How to Move Sideways while Kayaking

Video Transcript

"The next thing we're going to talk about is dynamic draws or the movement called the beam. This is the beam of the boat, we're moving sideways to that. I also call it parallel parking. It's a nice way to shift sideways if you just want to be over a few feet or if you have to go over it long distance you can also use this. There are 2 ways to do this; one is called the sculling draw and the other one is draw to the hip. Let me show you what it does first and then we can break it down into parts. So you can see I'm shifting sideways, I'll come back to you. Some key things to remember, remember those principles again. I'm going to turn my torso to face my work, my paddle blade is vertical, I'm going to take it out of the water so you can see actually what I'm doing. Basically I place out beside me, I draw it into the side of the boat and then I want to change the blade angle so I can slice away with no resistance. Again, it comes in, I turn and slice. Key thing is to make sure that body is turning towards where you want to go and you're looking in the direction. So again it's here, vertical paddle shaft slicing in and out and it's best to slightly tilt away if you can or maintain a flat boat. Tilting away I think it's better. So you're basically sweeping the dust under the rug. I'll come back to you with the sculling draw. It's little bit different it's kind of like spreading peanut butter on white bread. So I'll basically do it this way so you can see it. As you can see I'm doing slight figure 8's back and forth with my paddle kind of leading edge, leading edge and nice and gentle. You don't want to be too harsh with that, nice and gentle. When you feel comfortable with that motion you can then spread that peanut butter on the side of your kayak. I'm still doing the same motion it's just under the water now. I'm rotating and facing my work and sliding and gliding across the water."