Functional Freestyle Canoe Clinic
| River: | Haw |
| Skill: | All |
| Trip Date: | 05/03/2025 |
“Canoe Freestyle is the art and science of precision, quiet water paddling.” Thus began the required evening lecture on the night before North Carolina’s first canoe freestyle clinic, hosted May 3 in Saxapahaw.
Our guest of honor was Marc Ornstein, the famous “Lady in Red” canoeist known to many from YouTube. Marc was able to work us into an annual road trip from his retirement in Florida up to the New Jersey Pine Barrens where he annually teaches a full week course in canoe freestyle. The clinic was sponsored chiefly by the Carolina Canoe Club, but The Haw River Canoe & Kayak Co. was instrumental in providing lodgings to Marc (and his pup Rascal), the lecture space for Friday night, and some day of accommodations Saturday.
Alton Chewning can be credited with lighting the fire for this clinic. He and I first discussed freestyle with Paul Ferguson at his home in Raleigh in late 2024 and Alton soon was hooked on supporting this clinic from start to finish. William Holman also played a major role in accelerating his credentialing at Level 2 in River Canoeing through the ACA to allow the club to operate under our normal insurance coverage. William joined the class on the water as instructor, and Steve Johnson, Brian Dean Hamilton, Hal Vincent and I made up the remaining clinic attendees. (Rodney Sigrist, Ingrid Haddon and Deb Hinzman took part in a private lesson with Marc on the preceding Friday, being unable to attend the Saturday clinic.)
On Friday night Marc brought us up to speed on the history of freestyle (originally called “sport” canoeing), whose founders came from strong backgrounds in physics. He explained some of the fancier standards in competition freestyle, like a “split-rail” level of lowering the gunnel on a spinning maneuver (lowering the gunnel until water comes onto the top of the gunnel, but not into the canoe). We were taken on a deep dive into the mechanics and nuance of the catch, power and recovery phases of ordinary forward strokes – all more variable than first meets the eye in standard paddling.
Saturday’s class on Saxapahaw Lake covered 4 core freestyle moves (following an impressively insightful brush up on the J stroke): (1) axel, (2) post, (3) christie, and (4) wedge. A fifth move, the gimbal, was also briefly examined. Other than the gimbal, the core moves in freestyle all work to efficiently capture preexisting forward motion of the canoe and effectuate full or partial spins. (The gimbal is a stationary spinning maneuver.) Because of the forward motion common denominator to most all moves, application of these skills in streams and rivers is clearly possible.
The “axel” and “post” are similar maneuvers: the boat in forward motion is initiated into a carving turn by a J stroke, a bow (or cross bow) draw is then placed statically (sometimes called the “running” bow draw) and then eventually closed dynamically after spinning motion begins to slow. The result is a 180 degree turn of the bow to the onside. (The “post” involves similar moves but turns the bow 180 degrees to the offside.) In both cases the boat is “heeled” (leaned) to the onside. The clinic reviewed the axel in depth and the post only in passing, as the offside/post application is a more advanced skill.
The ” christie” is an onside turn around a low brace made on the stern onside. The brace is held until turning by momentum is dying out, and then a reverse solo sweep from the brace position to the bow completes the 180 degree turn. The boat is heeled to the onside.
Lastly the “wedge” (similar to the whitewater jam) is initiated with the canoe under momentum by making a static placement at the bow, trailing edge of the canoe blade to the hull and the power face opened around a 45 degree angle. As in whitewater applications, this particular move can place an unintentionally abrupt offside turning force to the boat, sending the canoeist swimming a la an onside out of boat experience.
The canoe draws people for different reasons, but the challenge and pleasure of refining one’s boat control with “half the paddle” is a common one. For anyone who resonates with paddling canoes for such a reason, I highly recommend catching the next freestyle clinic the Carolina Canoe Club puts on. Whether intended for your own private enjoyment, competition level precision, or application in whitewater venues – canoe freestyle training is a worthwhile investment for any canoeist.
Like whitewater paddlers with a park and play spot, I feel like this exposure to freestyle has gotten me back into eyeing roadside ponds and glass-water coves. Regardless of whether my local river sections are running, I could always go sharpen my…axe(l).