More information
The video “Greenlanders at Kodiak” is more than 20 years old, but with a little research you can find additional information.
Eastern Arctic Kayaks, by John Heath, gives some interesting backdrop and history of these maneuvers. To clarify, Side Sculling (Innaqatsineq) and the balance brace (Nalaasaarneq) are very closely related but are slightly different. They use the same mechanics and a side scull can be slowed down and then stopped so that no motion is necessary. At that point it becomes a balance brace.
The following is from “Eastern Arctic Kayaks” (John Heath):
“To lie Down (Nalaasaarneq). Skilled kayakers have a special maneuver that can be used for resting at sea when they become tired and it is impractical to go ashore. According to Greenlander Lone Bech, an avid kayaker and past treasurer of the Greenland Kayaking Association, this maneuver is called nalaasaarneq, which means “to lie down”. Nalaasaarneq enables a kayaker to fall backwards upon the water surface and lie there for several minutes without any movement of the kayak, kayaker, or paddle. The kayak remains heeled on edge so that the kayaker’s weight is shifted, which helps relieve the tired muscles and aching joints that can result from sitting several hours in a kayak. Per Langgard and Nuka Moller told me that Greenlanders call the kayaker performing his maneuver qasuersaartoq, “the one resting”.
… As long as the water is relatively calm, a skilled kayaker may even take a nap in this position. One such kayaker was the late Manasse Mathaeussen, who told Qajaq members that when he took a long trip with another kayaker, he insisted that his paddling companion must also know how to perform this maneuver. … [Manasse] used to demonstrate nalaasaarneq in public performances and was the undisputed master of this maneuver until he retired in 1986, at age 71. Many members of Qajaq can perform nalaasaarneq today.
… With this in mind, I entitled an article in Sea Kayaker about this maneuver “The Balance Brace” but if Greenlanders were to discuss nalaasaarneq in English, they would probably describe it as a “resting” or “reclining” maneuver rather than a brace”.
Greg Stamer
I found value
in that it allowed me to to get a better feel of the nature of the body and boats bounyancy symbiosis.
I’ve used it to recover, stretch, rest, take photos, show off…it’s fun… fun is valuable … be safe… have fun
I Think You Do GAF
Good answer.
One of my favorite quotes:
“It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.”
Cat in the Hat.
Yeah, I do some kinds of rolls for fun.
Greenland WW paddling?
I’m getting more confused the further this thread goes on
basic brace for some
I was in a workshop with a person, who’s basic response to the start of an unexpected capsize (starting to learn chest sculling if I recall) was to throw herself into a balance brace. Efective for keeping from going over but not a particularly good reflexive response for learning chest scull - not that I was doing any better. It was her go-to brace.
That being said, the sculling brace is probably more directly a skill most people would use. And really they pretty much grade into each other.
Don’t forget not all kayaking is done in rough conditions. I’m told it is pretty hard to shoot a seal when there are waves.
Seen Pix
of Maligiaq Padilla using a balance brace to stay upright in the rotor wash of a helicopter off of Wales.
I’d say that qualifies as “rough conditions”.
There’s a thousand ways to skin a cat, unless you believe one dogma or another. Me, I wanna know every way to do it.
And I deliberately practice a balance brace in large boat wakes and wind waves (Though since I porked up this past winter due to many 18 hour days at work, I need to practice a lot of things now more than ever).
Yup. No reason to nitpick about history
Learning it helped me clean up my roll, and I still do it for the reason you stated.
Plus it feels good as a stretch. Very relaxing.
My modern reason for it is to cool off on a hot day. Even though water temps may still be in the 50s now, air temp has hit 90s on a few days. Such large differences are nothing unusual around here. There’s rolling for that, too, but there’s nothing wrong with having another way in addition.
Hey, why bother learning to swim if the original kayakers did not…you get my drift.
The value of something is that it continues to be enjoyed by succeeding generations. If it doesn’t seem to have immediate practical use, wait and see, because “useless” activities often have unplanned and interesting benefits eventually.
Why the heck not
I’ve watched someone paddle WW using his GP. So much for the dogma that says the paddle has to be a big blade Euro, or feathered, or who knows what other rigid thinking is out there.
What is the value of paddling?
Not to pick on you, Kudzu, but a year or two ago I overheard some WW instructors at a pond say to a student, “Oh, she’s just paddling for the sake of paddling.” I was doing laps. The pond is good for this because it has a narrow finger of land that’s a good place to practice very sharp turns in a long boat, especially with a strong breeze going. Also clean water for rolling, sculling, and bracing practice.
I guess this instructor did not read the book “Outliers,” in which talent and luck were ID’ed as two factors in determining which people become exceptionally good at certain activities. But even more important was the person’s practice at whatever their chosen activity was. Like 10,000 hrs of focused practice (not just whiling away time and effort). In some examples, the people had NO immediate practical application for what they did–they just enjoyed it and experimented/played/improved for its own sake. Later on, they would become “successful” in large part because they nurtured this activity until it turned out to be financially or otherwise rewarding in the eyes of the general population.
