3 Ways of Many

Published August 25, 2008 |

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There’s more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done
There’s far too much to take in here
More to find than can ever be found
- elton john

Before I go on to tell you about the Qajaq Training Camp I should probably take a moment to talk a bit about paddling. One of the most important concepts behind becoming a better paddler is learning to master boat control. Simply, making your kayak do what you want it to do. Classes, symposiums, training camps, friends, clubs and lots of practice get us there. We also learn quite quickly that boat control is NOT about the paddle. Well, the paddle is involved but at the same time we tend to way over focus on our paddles, but that only gets us so far. What we really need to be focusing on is our bodies. When we figure this out we really begin to accelerate in our learning. Thing is, what’s the best way to do that?

There is no one way to learn. In fact if you focus too hard on one style or methodology you may be holding yourself back. In Euro paddling we may turn to the concepts of Body, Boat, Blade. An idea that basically prioritizes your focus. What’s your body doing? Then what is your boat doing? Lastly. . (see that, “lastly”) what is my blade or my paddling doing?. So “Body, Boat, Blade” is one step in our learning process. Another way we learn is through play.

It’s Chris!

Play is, and always has been an important part of proper development. Play asks us to step outside the “proper” and do something imaginary and yes, silly. In kayaking we play games, we crawl all over our kayaks, we flip, we spin, we fall over, we roll. Play allows us not only to see things in new ways, but to FEEL things in new ways. Play makes us better paddlers.

Another way to learn to be a better paddler is to go back and figure out how it was all done in the beginning. To the Inuit kayaking was not “body, boat, blade” exacty. It was not about play. It was serious business. It had to be. In the harsh conditions of the North Atlantic there was just not much room for error. Obviously they had a lot to teach us. The problem was that the lessons of these expert sea kayakers was almost lost to the world. Sadly there are some things that probably were lost. On the other hand thankfully a few innovative paddlers started asking questions. They began to wonder if we weren’t re-inventing the wheel. Maybe we were missing something. . .

Dan Segal

In various places around the states guys started trying to figure out what those original kayakers were doing. People like John Heath, Dan Segal, Doug Van Doren, Turner Wilson, Greg Stamer and many other dedicated folks began to dig. They found many things that were quite different from what we were doing today. The boats were different. Why? The paddles were different. Again, why was that? The kayak roll was different. In fact, the Inuit had a whole vocabulary around rolling alone! It was something like discovering an ancient text that had to be deciphered. Then without always having people to teach them, they had to re-discover how it all worked. Sometimes they got it right, and sometimes they got it wrong but in the end they were always learning. The resurgence of what we now call “traditional” paddling has been a watershed. It wasn’t long before folks were traveling up to Greenland to hunt down that old knowledge. They found in fact that all was not lost. Even though few were still hunting by kayak there were people who remembered. Older men who hunted in their youth. Others who had knowledge passed to them by parents, grandparents, uncles, and friends. There was so much to learn!

Greg Stamer

Thanks to all these dedicated paddlers, students, researchers, and mentors we are again gaining this priceless knowledge. However, once something becomes established it’s hard to introduce new (or in this case, old) ideas. So for a time traditional paddling seemed somehow out of the main stream. People to this day still want to debate Euro-blades vrs traditional ones, skin boats vrs fiberglass, and on and on. Something akin to arguing over whether the earth is round or flat. Dogma is a hard thing to break. To be sure that goes both ways. Some felt that those old traditions were the only way to paddle. Some modern paddlers thought those old skills didn’t apply to our modern world.

To complicate things more even these new age traditional paddlers couldn’t always agree. When we were finally getting good information from Greenland some doubted its authenticity thinking that modern ideas had occluded the old methods even in Greenland itself. Some preferred their early ideas over what they were actually hearing coming out of Greenland today. Debates went on over proper strokes, paddle shapes, and on and on. All the while, all these debates kept the paddling community wondering. In a sense sea kayaking divided into groups. Euro vrs Traditional and region vrs region. Thankfully this all is starting to dissipate. We’re figuring out that everyone was essentially right.

So that long winded little story brings us back to where we sit today. Paddlers who are truly looking to grow regardless of their chosen discipline have a lot to gain by delving into the world of traditional paddling. Luckily we can do that quite easily thanks to all the hard work and debate of those “early adopters”. Gatherings like Delmarva, SSTIKS, and of course QajaqTC are where we can go to learn more. If you’ve heard that traditional gatherings are not for everyone, it’s time to put away those old ideas and come join us. Next I’ll tell more about what I learned at QajaqTC 08.

If you’d like to learn more about Modern Greenland (or Traditional) Sea Kayaking you may enjoy this video.

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