Tell me what it takes to let you go
Tell me how the pain’s supposed to go
Tell me how it is that you can sleep in the night
Without thinking you lost everything that was
good in your life to the toss of the dice?
Tell me what it takes to let you go.
– Aerosmith

I realized the other day how out of the loop I’d become when I watched a class being taught the “slap and tickle”, no wait, I mean “Slap & Dink” version of the low brace. I had a vision of Captain Kirk turning to Spock and saying, “Aren’t you dead?”. Obviously I don’t get out much!

In case you’ve missed this standard, “Kayaking 101″ , low brace approach… New students come into a class, do a wet exit then go out and learn basic boat control, then bracing. They are told to do the monkey pose by lifting their elbows way up in the air, then slap the hell out of the water while at the same time doing the infamous head dink.. (oh and by the way…HIPSNAP!) I don’t mean to be judgmental and I fully understand the roots of this progression, I used to teach it as well, but watching students awkwardly smack & dink their way through it again simply reminded me why I was so happy to learn about new methods in the first place!

The problem with the old, “Slap-n-Dink” low brace in a flat water class is that students are totally working against themselves. Often having just done wet exits a bit earlier in the day, they really, really.. (REALLY!) don’t want to go over. They tend to sit stiffly and slap down at that water which does not promote good technique as it is. In addition they are totally focused on the water and the paddle,  looking down and aggressively smacking the water producing big audible bangs and splashes.  Body and boat control become secondary and all the noise simply makes bracing seem much ‘bigger’ than it actually is. Yes one student in 5 pushes it, but the other 4 are held back to some degree when they really don’t need to be. Adding in the infamous, “Head Dink” is often like asking them to rub their bellies and pat their heads at the same time. Not to mention asking them to “snap” their hip as well. It often looks like some form of on-water electro-shock therapy. . It’s painful to watch. Is this really a good learning situation?

Naturally students should be (and usually are) pretty excited when you talk say you are going to show them how not to go over. This is after all one of the biggest fears that new students have. It’s also why the newly-in-skirts, slap method can produce some wide eyes and shaky kayaks. I could go off on a whole other post about boat comfort, skirts and wet exits but for today let’s just simply say there are many ways to make students more comfortable in  (and out of) their kayaks by the time they are doing bracing practice. If they are not (for the most part) happy to go over again, they are not ready for bracing in my opinion. Usually students in my classes are madly acclimated to swimming by the time they do low braces. This is a very important first step because I want them to be comfortable enough to learn to brace, not to slap down panic stricken at the evil, bad water.

For a couple years now I’ve been using “The Force Brace” as part of my low brace coaching. Basically low bracing without a paddle. The idea sprang from the old standard concept of “Body, Boat, Blade”. It’s sort of obvious when you think about it. Each skill we learn in a kayak is based on those simple 3 words. They also describe priority of action. With each skill we ask ourselves; “What is our body doing?”, Then, “What is the boat doing?, and finally, “What is the blade doing?”. The hang up for many of us is that we are often detached from our bodies and focus on what we see or hold in our hands. In kayaking that means we are all about our paddle. (Something that can take years to deprogram.) Even when we do address our body movement it is often defined in disconnected jerky motions  meant to provide power that is often overkill. Teaching a no paddle, low brace or “Force” brace keeps us from hyper-focusing on the paddle and allows the students (AND the coach) to concentrate on body and boat control, which in the end are the key elements to a solid brace.

Now if we stop to think about it, the low brace in its simplest “Introduction To Kayaking” form is not really a brace at all. To be precise the “brace”  (or paddle bit) is a punctuation on the end of a righting maneuver. Make sense? What we are trying to do right the kayak at this point, not necessarily to brace. We start from the premise that for whatever reason their kayak is tipping over. Looking at the situation closely we realize that to correct this we have to re-center our weight and right the boat bringing it back into balance. Sometimes we refer to this as bringing the boat back under the paddler. In many ways what the paddle is doing is nothing more than an afterthought, or an enhancement of our other actions. Slapping the blade on the water may provide some resistance, but will not right the boat of its own accord. However, good body and boat control can often right the boat WITHOUT the blade. (Think about hand, elbow, straitjacket rolling as extreme examples.) Another way to look at it is by simply putting your blade 3 inches below the surface, then lean, and brace. Slapping is out, and while you may get some resistance by pushing down it won’t be much. More likely it will just pull you down. The priority is not the paddle.  You must right the boat and re-center your body to recover. Slappy bracing  seems to me to distract students from the necessary skills by putting their focus on the paddle and not the boat.

In my classes students come to the low brace right out of an edging and leaning exercise near the beginning of the class. At this point students have no skirts and have been in and out of their boats repeatedly. Low bracing in fact is the first practical skill they face. (see the proviso at the end of this post) In the “Force Brace” exercise I ask students to put their paddles away and reach their hand out over the water, begin to lean, then right the boat with their hips, knees, head and re-center themselves over the kayak. Remember they just completed leaning and edging exercise and know (at least conceptually) how to right the boats. – Head dink optional! I ask them not to touch the water with their hands. “Use the force, Luke!”.

Once they are doing a good job with their body movements righting the boat, I’ll have them grab their paddles and then go over more standard low brace technique. By now, adding in the paddle at the end simply re-enforces the brace as opposed to being the brace. In fact their technique is often much stronger in my experience than it would have been had I used the old “slap” technique. What’s more, students are more likely to be able to recover from awkward positions much sooner and even, as I mentioned, when their paddle is below the surface.

I’m also a fan of Leon Somme’s “I’m a Little Tea Pot”, low brace exercise where the student holds the paddle with one hand while the other outside arm (opposite the active blade) forms the handle of the tea pot. This exercise again focuses on body and boat and takes the priority off the blade.

Often times we say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and any of the methods we use these days aren’t necessarily broke. Yet there are lots of old methodologies out there that looked great once but can actually frustrate and slow down the students progression. Yet they won’t go away due to lack of communication or training or simply regional kayak czars that prefer not to change. We’re getting better. When it comes to teaching a low brace there are many ways to do it, mine is just one. Still, if you ask me that slappy, dinky method (in sea kayaking at least) is a troubled spirit that hasn’t realized it’s been long dead.
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Proviso Alert!!! – The problem with sharing these little slices of my class outlines is that grabbing one bit or another out of context leaves gaping holes, mis-interpretations, side & sub questions elsewhere. Feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Related Posts:

1. Square Thoughts About The Balance Brace
2. Heavy Horses
3. brace for it. . .
4. Gulf Coast Symposium Report – A GUEST BLOG
5. psychological support