No …too full of turkey leftovers.!
and beer. Everyone would probably appreciate a response that made sense.
Back to the Cross Drawing Side Slip
Apparently Kayamedic celebrated Thanksgiving a bit too much so here it goes.
By the way: Drawing side slips are also known as static draws. They’re called static because the paddle is held static while the boat continues to move.
The basic principles of the side slip apply. The boat must be moving forward and traveling straight before placing or slicing the paddle into position. Most commonly the paddler will cross over from a forward stroke but the Cross Drawing Side Slip could also be “initiated” from a cross forward stroke.
After completing a forward stroke or mild J the paddle is sliced out of the water, carried across the boat and placed at or a bit behind the hip on the offside. Blade is neutral, (parallel to the keel line) with the power face toward the hull. Grip and shaft hands have NOT changed place as the paddle was crossed over. Placement will be at or slightly behind the hip. The leading edge of the blade will then be opened (turned away from the hull) slightly. The boat should be heeled a bit away from the paddle. If the canoe was running straight and the placement was correct, the boat should slip true, without turning. If the placement was too far back, the boat will turn away from the paddle, too far forward and it will turn toward the paddle.
When you’ve traveled abeam as far as desired, you can take a quick cross forward stroke or two before crossing back to your on side or perhaps set up for another cross or cross reverse maneuver, but that’s for another discussion.
Cross strokes and cross maneuvers require a lot of torso rotation. That takes practice and stretching. With most cross strokes, it’s easier to reach if you choke up on the shaft a bit (slide the grip hand up the shaft).
The cross drawing side slip is a great way to move the canoe laterally toward your off side. The paddle is in a high brace position (in fact I’ve hear the maneuver referred to as a static high brace) adding stability to the canoe which may be useful in a moving water situation.
Marc Ornstein
Actually I just had
– Last Updated: Nov-27-10 1:28 PM EST –
nine guests for three days. And three needed nursing.
Not much time to think. That one beer I had knocked me silly
Thanks for covering. Now I have a lot of housecleaning and wash to do. The guests have left. Then there is nap and pnet catching up to do!
high braces
For some boats, in order to get the blade far enough toward the stern on the cross side-slip hanging draw, it becomes necessary not only to choke up on the paddle shaft, but to angle the paddle shaft with the grip hand towards the bow and the blade towards the stern.
When paddling in current and shallow water where snagging the paddle blade or unanticipated capsizes are somewhat more likely, it is important to be mindful of the potentially vulnerable position that the high brace can place the shoulder joint in. Torso rotation is important to keep the hands within “the paddler’s box”.
Is the cross side slip the same as the
cross shift? I have an old copy of “Freestyle Canoeing” by Mark and Becky Molina. They describe a maneuver called the Cross Shif. It looks very much like the Cross Side Slip.
Shifts are Canadian for
side slip.
The canoe doesnt care what language you use to yell at it, so yes it’s the same.
Need to decide
– Last Updated: Nov-29-10 8:58 AM EST –
whether we're talking about instruction addressing useful maneuvers or Interpretive things where risk and difficulty prevail.
A Cross Drawing SideSlip or Shift is not a lateral move, it is a offside or cross diagonal maneuver.
When folks are getting started, it's best not to lift the side of opposition because that increases rocker, which makes the blade placement more precise and changes the longitudinal placement slightly. This is exacerbated in Swede form and differentially rockered hulls. Things are much easier to learn when variables are removed.
I doubt many will be able to feather their paddleblade to neutral angle and slice forward from a Cross Drawing SideSlip to successive, controllable, Cross Forward Strokes. Among other things, the Cross Forward catch pitches the hull bow down and the stern, still moving diagonally, will skid out. It can be done by someone with immense paddle sensitivity who practices some, but...
Angling the shaft aft to reach the water changes placement significantly; better to work on stretching to improve torso rotation, acquiring a narrower hull or better, use an Onside Prying SideSlip.
I think including Interpretive FreeStyle is counter-productive to the general thrust of this thread.
Just to clarify…
I trust you mean that keeping the directional stability through the conclusion to the cross-draw sideslip and into successive cross forwards is the “advanced” move: I would hope most paddlers can master some variation of Marc’s cross-draw “static high brace”!
