Lets stop calling a stern pry rudder a goon stroke. Its not a nomenclature used by the ACA. And it is a useful stroke to give beginners some sense of control without switching sides ( which is BTW also taught). Moreover its a stroke that has a lot of usefulness on rocky streams.
Pick the correction tool that is appopriate for the environment you paddle in.
We just spent a lovely five days in Florida with Caleb Davis… He is doing well
Figured a few things today. I tried some hit and switch, and with a vertical paddle planted with the idea of going by in a straight line, it’s not too bad running true up to speed. And I realized real quickly doing this that turning the outside edge of the paddle blade towards the bow at the end of a stroke is actually quite natural, so that tied into the J-stroke for me. I played around with turning strokes a little, and really tried focusing on contact points for a bit. The contact points are a bit unfamiliar coming from sea kayaking, but I do understand that it has only half do with paddle placement, and half to do with where I’m applying leverage with my body in connection to the boat. After that focus, and running about 3/4 mile paddling only on one side, and then 3/4 mile paddling only on the other, I managed to start staying pretty true at a …modest but rewarding pace for me at this point. I tried to focus on the contact points that needed to tense up to initiate turns, and when I could apply that in a quick and deliberate burst, instead of hanging the paddle out there and waiting for it to find me, Thank you for the thoughts on minimizing the delay of a J-stroke on cadence. I felt I was able to accomplish a small step towards picking up the ability of some subtle corrections. I didn’t get too technical about one stroke or the other. I just always rotated the blade in a J-stroke direction at the end of a stroke, let the paddle roll in my hands pretty freely, and tried to figure out different contact points, muscle tension, and the effects.
Little bits and pieces. Thank you everyone for the mindful of ideas to give me plenty to play around with as I go.
@kayamedic said:
Lets stop calling a stern pry rudder a goon stroke. Its not a nomenclature used by the ACA. And it is a useful stroke to give beginners some sense of control without switching sides ( which is BTW also taught). Moreover its a stroke that has a lot of usefulness on rocky streams.
Very useful in whitewater paddling as well. I think the goon stroke name came from Bill Mason. I know he called it that in one of his videos. Not ACA approved, but Bill Mason approved. 
@eckilson said:
@kayamedic said:
Lets stop calling a stern pry rudder a goon stroke. Its not a nomenclature used by the ACA. And it is a useful stroke to give beginners some sense of control without switching sides ( which is BTW also taught). Moreover its a stroke that has a lot of usefulness on rocky streams.Very useful in whitewater paddling as well. I think the goon stroke name came from Bill Mason. I know he called it that in one of his videos. Not ACA approved, but Bill Mason approved.
I think there’s a distinction here in nomenclature that’s not only fair, but makes perfect sense. To illustrate, if I went paddling with eckilson on one of his whitewater streams and saw him make lots of use of the stern pry, I’d call the stroke a stern pry. After all, he knows what he’s doing and is using the stroke for a justifiable reason. But when I see all these rental boaters and otherwise-unskilled paddlers who are simply muddling through the process and who as often as not are very nearly at a loss as to how keep the canoe between the river banks, I don’t give them credit for performing a legitimate, ACA-recognized stroke. To call it a stern pry in those cases makes as much sense as watching the car of an unskilled driver slide off the road during a snowstorm and “correcting” the terminology of any witness to the event who says that the driver lost control, instead insisting that the proper name be used for whatever kind of skid took place, just as if the driver performed that skid with the same skill and intentions as a driver at the racetrack. It’s possible to take recognized nomenclature to improper extremes, and in my specific application of the term “goon stroke”, that’s exactly what I avoid.
@kayamedic said:
Lets stop calling a stern pry rudder a goon stroke. Its not a nomenclature used by the ACA. And it is a useful stroke to give beginners some sense of control without switching sides ( which is BTW also taught). Moreover its a stroke that has a lot of usefulness on rocky streams.Pick the correction tool that is appopriate for the environment you paddle in.
