Article first published in Issue #70 Ocean Paddler Magazine | May 2019

Staying balanced is much more than a metaphor when it comes to paddlesports. 

As young children we have a low center of gravity and an instinctive ability to stay centered. You can put a young child in the tippiest of kayaks and they will paddle off as if it is no big deal. Put an adult in the same kayak and they might not take a single stroke before they are upside down! When do we lose this innate ability to stay balanced? Probably at the same time that we learn fear!

Stay Low

To stay balanced in our chosen craft, be it a sea kayak, surfski, surf kayak or paddleboard, we need to keep our weight low and centered over the midline of the craft. The low points in our kayak are the sit bones of our butt and our feet. We should be constantly aware of putting as much weight as possible through our sit bones and feet. Let’s imagine ourselves  as a tightrope walker with a paddle instead of a pole to help stay balanced. By keeping our head up, eyes scanning the horizon in front of us, we can maintain good posture with our core activated to respond to any slight movement of the craft beneath us as we start to paddle. Every time we raise our paddle, we are raising our center of gravity. Keeping our hands low makes us feel more balanced.

 

 

Using the Paddle For Support

Stability can be found from the tripod effect of putting a blade in the water. Your butt, feet and paddle create the tripod, but the paddle blade needs to be active. We find support so long as we feel pressure from the paddle blade moving through the water, but as soon as the paddle blade stops moving and the pressure and support it provides reduces, we need to bring our weight off the paddle and back to our center, ready for the next stroke.

We may need to transfer our weight away from the center and onto our paddle blade to counteract an external force such as when bracing onto a wave, or to lean the boat to make a sharp turn, but we need to bring our weight back to center as soon as possible. 

 

Rediscovering Our Sit Bones

A great way to develop a feel for shifting weight to the  sit bones and feet is to sit on a hard surface, knees bent, holding your paddle as if you are in your boat. Adjust your posture so that you are putting maximum pressure onto your sit bones. Introduce a slight forward lean so that a bit more weight is on your feet. This is a great position for active paddling as it helps to  drive the boat forwards transferring power from the paddle blade to the boat. Now sit upright so that your weight is equally distributed between your sit bones and feet. This is a great position for active bracing such as side surfing a wave and will allow you to respond easily to the movement of the kayak. Next lean back and feel the weight come off your feet entirely. The further you lean back, the more the weight will come off your sit bones as well. In this position it is almost impossible to respond to the movement of the kayak and puts you in an almost unrecoverable position and vulnerable to capsize.

Designed for Balance

Staying balanced is about choosing the right boat for the type of paddling you want to do. Kayaks are designed to have both primary and secondary stability. Primary stability describes how balanced or solid the boat feels upright. Typically, a flat-bottomed boat will have a ton of primary stability, but a flat hull is inefficient unless you are surfing. You will also find that a flat-bottomed kayak doesn’t track (go straight) well and becomes unruly in dynamic conditions. For this reason, most kayaks are designed with a rounded hull and either a hard or soft chine that provides some level of secondary stability. Secondary stability describes how solid the boat feels when the kayak is tilted (edged) on its side. Edging the kayak reduces the waterline length, engages the increased curvature or rocker that is found along the sides of the kayak and allows us to maneuver more easily. The more comfortable or balanced the boat feels on edge, the more inclined we are to use edge to help turn the boat.

When we edge the boat to make a gradual turn, our focus should be on shifting our weight from both sit bones to the sit bone on the side that we want to edge towards. By tilting our head towards the centerline of the kayak, we keep some of our weight over our center. This helps us stay balanced, even with the boat on edge.

