How to do a 45 Degree Static Draw while Kayaking

Video Transcript

"There are many different draws out there that we use in whitewater kayaking or sea kayaking or kayaking in general and they're specific to what you want to do. A draw basically is placing the blade in the water and using in a static motion and using the water to turn your boat. Let me show you a few different kinds and then we'll talk about the specifics. I'm going to paddle away and come on forward to you. You can see I'm gliding across the water maintaining my arc, that's gliding draw. So I'm going to come towards you again and let me show a defect or bow draw. You can see that the turns are slightly different. One is a small turn, very sharp stops your momentum and one is more gliding draw, you maintain your momentum through the turn. So let's just talk about them really briefly I'll go through the parts of the gliding draw first. What I like to do is do a forward stroke and then at the end I'm going to do a little out of the water so you can see it. I kind of hang my blade about 45 degrees to the back of the boat, rotating my torso into the turn remember and have my shaft angle not totally vertical, not totally horizontal somewhere in between and this maintains the arc of the turn. If I didn't do that I would just slip out the back. Let me show you if I didn't do a gliding draw what would happen to my turn."