We just spent a lovely five days in Florida with Caleb Davis… He is doing well
At our Fall Ozark Rendezvous, my brother-in-law drove from Utah to join my wife and I and our group. His experience with canoeing was next to nothing. I think he had maybe been in a tandem canoe once or twice many years earlier on flat water, no solo canoe or moving water experience whatsoever. But he is naturally athletic, has been a downhill skier and dirt bike aficionado. I spent one day with him in the bow of my tandem, and tried to show him a few things. The next day, he started out in the bow of a tandem with my wife in the stern, but then decided he wanted to try a solo canoe and wound up in a Mohawk Solo 14.
Needless to say, with no prior moving water experience this was a “sink or swim” introduction to solo canoeing but he did quite well, with only one upset that occurred when he grounded his bow on a shallow gravel bar, got spun downstream backwards, banged off a tree, and tipped. But to try to steer, he was continuing to switch sides like most beginners. At least he was not continually resorting to back strokes and reverse sweeps for correction like many newbies do.
In order to try to minimize his need to switch sides, I tried to give him an introduction to the J stroke, although trying to keep up with a group the opportunity for any real instruction was limited. He was also no doubt suffering from information overload by that point.
He never really seemed to get the J stroke which is not surprising since most paddlers probably don’t the first time they are introduced. But someone else demonstrated the forward stroke/stern pry combo which he really took to and it made a big difference in his control. He spent the next day in a solo boat as well.
@pblanc said:
But someone else demonstrated the forward stroke/stern pry combo which he really took to and it made a big difference in his control. He spent the next day in a solo boat as well.
Nothing wrong with that - whatever moves the boat. Good explanation of the forward stroke/stern pry combination from Bob Foote, but probably more relevant to highly rockered whitewater boats.
http://www.bobfoote.com/bob/tips/thesternpry.html
I do think the “J” or “C” or some variation of the thumb down correction is more efficient in a longer touring boats.
@eckilson said:
@pblanc said:
But someone else demonstrated the forward stroke/stern pry combo which he really took to and it made a big difference in his control. He spent the next day in a solo boat as well.Nothing wrong with that - whatever moves the boat. Good explanation of the forward stroke/stern pry combination from Bob Foote, but probably more relevant to highly rockered whitewater boats.
http://www.bobfoote.com/bob/tips/thesternpry.html
I do think the “J” or “C” or some variation of the thumb down correction is more efficient in a longer touring boats.
The difference is in flatwater efficiency… A J uses the same face of the paddle to apply force throughout the stroke
The Stern pry or ape stroke or whatever changes faces and there usually is a lot more braking apparent because of this. On rivers it doesn’t matter: sometimes you want more thinking time!
However if my blade were to jam between two rocks on moving water I’d rather have thumb up than thumb down for avoiding ejection.
I have seen one paddler do the goon stroke with such mastery and finesse there was no braking apparant… It must have been the Canadian version… He used to be on here.
been a good thread, got me thinking about body rotation, boat carving, and correlating some kayak instruction last year on basic strokes (from Chris Wing) and applying it to canoeing. Specifically stern rudder in canoe versus kayak. Find it awkward to keep that stroke more vertical in kayak than in a canoe but to be fair I’ve logged a lot more miles canoeing than kayaking.
These are my beliefs be it a canoe, kayak, raft or duckie- they might be right or they might be wrong: 1) where your weight is can be really important (depending on boat design and conditions). “Facing the work” getting good core rotation is also key- so it’s not just wrist angles, but getting your shoulders squared up to the path of the stroke" (that from a guy who just got both hips replaced-dang straight, wore that s**t out!) If you need to turn fast or a lot then do your corrections near the end of boat. If you’re trying to go straight and having difficulty on normal power (forward) strokes then make sure your weight is in the center of the boat, shorten your stroke (power phase away from the ends) and keep it more parallel to the center keel line (which usually means more vertical) and realize some boats are made to spin so some correction is required. If you’re a true friend and a stern paddler (canoe) and want your newbie friends to advance then you encourage them to paddle the stern. While they go through the process of learning a j or other correction stroke, You become adept at bow paddling using diagonal bow draws, jams and prys to keep the boat from spinning out. It makes you much more aware of how bow strokes affect the stern.