We can practice edging in shallow water where, if we edge too far, we can push off the bottom with our paddle to avoid a capsize. Start by discovering the balance point of your boat on edge. Each boat design has a different balance point. Hold your paddle up and keep it horizontal as you shift your weight onto one sit bone. Tilt your head the opposite way as you increase the weight on one sit bone. Your spine will create the shape of the letter C as you edge the boat but keep your head, as much as possible, over the centerline of the kayak. How far you can edge comfortably will depend on your own flexibility and the design of your kayak. A kayak with a hard chine may feel quite solid on edge but will tip over suddenly if you edge too far. A kayak with a soft chine will have a more progressive feel, its stability changing more gradually as you edge it further, though it may be harder to define the limit of its secondary stability. Finding that balance point is a critical first step to staying balanced when edging. Next try shifting your weight from sit bone to sit bone, edging your kayak from one side to the other, gradually increasing the range of tilt. Notice what you are doing with your head. If your head is rolling from one side to the other, you are learning the elusive and curiously named head ‘dink’. The head dink is a helpful component to the technique of edging, bracing and rolling your kayak. As you edge, feel your spine curling from a C in one direction to a C in the opposite direction. Are your legs and feet moving as well? If your legs and feet aren’t moving, you may want to adjust your foot pegs a notch or two. Typically, your leg will drop on the side that you are edging towards. The knee will lift on the side you are edging away from and engage with the thigh brace (if there is one). This prevents you from falling out of the kayak! Try to avoid lifting with that knee to edge the kayak. Doing so engages your core muscles in such a way that it makes it more difficult to rotate as you paddle. Keep your posture nice and upright as you edge. Avoid leaning forwards or backwards. Try to relax and don’t forget to breathe!

Once you have found your balance on edge while stationary, it is time to introduce edging into your paddling on flat water and then into progressively more dynamic conditions. If stability in dynamic water is a problem for you, try practicing on flat water by raising your center of gravity. You can do this by adding thin (1/4”) layers of foam under your seat pad. Remove the pads when you take your kayak into dynamic water and your kayak will feel rock solid! 

A fun way to develop stability is to pop your skirt and sit on the back deck of your kayak. If your kayak has a rear bulkhead just behind the cockpit it should be able to support your weight. Start by keeping your feet on the floor of the kayak in front of your seat. Try paddling in a figure of eight. Edge as much as you dare! Now bring your feet up onto the front of the cockpit coaming. Try paddling with your knees apart, then your knees together. See which position feels more stable. See if you can edge your kayak and perform a figure of eight. Too easy? Do it going in reverse!

Paddling a more unstable kayak such as a surfski or racing kayak with an open cockpit will teach you how to edge the kayak without lifting your knee and will help you stay balanced in even the roughest conditions. It may seem counterintuitive but having your knees together allows you to absorb movement of your craft in dynamic water more easily that with your knees apart. That is one reason why a surfski paddler can stay balanced and paddle such a skinny craft in big conditions.

Adjusting Trim

In theory we can adjust the trim of our kayak by leaning forwards and backwards, but the amount we can adjust the trim is determined by the length of our kayak. The longer the boat, the less we can adjust the trim by shifting our weight. In a sea kayak the trim effect of shifting our body weight forwards and backwards is negligible and our focus should instead be much more on staying balanced. When surfing a wave or running a pour-over, we tend to want to lean back in a vain attempt to lift the bow which is almost impossible to do. Leaning back brings the weight off our sit bones and reduces our ability to brace effectively. Sitting upright and staying balanced, we can respond to the movement of the kayak dynamically.

We can adjust the trim of our kayak by placing gear in different compartments. We want to ensure that most of the weight is as close to the center of the kayak as possible to stay balanced and reduce the swing weight. Try to avoid having a lot of stuff on your deck too because that just raises your boat’s center of gravity.

Bilateral Practice

Lastly, staying balanced means practicing our strokes on both sides. Many of us have a dominant hand, a dominant side. We need to practice our strokes more on our weaker side to ensure we can perform equally well on both sides. This is important for tactical reasons, but also helps us avoid overuse injuries caused by asymmetry. 

Whenever you work on a skill going forwards, don’t forget to practice it in reverse. Not only will it provide additional challenge, it will also improve your technique going forwards and help you master the skill more quickly.

Finding balance in our chosen craft requires focus and practice as we learn to overcome fear, relax and go-with-the-flow. The journey to find balance will not only help us become a better paddler, it can help us achieve equilibrium in our increasingly busy and stressful lives.