a quick FS history
Charlie Wilson was fond of saying, “We probably aren’t doing anything in canoes that some 10 year old girl hasn’t already done in the Mesopotamian Valley 8000 years ago”. Many of us have repeated this at clinics, discussions, and writings. Do we think we invented all the strokes? Of course not! Do we believe we had a lot to do with the development of what is known as Freestyle Canoe? Yep!
It goes without saying that anything we do in canoes might have been done at some point in history. So, at the risk of leaving out a lot of great paddlers and being too brief I’ll offer a abbreviated look at a FS history. Now, up in Canada, a fellow by the name of Omer Stringer, a canoe guide, put together a routine of maneuvers paddling Canadian Style (tandem canoe solo from the center station) which he called Omering. Was he the first to do this? Who knows? But, he was the one who took the time to try to develop it. His assistant was an elegant and able lady by the name of Sue Plankis. One day a sprint canoe racer, name of Patrick Moore, who was in Canada for a race, saw Omer Stringer do an exhibition of Omering. On his return to Florida he shared this with Mike Galt, a hull designer and builder who was into canoes. They began playing around with the concept with 2 paddlers in a tandem canoe. Not long after Tom Foster and Charlie Wilson started doing the same. It was introduced around the U.S. and so began experimentation with this novel idea. I’m not sure who applied this to solo canoes but at any rate a new sport was forming, but in a diverse way. Harold Deal is credited with introducing Cross Stokes to the mix. Pretty soon a demand arose from folks who wanted to learn this new activity. It was apparent that some vehicle for developing a curriculum, consistent defined maneuvers, a cadre of knowledgeable instructors and instructor trainers, organized clinics, an existing network of paddlers, and most importantly a way to obtain insurance in a litigious world was needed. Lo and behold there existed an organization which had 100 years experience doing just that, the ACA. It was a no-brainer. Early on Mike Galt did not want to participate and so from that time on was not part of the evolution of Freestyle Canoe. Pat Moore stayed with his concept of “Sport Canoe”, a very different approach. To say that FS Canoe evolved from Sport Canoe is just wrong. So neither of these folks were involved in the evolution of modern Freestyle Canoe. Fortunately Omer Stringer’s assistant, Sue Plankis moved to the U.S. and was very involved. It was a fantastic to see her seamless style of Omering and Freestyle Canoe. My personal take is that it was extremely important that Tom and Charlie developed this through the ACA. It brought organization, consistency, new development, and insurance into the sport. Undoubtedly it has reached many more paddlers that if not.
I know a lot has been left out so I might write up a more complete history at some point. See ya’ll in Yulee.
Pag
Wow, that was a mouthful!
Talk about a concise history. That one paragraph filled a bunch of gaps for me. Of course, every time a blank is filled in, another comes to light. Pag, would you briefly lay out the difference between sport canoeing and FreeStyle? Other than some referring to sport canoeing as a predecessor to FS, I’m ignorant on the subject.
Marc Ornstein
My limited knowledge…
Pat Moore never saw any need to move around in the boat. Transverse and a MacKenzie reversal or a high kneel thrust were not necessary components of boat control. Exceptional fine tuning of technique, paddles and hulls were all that was required.
As always, looking for more input from others.
That’s it exactly…
those moves/strokes were invented for interpretive paddling as they are not really necessary to move the hull in the desired direction. They are more “show” moves than practical, to say nothing of the fact that 90% of paddlers can’t and will never do them.
When FS was just getting off the ground I taught a class at a Conclave (those were the good ol days) in Illinois and Pat Moore took the class…talk about INTIMIDATING! Obviously there wasn’t much I could teach him! He is a superb paddler. I would say the difference in “sport” canoeing and FS is that element of interpretive (paddling to music) and the ability/desire to move around in the boat.
Pat’s solo boats were built with pedestals and evidenced the fact that to exhibit precise boat control in any direction, one did not need to move around in the boat. His style I would call “practical paddling with style” and FS I would term “style paddling with practicality…usually” (cross reverse manuevers fall outside the definition of practicality).
Yes, I know some will dispute that, but they’re just wrong 
Cross reverse and fixed paddler
position (aka in the normal touring stance) does work.
At Midwest FreeStyle Symposium a couple of years ago I was teaching the cross reverse quadrant. I had a “student” who had been around FS forever. However she had not been able to attend events for several years. She had attended at least one Conclave in Wisconsin. I was worried about what she was going to get out of the class as she never moved around in her boat. I was sure a cross reverse wedge was out of the question entirely.
No worry at all. She showed me the "Wisconsin " method for cross reverse strokes. She may not have gotten the rail all the way down but there was sufficient heel to spin the boat most way around.