I can make a short boat designed to turn go straight. (that’s was something a Taureau was good for) What I can’t do is make one of castoffs sea kayaks, which is designed to go straight, turn. Reminds me of the song “Just give me 40 acres to turn this rig around”.
okay after reading and watching this, I think I’m somewhere between a pitch and knifing j, fact is I never even knew these variations existed, it just sort of works itself out with a lot of paddle strokes, and am pretty sure I’ve messed around and at one time or another done something that resembled all those strokes, (link at bottom)
After being in a ww c1 those strokes look really long to me. I know from aca certification that my strokes tend to generate more splash and are shallower than the norm. What can I say, now a days I paddle a lot of shallow creeks- and have adopted a different style that suits that environment. Be it a canoe or kayak, I find instructionally, when demonstrating, you have to slow it down, go smooth, with little splash, that’s really tough for me. I know my basic ww kayak strokes suck- in short you put me on a pond and I just suck- I can’t roll, my strokes are shallow and short, I’d really benefit from a flatwater symposium. Unfortunatley I can’t handle the kneeling anymore so canoeing is less appealling these days.
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~burchil/pm_canoe/subtle_correction.html
I think a lot of paddlers start out in straight-keeled, hard tracking canoes because they are relatively easier to make them go straight. Many then gravitate to more rockered boats which are easier to turn. Unless you really need the maximum “go straight” efficiency of a marathon or downriver racer, I think a canoe with at least a bit of rocker is much more versatile. Yes, it is possible to turn a long, straight keeled flat water boat, but doing so usually requires making a very wide radius turn, or else using strokes or maneuvers which nearly kill all forward momentum.
I paddle highly rockered whitewater canoes on easy Class I and even moving flat water streams all the time and have no difficulty making them go where I want. I could probably go a little faster in a straight keeled flat water cruiser but so what?
Ken Kastorff was/is one of the best whitewater kayak instructors in the South East. He once told me “going straight is all about turning” which I understood intuitively. A key to making any paddle craft go straight is to develop the ability (an intuition almost) to perceive when it is going to start to turn before it actually does. Any hull once it starts to turn is going to want to continue to do so until it is made to stop turning. It is much easier to go straight if some type of correction is applied before the boat actually starts to yaw. This might involve a subtle weight shift, a slight heel, applying a bit of pitch to a forward stroke, a slight modification of paddle placement at the plant, stroke excursion, or stroke power, or perhaps applying some other slight corrective element to the forward stroke.
I think you nailed it pete, but that all comes with time and practice. If you got one of them “turny boats” first you should get really good at spinning them in 360s, start with sweeps and then you might have a prayer of going straight because you can at least correct with a sweep- that’s my starting point with a new ww boater. It usually goes down like this, “Hey this boat just wants to spin” to which I reply “so let’s make it spin- here’s a stroke that helps” ( the sweep). Forward stroke comes later, gotta learn to turn first- instant success for the newbie with the sweep in initiating and stopping 360 spin (reverse sweep or using other side)… Going straight- that can take a while but they are usually askin’ me forward strokes pretty soon after masterin’ the 360 spin. Now at least they have one correction stroke- a sweep, it’s a place to start. Even sun dolphin crowd usually get to spinning first, most babies crawl before they walk so let "em crawl first, that’s my philosophy.
Never been able to walk on water unless it was ice, But I can do a crawl! 
@pblanc said:He once told me “going straight is all about turning” which I understood intuitively. A key to making any paddle craft go straight is to develop the ability (an intuition almost) to perceive when it is going to start to turn before it actually does. Any hull once it starts to turn is going to want to continue to do so until it is made to stop turning. It is much easier to go straight if some type of correction is applied before the boat actually starts to yaw. This might involve a subtle weight shift, a slight heel, applying a bit of pitch to a forward stroke, a slight modification of paddle placement at the plant, stroke excursion, or stroke power, or perhaps applying some other slight corrective element to the forward stroke.
