Bren Orton just makes this kind of stuff look so easy.
Tag: Freestyle Move
The “Floop” is a Flat water Loop. The first thing you’ll have to do is get yourself into a bow stall. If you can’t pull off a bow stall you’ll need to get it cracked before continuing. Once your bow stall has been initiated and then stabilised, start to bounce your boat up and down. Use your paddle and hips to really drive the nose under as much as you can.
Once you have reached what feels like that highest bounce you now pull down really hard once more with your paddle leaning the boat just over vertical to get the boats nose is at maximum depth under the water and the boat is just over vertical if you don’t commit to the next step you’ll just end up planting on your face.
As the boat pushes it self-back up out of the water take your paddle out of the water and reach with your paddle and your whole body to the ceiling giving the boat an extra boost higher. When you feel you’re at the maximum height throw all your body weight and paddle down under the boat just like you would if you were doing a forward somersault. This should release the boat from the water sending it flying over your head. Getting this move down will make a loop in a hole feel quite easy and you’ll find yourself flying a lot higher then you ever did before.
A loop is one of these re-discovered moves that has caught the imagination of paddlers and kayak designers the world over. If you imagine a cartwheel in in hole but with no edging of the kayak involved. The kayak cartwheels (loops) end over end with the bow ploughing under the water and throwning the paddler upside down. As this happens the stern of the now upside down boat gets caught by the on coming water resulting in the paddler ending up right on the wave!!
Small boats with plenty of volume help, as does the addition of an overthruster. This prevents volume being lost due to the spraydeck being pushed inside of the kayak. In addition it also prevents the deck imploding which would probably result in a “technical swim”!
Pick a hole that is deep enough to pull the move in. The last thing you need is finding yourself being driven into the river bed. If the stopper has a high pile then this will also make the move easier to initiate. Continue reading
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