Now don’t ask me to describe the “Wisconsin Method”. That’s best a visual.
I am sure I will hear that it’s not really a thing of Wisconsin after all…
You learn something new from students often.
Not saying it’s not acheivable
just that it’s not necessary to move the boat effectively in the desired direction. All directions, under power, effectively can be attained with onside strokes. Hence xreverse moves tend to be “show”.
Historical Discussions / Controversies?
I've much enjoyed picking up on some of the history of Freesyle canoeing in this thread. I trust that most newcomers to freestyle share this interest, and particularly welcome insight where topics have been the subject of discussion/argument for many years.
E.g. The ACA Level 3 "Freesyle" course is the natural culmination of the "Canoe Touring" program (as opposed to "river canoeing" program). So yes, it's practical paddling with style... but it's at least got to be based around a practical core: I've long wondered what discussions have taken place in the past over teaching advanced skills for "playing" (with style) when negotiating more challenging "quietwater" obstacles and/or (in particular) when engaged in open water paddling in extremely strong winds and/or big (perhaps breaking) waves.
Open water / coastal paddling (in Paddle Canada's terminology, up to but not including "the rounding of significant headlands or paddling long stretches of exposed coastline with no landing opportunities") is presumably not covered within the river canoeing curriculum... and when we get to force 5+ winds and to waves so big that you lose sight of your paddling buddies except when cresting waves simultaneously can hardly be considered a "level 2" skill... so what considerations have led to the current (to me, rather curious) focus on "quietwater" as the natural culmination of "touring" technique? Where's the ACA equivalent of Paddle Canada's higher level "Coastal Canoeing" program? Why is "play" seen as a "quietwater" thing? Surely the mark of an advanced paddlers is taking that "play" approach even when life gets more challenging.
Beyond that, I'd be interested to know what (if any) discussions have taken place over dividing the current programme into a level 3 course (perhaps focussed on "practical paddling with style") and some sort of Level 4 course (perhaps getting into the more esoteric play moves, and focussed on "style paddling with practicality"). Given that everyone seems conscious of the distinction between a core curriculum of basic moves and manouvres that one only does because one can.... I can't believe this has not been much discussed!
Beyond all of that, I can't help worrying (and I don't suppose this is new either) that the community might be selling itself short each and every time the impression is given (even unintentionally) that "style" and "practical" are somehow at odds with one another. Sure, specific manouvres might be pure "play" manouvres (I prefer "play" manouvres to "show" manouvres)... but the freestyle guru's mastery of initiation, heel & pitch, placement and conclusion, and the critical mastery of everything from the pure, uncorrected forward and cross-forward stroke to moving around in the canoe, strike me as hugely practical!
Just curious: within the next couple of years I hope to have a summer in the US that starts with the ADK symposium and ends with the mid-west symposium, and glean more... but in the mean time, those of us beyond US shores are kinda dependent on wonderful threads like this!
Truncations
Thanks for the kind comments about my truncated evolution of Freestyle canoe comments. I emphasize the word “truncated” because it can’t possibly do justice to all the people and events which lead up to this moment in time. I apologize to all those folks not included.
Some years ago, Charlie Wilson did an excellent slide show and presentation on this subject at the AFS. I asked him to resurrect it for La Lou a few years later but he was busy leading a cert. It would be good to see this again as it was light years more complete than what I presented here. Maybe we can get him to grace us with his wealth of knowledge soon.
Pag
Slightly of topic but not really
The new issue of the CrossPost (the newsletter of the FreeStyle Committee) is hot off the press. It is available from the FreeStyle website, www.freestylecanoeing.com.
The new issue is chock full of instructional materials and articles of interest to all who who have been following this thread.
Marc Ornstein
Hip Abduction
Most recent FreeStylers have followed Mark Molina, Mary Lou Greene and Marc Ornstein into heeling their hulls with both knees in the down chine. Very cool looking, very exhibition oriented and, with practice, very effective. When you have your knees “On Spot” the rail is at the water and you’re stable as an anvil.
I heel my boat differently, along the lines of a another former FreeStyler and Lotus Canoe principal, Courtney Codrington. I use hip abduction to lift the high side of the boat!
Obviously, this is easier with Lotus’s side pods or the sharply shouldered tumblehome exhibited in Bell, Colden, Curtis, Hemlock and Swift hulls.
The key to the thing is that an extreme heel is under tension, hence stable, but if a wave smacks or a rock is touched; relaxing the high knee lift returns the hull to flat and stable stance in the water.
Abduction
I had to look abduction up in the dictionary:
“2. pull something away: to pull something, e.g. a muscle, away from the midpoint or midline of the body or of a limb.”
