or more strokes on one day. This results often in remembering 3 strokes at the end of the day and frustration for the other 8 which cannot be remembered.

A second  and very important part in this phase of instruction is how we execute the strokes. I start teaching immediately how to paddle as efficient as possible. This avoids forgetting about sloppy techniques in the future and learning new ones. We use 2 strokes to work on the fundamentals of paddle strokes, but we won't be using these to move our canoe at this stage.

If every canoe can move forward, backward and sideways by the end of the day, it has been a successful day of instruction.  Most of the time this day is rewarded with smiles of victory, being able to move the canoe, understanding where the power comes from, or having found that little detail. Yes, we can work on details in this phase. Details that are more of an issue for more advanced paddlers.

These real basics are also my starting point for people who want to improve their technique. 

Improved canoe control

After you've mastered the basics, we can move on to a bit more advanced or improved canoe control.  We will learn finer techniques to move sideways, backward and paddle curves. There is a small difference in the solo and tandem program, since the needs of those types of canoes are slightly different.

Here again, we work on good paddling technique, and of course apply the fundamentals we've been training on before.

Security

As with every sport or activity, there are some risks involved being with a canoe on the water. We pay attention to those risks and teach you how to prevent or tackle problems. This goes from the basic advice: don't forget to drink to the technique how to rescue a capsized canoe on the water.

Training, training, training

Yes, training. After you've taken the 2 day course above, you are ready for some fine paddling, already. The main problem is you still need the time to think about what you have to do, it's not an automatism. Often there is no, or a very sloppy fall-back. That's why I strongly believe every starting paddler should work about 40 hours on those basic skills. Not just 40 hours of paddling, but 40hours of concentrated paddling on those basics. 

After this training, you will have developed a certain automatism, making brain-functionality free for other input, like river paddling, new strokes, ... .

Of course you're welcome to join one of our training sessions. Your skills are already good enough to join them and have fun!