Balancing Your Whitewater Kayak

Balancing a kayak is key for any beginning whitewaterprogress from a novice to intermediate kayaker.
kayaker to understand if they wish to get better.There are a lot of different ways to learn to lean your
There are several easy principles that you have tokayak, from basic techniques like just leaning to one
understand to get better at balancing your kayak. Theside or the other, or lifting one side up using your hip
first thing you have to understand is the differencebut the best way to do it is too learn how to J-Lean. A
between balancing a kayak and leaning in a kayak.J-Lean is a relatively complicated maneuver to explain,
To balance a kayak, all you do is relax your stomachbut if you have someone demonstrate it to you, you
and torso muscles. This allows the kayak to move aswill pick it up right away. We will explain the basic idea
it needs to in the river current without you fighting it.of it here, but to actually learn the J-Lean, take a class
When you tense up and try and fight the current oror ask someone to help you learn it.
river dynamics, that is when flips and spills happen. ByThe basic idea of a J lean is to tilt your boat to one
relaxing you allow your upper body to stay steady andside or the other while keeping your upper body
upright while your lower body moves as it needs too.weight centered over the kayak. To do one, you want
Leaning is a different maneuver that is to be usedto lift on hip up but lean upwards in the direction of the
differently. It is used to help you move your kayakhip. Start small and try not to use your paddle to
through rapids and to counteract the forces in riversbalance. As stated though, plan to take a class or
that want to flip you such as holes and waves. It ishave someone help you learn this one!
probably the single most important skill you will learn to