I am guessing this means to significantly shift the weight of your butt to the left or right while keeping your knees in or close to the chines.
Sounds like another opportunity for “underwear yoga”
You’re Guessing Incorrectly
Start with the sitz-bone on the front edge of the seat and both knees in their proper chines.
Let’s say we want to heel out hull to our right side. We come off the seat enough to force load the right knee down, but also “hook” the left side tumblehome with our left knee and lift it upwards.
A little strength on that leg spread
Ah … a practical use of those abductor muscles … hooking into that upside tumblehome and helping give it some additional lift. When I’ve seen people(!) on that abductor machine at the gym, I’ve often wondered about the practical application of strengthening that motion!
I’m glad I asked. This does strike me as a more practical heel for regular paddling.
And, back in the day;
Back in the day, my thighs would fatigue to the point of cramping after a late spring weekend of FreeStyle paddling. Adding the abduction machine to my workout schedule has completely eliminated those issues.
What. No thigh straps?
That’s what I was thinking of a while back when I asked about putting a pedastal in a freestyle boat.
Add the straps and you can really lift the high side.
Kind of eliminates the possibility of high kneels or transverse positions though.
hip pads
If you want to be able to exert more control over your boat through hip abduction but don’t want to use knee or thigh straps, some shaped minicel bolsters glued to the sides of the boat below the inwales can be used to provide a contact point for your thighs and knees.
Tom Foster used to use quite large hip pads extending all the way from the pedestal to the sides of the hull (sometimes mounted on and backed up by a thwart) in addition to thigh straps in his whitewater boats. Many guys mount hip bolsters in their C-1s to allow more control of boat heel through hip control and lateral torso flex as well.
It isn’t just hip abduction but lateral flexion of the torso muscles (obliques) that comes into play here. An extreme example of using hip abduction and lateral torso flexion to heel the boat is an open canoe roll in which lifting one knee while forcefully abducting the same hip and simultaneously weighting the opposite knee heels the boat all the way from upside down to right side up. And I used to get very intense thigh and torso muscle cramps after practicing open boat rolls too.
I was interested in a comment that Harold Deal made to me last year. I was talking about lifting a knee to heel the boat while paddling some easy whitewater and he corrected me by saying one should always think about weighting the knee to the side of the heel rather than lifting the knee on the side opposite the heel.
I use hip abduction
when paddling white water. In my solo ww boat I’m on a saddle with thigh straps. Obviously, any sort of transverse stance is nearly impossible. Combined with help from the thigh straps, it’s pretty easy to lay the gunnel down as far as desired. I have a sat inn my Blackfly and can go transverse (if not wearing thigh straps) however it’s not necessary and would generally put me in a compromised position, should I need to quickly get the paddle to the other side of the boat. I’ve never had a cramping problem in ww situations, likely because the duration of the moves is very short and there isn’t much concern for boat bobble.
In FreeStyle situations, as noted above, cramping or at the least, sore muscles can be a problem. The moves are slower (more prolonged), and holding the gunnel to the water without bobbling takes it’s toll on me. Going transverse, and putting both knees into the chine solves that problem. Of course for every problem solved, there is another to deal with and that is managing all of the moving about in the boat smoothly and without bobble.
Marc Ornstein
for every problem solved
Marc said, “Of course for every problem solved, there is another to deal with and that is managing all of the moving about in the boat smoothly and without bobble.”
So far when I’ve tried moving around in the boat, at least more than coming up on my knees or putting both knees in the same chine, the extreme bobble has often resulted in swimage.
Sometimes I can do a high kneel without swimming. But it’s always a gamble.
That keeps bringing me back to “what can I do from my three point stance?” Especially when I’m traveling vs Freestyling on the pond.
Heeling
The main force heeling a hull is always weighting a knee or a foot, and that will likely be in the lowest part of the boat.
The point about using abduction is that, weighting a given knee in a three point stance will heel the hull towards that knee's side, but only so far. If more heel is required, it it easier and less swimage promoting, [I like that word], to lift a little with the opposite knee than move the weighted one higher into the chine.
When traveling
and needing to heel it is often sufficient to move the offside knee to the middle of the boat and not entirely across the hull. This will help weight the onside.
That said, I find it very easy and actually preferable to move both knees IF your seat (or you) is correctly positioned so that the weight is split half and half knees/butt. Most boats are not set up correctly for that and thus most paddlers wind up sliding too far forward and put so much weight on their knees it is difficult to move easily. I think most seats are too high in factory set ups. For traveling the 50/50 split is comfortable and allows slight adjustment either way for pressure relief.