Side-to-side on Forward stroke

just a thought
This suggestion may have no bearing on your boat, but it’s a cheap and simple thing to try. I was doing a fairly long flatwater river paddle with a couple of folks last summer and a guy in 12 foot kayak was having terrible trouble with his bow wandering back and forth, losing him a lot of forward momentum and exhausting him trying to keep up with us in longer boats. I gave him some tips on technique which helped a little but it was still pretty bad. At a lunch stop I took his boat out and tried it myself. Found that I had a similar problem with the tracking but my hunch was that the trim was bad and the stern was too light in the water. So I collected rocks and we loaded up his stern hatch with as many as would fit, probably about 20-25 lbs. This substantially improved his tracking on the rest of the trip. You could try the same with a couple of gallon jugs of water as ballast. You can also try adding the ballast to the bow and see how that affects the performance. Trim is tricky and is also affected by wind and direction of water flow.



Here’s a link to a very good article on trimming a boat.



http://kimbull.co.uk/2011/12/trim-and-canoeing/



You could also try rigging some kind of skeg. My first boat, a 25" wide by 14’ 6" folding kayak, wandered horribly until I added a small flexible rubber skeg near the stern. The difference that made was remarkable.

Probably Unrelated
but a buddy of mine told me about taking a novice with him in a tandem kayak. The novice was rocking the boat from side to side so much that my buddy was very concerned about capsizing. I’m sure that had to do with upper body and not lower.



I come from a bicycle background. Experienced cyclists keep the upper body loose and relaxed and let the legs do the work. My philosophy in the kayak is to use the legs only as much as I have to.

Thanks for all the great info
Thanks for all of the great advice and information. I did a 5.5-mile run today & tried to “quiet” my lower body while rotating to eliminate (or reduce) the “edging” of my kayak when using the forward stoke. I decreased my foot pressure, increased the length of my paddle (so I dion’t lean to the side), and focused on the catch. I found that exiting a little sooner also helped, as I tend to try to muscle though the stroke to get more speed. What did I discover? I need to do a million sit-ups to increase my core strength, and strengthen my butt muscles! That’s it in a nutshell. Core strength is a must. Without adequate core strength, my legs try to compensate, which causes the “edging” due to shifting weight from one butt cheek to the other.



The forward stroke looks so simple, but the many facets involved make it challenging - at least for me.

Based on what you wrote,
…you are doing a nice job of analyzing what is wrong and how to fix it. I’m impressed.

"Strengthening Butt Muscles"
You got it. The gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus makes it all happen and powers your stroke. When they go, everything goes and you can’t paddle for beans, no matter how strong your other muscles may be. Torso rotation won’t help because you can’t rotate. We’re all “butters” as Kim Fadiman points out in his CANOE MAGAZINE Cutting Edge article, regarding wing paddles, 25 years ago.

Dave Grainger’s “Exit Balance” Video
Show’s side to side rocking (like in a cradle) by top paddlers at the exit and not at the catch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6fmIUBebh8



May this be the “side to side rocking” you might be talking about or the common variety yaw? There is a difference.

Kemecsey’s viewpoint
Interesting video. That said, the OP is in a short 12 foot kayak and not an Olympic K1. While it’s easy to make a K1 lean from side to side (or even capsize) if you part your hair the wrong way, the same really can’t be said about a short wide recreational kayak. That’s what makes a K1 so great for working on your stroke (and occasionally getting wet). Nothing is hidden by “excess” stability.



K1 coaches such as Imre Kemecsey teach that strong leg drive causes you lean toward the catch. That said, the exit of one stroke blends into the catch of the next, so its difficult to tell where one stops and the other starts. Here’s what Kemecsey says about this effect and about the “exit balancing that Grainger postulates about”…



“Top athletes lean the boat to the pulling side gradually starting on the recovery of the stroke on the opposite side. This is because the athlete is twisting and swinging the body from the pulling side towards the opposite side. This movement increases power on the blade locked in the water. The same movement compresses the other side of the boat into the water wall. (This produces the “wet-soap” effect.) Also this boat position gives a firm support on which the athlete can apply a powerful technique.

The heel is pressing the hull down on the pulling side. At the same time the opposite leg is relaxed and the knee is rising up”.



For anyone looking for some thought-provoking reading, look up Kemecsey’s writings on the web, or listen to him in person, if given the chance. Great stuff.



Greg

Right On Greg!
Perhaps the most innovative training method that I implement the most from him, is his “speed barrier training” routine in order to preserve whatever fast twitch muscles I might have left.