For everyday paddling, being able to keep the hull tracking absolutely straight is perhaps less critical than erring towards the yaw that’s most helpful for what you anticipate doing next: if you can’t hold the line, you want some control over whether your move ends with the stern kicking out or with the bows being drawn to the off-side!
Charlie’s right!
As I’ve been know to do, I often offer a bit too much information. My intention with this thread was Practical Freestyle and to that end combining cross forwards and side slips is blurring the line.
As for raising the side of opposition (the offside of the boat), on a hard chined boat it does help but keep it minimal. A slight lift will do almost as much good as greater without affecting the rocker very much.
Marc Ornstein
or
find the proper placement of the blade first, then raise the side of opposition.
Doesn’t Always Work
– Last Updated: Nov-29-10 10:43 AM EST –
The problem with finding "the spot" then heeling the hull is that is only works with symmetrical hulls. Many canoes are Swede Form, with the widest beam aft of center. Heeling moves the widest portion of the hull, which becomes the deepest part and pivot point, aft. This torques the sideslip/shift offside, in this case, if the paddle placement isn't also moved aft. That aft repositioning is difficult, as we tend to move the blade forward, the opposite motion, to maintain diagonal movement as momentum fades.
Heeling Fish-Form hulls away from the sideslip has the opposite effect, requiring the blade be moved forward to maintain a torqueless shift.
For what it's worth, we tested lifting the side of opposition sculling and using linked draws back in the 90's. It turns out one gets about a 10% reduction in time across a given distance. So it works.
But, it is boat specific and problematical when one is learning.
Similarly the great Whitewater ITE Gordon Black has his students keep their hulls flat when Ferrying and Back Ferrying to eliminate boat specific handling variability.
CEW makes a
critical point. Are we going to discuss Interpretive FS, or basic canoe moves, or even WW? What I see in pblanc’s description is a WW canoe with a saddle. In that case his cross sideslip with angled shaft is to be expected. In basic canoe the torso rotation can be much better and the expectation then is a straighter shaft. In Interpretive FS on expects a straight shaft everytime with a proper heel.
We seem t be discussing apples, oranges, and bananas. I think the intent here is to discuss FS canoe as found in the cirriculum, which is more basic than Interpretive FS.
Pag
H’mmm
Didn’t remember Gordon making that point when he tried to teach me ferries, but boats have also tended to become more asymmetrical, and my memory has tended to become much more full of holes since that time.
Makes sense.
Indeed
I am usually considering the whitewater approximations or equivalents of these maneuvers.
When one is firmly rooted to a pedestal and one’s knees firmly anchored by knee cups and thigh straps, the ability to get the paddle over to the off-side depends entirely on torso twist, and not at all upon pivoting the pelvis and knees in the boat.
It can become difficult to impossible to carry out some of these maneuvers and still keep the hands safely within “the box”.
I dont see a problem
as most US paddlers paddle …rivers…
Sure there are limits to what you can do given that whitewater is not mildwater and the equipment changes.
But to get an understanding of the fundamentals of boat behavior FreeStyle is helpful. Then as your river difficulty moves on and up you get to learn why a post into a mid river eddy sometimes winds up with a river baptism.
The place of Freestyle…
I’m not sure there’s any point in beating about the bush regarding the place of (or for) Freestyle: the techniques might be utilised by some of us on quietwater as a matter of course, and be found to enhance our paddling experience quite substantially - but both open water and quietwater-river paddlers around the world seem to muddle through (often for decades, sometimes racking up an impressive collection of major trips) without becoming particularly subtle in initiating manouvres, almost never heeling a canoe to the rail or pitching the hull forwards to release the stern, demonstrating variable appreciation of optimal paddle placements (especially on the off side), and in some cases being about as smooth as the hull of a badly abused Rx hull when it comes to concluding and linking quietwater moves.