If it feels good and doesn’t hurt anyone else, that’s reason enough. Improved boat control or stroke efficiency doesn’t hurt anyone.
Some of the comments here (not yours) sound like sour grapes.
Way too cynical
Some of those instructors do it for free, not for financial gain. Even the ones who charge a fee are quite generous with their help outside of the paid session, and in fact there is at least one such person posting in this thread who has often offered advice in here and on another board.
The
picture I posted on the other thread
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2557/4149311913_dfb1c30cdd_m.jpg
is actually another kid of Balance Brace…I don’t know the name for it, maybe Greg will
anyway the one paddle blade is under my head and the other blade is under the side of the kayak…it allows my head to be higher out of the water and is extremely comfortable and restful.
A Balance Brace allows me to stretch one more vertebrae than I seem able to do on land…
Balance Braces lead to more exercises in Kayak control
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyQVhx1JEqE
Best Wishes
Roy
Several Forms
Roy,
The method you describe is what I saw most often in Greenland – with the paddle behind your head and “locked” under the gunwale. That’s the most comfortable way to “rest”, IMO. You can have the paddle extending behind your head into the aft quarter (per Manasse), or with the paddle extended forward. I don’t know if there are unique names for these variants. You can also do a “balance brace” with the paddle held in a side-scull position, among others, or without a paddle at all. The body/boat position is the same.
To cut through the confusion, John Heath has a description and line drawing of the method you are talking about. It’s on page 30 of Eastern Arctic Kayaks (a limited preview is available on Google Books at “http://books.google.com/books?id=0OnFxQ1sxiAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=eastern+arctic+kayaks” )
Since there have been some rather cynical comments, I should add that for full disclose, I have a chapter entitled “Using Greenland Paddles” in Eastern Arctic Kayaks. That said, I don’t receive royalties from the book (and never have).
Greg Stamer
Look cool at symposiums and…
just having fun in the water. All these rolls and things just add confidence in the water and sure can’t hurt.
I messed with Greenland rolls a bit and even bought a Tuliq… But have to say it didn’t hold my interest after I learned a handfull of weird rolls. I’d rather go ride waves and surf. Rolling is just a means to allow me to surf. I can’t say that all the goofy rolls made me a better kayak surfer, or paddler in general, but I had fun with it, and it sure didn’t do any harm!
I admire the folk who really enjoy playing around with these skills and they all seem happy to be messing about in kayaks on the water…
Who said it has to be a GP?
The balance brace is about holding a balance between your body and the boat. The paddle that someone happens to be holding doing this is irrelevant since it ISN'T DOING ANYTHING - that's the point. (And yes, there is a guy out west who does serious WW, in a WW boat, using a GP. He has posted here occasionally.)
Granted if you do a balance brace as part of a greenland skills demonstration it'll look silly unless the paddle is a GP. But (for the third time) it's just a body position. I don't know why that is so hard to grasp.
Today we got some practice time in - I hit the balance brace a couple of times on each side, when I needed to stop and think about what needed fixing from under the boat to halfway up, and to reset my position relative to the boat. I also went over another time to cool off. I don't really care whether the original Greenlanders had a term for it or not - I find it useful. And I did all of that with a Euro no less...
this portion of the thread
started with a discussion of Greenland paddlers and what the balance brace was used for. Someone said power naps. Someone else asked “in frigid water?!” The frame of reference was tradition. Then suddenly it took a turn towards WW.
Curious, do you wear a tuliq for WW too? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
I hope mine isn’t one of those
that came across as cynical. It certainly wasn’t intended to be. I’m just convinced that sharks started this whole balance brace craze for their own evil ends, and somehow got people to sign on. Joking aside, did you ever use a balance brace in your trip around Iceland? Just curious. Although, paddling with Freya I imagine one isn’t permitted the luxury of naps!
Nope - Reread
The original question and many of the replies asked about the value of the maneuver without making any reference to the paddle being used. The narrowness to greenland paddlers only was introduced within some of these replies (but not the subthread this is in).
you’re talking about the OP
I’m talking about what preceded my post
Not your posts…
Nothing wrong with adding some humor…
Regarding Iceland – Freya and I were too driven with the silliness of pushing each other to allow any time to float on my back in the water! Can you say competitive? :^) We did take brief “cat naps” while hugging each other’s kayak during the long crossings.
I used a side scull when going around Newfoundland solo – to cool off and to stretch. It was a welcome break as I was going headland to headland and was frequently out of sight of land.
Greg Stamer
Interpretation of words
I read John Heath’s writings as well when they came out and the statement that a paddler can even take a nap in that position.
However I interpret that as an example of the total ease and effortless balance that the paddler has achieved rather than the literal translation that a paddler would nap in frigid water. I think this is where the distortion of that “myth” has originated. You’ve been in Greenland a few times. Seen anyone napping in the balance brace position? Of course not.
All sports over extend the reach of their competence by doing feats and exercises that are not always used in the endeavor itself.