This low down bitchin’ got my poor feet a itchin’,
You know you know the duece is still wild.
Baby, I can’t stay, you got to roll me
And call me the tumblin’ dice.
-stones

Before I go too deeply into boat fit here I want to be clear I’m mostly talking about sea kayaks and to some extent white water kayaks.  Recreational boats that are shorter, wider and have a big opening on top simply will not provide the sort of fit we talk about when talking about rolling a kayak.  This does not mean you can’t roll one, but it’s a challenge to say the least.  Still, if you currently paddle one of these sorts of kayaks, you’re welcome to follow along as well.  I’m sure we’ll cross a couple of useful points for you as well.

Symbiosis

How you fit into your kayak can be seen as an issue of control.  Simply put, you need places where your body connects to the kayak in order to make it do what you want it to do.   Of course that’s a little too authoritarian for my mind. Another more organic way to look at it is that on the water you become one with your kayak, it becomes your  body, your skeletal structure and your skin. Your relationship to your craft is symbiotic.  You don’t ride in a kayak, you become one with it. You are the heart and mind of the creature, where you connect is simply the nervous system reaching out to the skin sending and receiving messages. The more connections we have the more we are able to sense our environment and control our reaction to it.  We are not paddlers but creatures of the sea.

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