Exactly. I have my young canoeing students at first build some confidence with the easy to do thumb up rudder, and tell them to make the canoe go left and right (and straight) from a rudder on just one side, while a bow paddler keeps the canoe moving at a slow velocity. My favorite thing to tell them is: “if you can learn how to make a canoe go straight, then you automatically already know how to make it turn”. Then in a later lesson or two, I have to break them of the thumb up habit to move on to advanced strokes.
Advance anticipation, thinking 2 strokes ahead, comes with experience and time on the water. Before the bow begins to yaw, put in a partial corrective stroke. Actually you won’t even have to think about it, it just happens. By feel, I think. Doing two strokes prior with minor correction prevents a major effort correction when it becomes too late to be gentle and smooth at it. Think of riding a bike, not much thought goes into avoiding a pot hole, you just do it. It all reminds me of what my brother taught me, who was early and deep into modern hot air balloon piloting in the 1960’s and 70’s. You have to think well ahead of when to apply a blast of heat, many seconds before you start to sink or approach a line of trees. Paddling, biking or ballooning, It all becomes quite natural and easy after a while.
Hardest thing to do with a highly rockered whitewater canoe is to > @tdaniel said:
I think you nailed it pete, but that all comes with time and practice. If you got one of them “turny boats” first you should get really good at spinning them in 360s, start with sweeps and then you might have a prayer of going straight because you can at least correct with a sweep- that’s my starting point with a new ww boater. It usually goes down like this, “Hey this boat just wants to spin” to which I reply “so let’s make it spin- here’s a stroke that helps” ( the sweep). Forward stroke comes later, gotta learn to turn first- instant success for the newbie with the sweep in initiating and stopping 360 spin (reverse sweep or using other side)… Going straight- that can take a while but they are usually askin’ me forward strokes pretty soon after masterin’ the 360 spin. Now at least they have one correction stroke- a sweep, it’s a place to start. Even sun dolphin crowd usually get to spinning first, most babies crawl before they walk so let "em crawl first, that’s my philosophy.
One of the hardest things to do, and sometimes neglected in whitewater canoe instruction, is how to build up momentum in a straight line from a dead stop with only 2 or 3 strokes. And this is really quite important. Think of having to leave a very small eddy and break out across a strong eddy fence without loosing the proper exit angle. Or trying to leave an eddy to ferry up and onto a surf wave without losing your angle and getting blown downstream, or just losing your momentum and drifting off the crest of the wave backwards. In a small eddy you don’t have room to back up and get up a head of steam and correct your angle as you cross the eddy line. Kayakers with a blade on both sides really have a much easier time with these moves.
I’ve usually worked with solo canoeists in a flatwater setting… They can all turn but they cannot control the turn… The hardest thing is to get them to slow down and make each stroke effective ( vertical). The sweep is almost intuitive and the trouble at the start is they put four or five gunwale following sweeps which makes a dandy turn. and they are now frustrated…
Doing something wrong five times and harder with each time never gets the right result. It does get frustration… I teach corrective strokes at a snail pace and in steps…
So no I don’t teach turns first except by getting them to tack from A to B switching sides. The first pass is usually pretty wild the second much better. What that does is give a little confidence on being on the water. Often they are inwardly terrified of tiny dedicated solo canoes.
But then its time to slow.
The goal in the forward stroke is to get the boat with 2.5 inch symmetrical rocker to go absolutely straight with no correction… Just hit and switch ( usually the paddler is kneeling so I can’t say sit). With some practice and a switch right when that yaw starts we can get them doing a straight line… Paddle vertical, stroke short all cab forward which pins the bow in a wave and makes going straight on a lake quite effortless. You can pretty much bypass the J though its a useful tool for when there is no pinning of the bow. So far I have been able to get 8 strokes per side on a WildFire before switching… Often less on my most dominant side… I can’t figure that out…
That three stroke till cruise speed is another aim… We do address that in our FreeStyle curriculum as each maneuver has to be done after straight line travel with as few acceleration strokes as possible. Any more than three is a detriment.
