The J-lean is Dead!?
Published September 30, 2011 | 
So Nancy Salsbury of Rutabaga is working on ideas for next year’s Canoecopia. She sent out an email asking paddlers for ideas for workshops. In amongst the hundreds of good ideas was a reply by a great coach which said, “How about one called “The J-Lean is Dead!”. OK, so I must have missed a meeting. Now, I’m not hot on names.. I usually tell students, “Were going to make the kayak do this.” or “We’re going to make the kayak do that.” I only use names as an afterthought. I don’t want students to focus on names as much as focus on skills.. So, just to be sure I knew what I was talking about I went to our favorite Kayak Wiki and read, “In the J-Lean, you use your hips to tilt the boat, but maintain your center of gravity over the center of buoyancy by keeping your upper body upright and perpendicular to the water surface. Its called a J-Lean since if you look head-on at someone doing this move, their body is in the shape of the letter J.” I think I call that edging myself, but um, why don’t we do that any more?
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6 Responses to The J-lean is Dead!?
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If they were just talking about the term “J-Lean” being dead, I would say good riddance. I, too, know it as edging. But why would it take a workshop to tell the tale, I hope you’re on the case, Derrick.
My vote for a workshop would be, naturally enough, Cold Water Safety. Could you toss that ring into her hat for me, Derrick? Or get her email address to me…
Moulton
I’ll mention that.
I went to a class two seasons back wherein we were told “First we’re going to do the J lean. Then we’ll work on edging.”
Huh?
I wonder if one could say that a body does j-lean, while the boat edges?
Of course, why would anyone get their sprayskirt in a knot over nomenclature?
LOL my sprayskirt is fine (if that was directed to me, all good Marius).
Now that I’ve been paddling a few years I discount a fair amount of kayak dogma, and especially when it is mashed up w. canoe terminology.
Nomenclature does matter when someone is a student and esp. if just starting out… we are all ears. We are trying to remember what to do in part by remembering what it is called.
Some instructors forget that, and make things a bit harder when new skills are being learned, and then practiced back home w. others who didn’t take the same class w. the same instructor.