This thread has thus far highlighted six key quietwater turning manouvres (4 onside, 2 offside) and some basic sideslips. Even as an enthusiast I’d struggle to find huge advantages to any of them whilst progressing in open water in near perfect conditions (though that off-side sideslip linked to cross forward strokes is great for maintaining a parallel course to an erratic paddler in an adjacent boat on your on-side). The practical value seems to me to grow at the margins of open water (especially when trying to stick close to shelter to make headway into headwinds) and on smaller “quietwater” rivers - and in odd contexts like approaching wildlife, getting into position to take a photograph, or manouvering around those constricted access or egress points… in few of which I could say the techniques were critical!
I’m sure those of us who are attracted to Freestyle could come up with an endless list of situations in which WE find Freestyle useful… and could list reasons why WE believe others could benefit from an understanding of the principles and techniques… but ultimately, I get the impression that paddlers are either attracted to the technical side of things or they are not - and when they are, their interest generally goes beyond the merely utilitarian, even if Interpretive Freestyle doesn’t appeal!
That’s a long-winded way of arguing that this thread would be worse off without Marc’s digressions into the possibilities that come with each stroke: focussing on the core elements of a basic curriculum for paddlers whose interest is first and foremost in tripping rather than in competition paddling makes sense, but I suspect most who stick with this thread (or find themselves referring back to it) will appreciate also getting a heads-up on what a school-teacher might term the “extension activities” - on what’s possible if you get the hang of the basics!
My intention when starting this thread
was to concentrate on practical, also known as functional freestyle. I expected that to include most all canoeing disciplines, generally with the exception of Interpretive Freestyle. Clearly many moving water/whitewater maneuvers have close links. That being said, if a question arises or a comment is made that leads in the direction of interpretive FS, I don’t think addressing it is out of place. Perhaps a footnote about it’s limitations for practical use might be included.
Marc
A different take on FS
I agree with your comments, but feel that these remarks are limited to the specific maneuvers, rather than some of the tangible and intangible gains that result from practicing the FS discipline. I say this because I am a case in point. For 25 years I was a self taught paddler who paddled a lot, from WW to lakes. I was a very competent paddler and had taken several WW lessons at NOC (well known WW learning center in the States), then FS came along. Notwithstanding the specific maneuvers learned in FS what I gained in tangible terms was a huge increase in balance, an in-depth understanding of how trim affects performance, a more complete understanding of hull dynamics, and a feeling for blade positioning that was there-to-fore not known. My confidence level went up and the enjoyment of paddling went to higher plateaus. The biggest impact was on the forward stroke. I found that in attempting FS maneuvers, a poor forward was a road block. A bad forward in other types of paddling could be compensated for, but not in FS. I realized that a FS maneuver was doomed unless from the very beginning the forward was technically correct. The feedback vis-a-vis the forward stroke is significant and so began a tweaking of the forward stroke. It allowed me to experiment with the forward in many ways and arrive at several variations, depending on conditions, with which I was more efficient and happier.
To sum up, FS has a psychological as-well-as tangible impact on paddling in a macrocosmic way that goes beyond specific maneuvers. It changed me fundamentally and I became a different paddler. I guess a Tai Chi master might say it helps one find his inner Chi. So, now when I take to the water, be it a simple calm water straight ahead paddle or big WW, the experience is different and better. This is a hard conept to sell to paddlers but it is the significant difference between FS and other approaches.
Pag
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Very well put, Pag. NM
All That Said: Prying Sideslip
– Last Updated: Dec-01-10 8:00 AM EST –
We've enjoyed a nice little "come to the core" moment, but, it's time to discuss the Offside, Prying SideSlip, where we keep the paddle onside, and move the hull diagonally to OffSide.
As previously stated, the boat needs be have headway, running dead straight, off a final J stroke. Lift the paddle blade before slicing it forward and very close to the hull; backface out, keeping the paddleshaft at 90dg to the planet.
When the slice reaches the paddlers body, apply a short pushaway, to intiate water coving under the hull, then continue the forward slice to ~ the knee and pitch the blade to a closing angle of attack, the forward blade edge against the hull, the trailing blade at almost but not quite at 45 degrees. Exact placement is boat situational.
Remember to smile. Most folks will be wonder struck while you've just learned to escape a tree stump or boulder with minimal effort.
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