The problem in instruction is that students get a lot of info and they often take extra strokes because they haven’t yet got muscle memory and they are thinking… Its thinking time.
agree that you don’t want to give too much at once. A sweep ain’t wrong- it’s just a simple starting point that you build from, not the final destination . A lot of people find that reality of getting in a boat a good bit different than what they thought it would be like so I like an easy achieveable goal right at the outset. Going straight, we’ll get there, just not where I start with folks.
I get in a “new boat” I want to lean it right away, find its tipping point, spin it around a time or two before leaving the shore, If I capsize it, that’s okay, better to do it then than later. Usually a confidence builder but sometimes not. I don’t expect others to embrace that routine.
“That three stroke till cruise speed is another aim… We do address that in our FreeStyle curriculum as each maneuver has to be done after straight line travel with as few acceleration strokes as possible. Any more than three is a detriment.”
Got to wrap my head around all that- sounds like a good goal- have to admit though that first I was a float and brace kind of guy, then I decided two or three quick strokes were better than a full stroke. Now perhaps I gotta evolve into proper stroke placement/technique. Definately diminishing returns with effort and increasing over hull speed. If I want to get somewhere quick, i generally throw in a flurry of quick strokes to get up to speed then drift a bit. Never really thought about how many strokes it takes. I’m currently not paddling solo canoes but we’ll see how big a difference my new hips make, might be able to get back into it at some level in the future.
As far a yaw goes, if a boat has a butt I’m sure it wiggles. In WV we say y’all. Don’t take me too seriously, I get kind of lost on the technical end. I will tell ya’ll that the Taureau’s got a bunch of rocker, and that you’d best keep your weight off the ends and you’ll swear that the hull speed is zero as you blow by every play hole or wave on the river. Nicknamed it the “turdo” I actually had some dry hair days on some easy local “s**t” creeks.
I’m told with its planing hull that it surfs well but I never could catch anything to find out. I did learn to paddle it straight, and got pretty good at swimming with it. Ahh but everything has its time, mine ended when I jacked the saddle height all the way up to the cockpit opening and it still hurt. At that point it ceased to be a boat and just a science experiment involving swimming. Ownin’ that boat made more sense than tryin’ to live with a grizzly bear and I never expected my spouse to paddle it. See I ain’t all bad, you could get eaten’ by the bear.
If it makes you feel better just know that my paddlin’ buds consider my style to be “flailing”.
@tdaniel said:
If it makes you feel better just know that my paddlin’ buds consider my style to be “flailing”.
I wouldn’t. But you buds love you
Anyhoo
Sir Isaac Newton discovered the primary rules of canoeing and kayaking long ago
F=ma
Every action deserves a reverse spanking.
I primarily use a bent shaft paddle (still don’t have a good straight shaft that fits properly), so my J stroke is accomplished by turning the power face away from the boat. I find J strokes with a bent shaft much more comfortable than with a straight shaft, since my top hand ends up inside the gunwales.
I’m just a leisure paddler with minimum training, so feel free to ignore my input.
@pblanc said:
I think a lot of paddlers start out in straight-keeled, hard tracking canoes because they are relatively easier to make them go straight. Many then gravitate to more rockered boats which are easier to turn.
That was me. I started in a Sawyer Summersong for it’s reputed speed and ease of tracking, but soon discovered that I preferred maneuverability over straight tracking (in reality, I don’t really find straight tracking canoes much easier to keep straight than moderately rockered touring canoes - probably because my forward stroke isn’t too great).
I’ve got no apparent skill in a highly rockered whitewater canoe - I discovered that when I did a very short paddle in your purple canoe - I felt like a drop of water on a hot skillet.