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    Kayaking with Eric Jackson: Rolling and Bracing
    Kayaking with Eric Jackson: Rolling and Bracing
    Kayaking with Eric Jackson: Rolling and Bracing
    Ebook136 pages1 hour

    Kayaking with Eric Jackson: Rolling and Bracing

    By Eric Jackson

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    About this ebook

    From a four-time world-champion freestyle kayaker comes the definitive guide to one of whitewater kayaking's most fundamental techniques: the kayak roll. Learn how to enjoy kayaking safely and improve your skills with confidence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRowmanLittlefield
    Release dateJan 15, 2016
    ISBN9780811763974
    Kayaking with Eric Jackson: Rolling and Bracing
    Author

    Eric Jackson

    Eric Jackson was born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He is a graduate in Telecommunications from Sacred Heart University in Puerto Rico. He was a news writer for Channel 24, an all-news television station in San Juan. He is a former Managing Editor of the Puerto Rico Official Industrial Directory. Currently, he is an Editor of New York City Voices: A Consumer Journal for Mental Health Advocacy, and is the Editor of the Rainbow Heights Journal, the literary magazine of Rainbow Heights Club in Brooklyn. He lives in New York City.

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      Book preview

      Kayaking with Eric Jackson - Eric Jackson

      frn_fig_001

      Kayaking WITH Eric Jackson

      ROLLING and BRACING

      frn_fig_002

      Kayaking WITH Eric Jackson

      ROLLING and BRACING

      By Eric Jackson

      STACKPOLE BOOKS

      Copyright © 2016 by Eric Jackson

      Published by

      STACKPOLE BOOKS

      5067 Ritter Road

      Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

      www.stackpolebooks.com

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books, 5067 Ritter Road, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania 17055.

      Printed in the United States of America

      10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

      First edition

      Cover design by Tessa J. Sweigert

      Cover image by the author

      Photos by the author except where noted

      Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file with the Library of Congress.

      ISBN 978-0-8117-1673-4

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      CHAPTER 1: KAYAKING BEST PRACTICES

      CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING A STRATEGY

      Setting Your Priorities

      Identifying Best Practices by Watching and Talking to Others

      CHAPTER 3: LEARNING KAYAK SKILLS

      Four Independent Moving Parts and Your Brain

      Learning the Proper Habits for Your Head, Paddle, Boat, and Body

      CHAPTER 4: ROLLING

      How Does the Roll Work?

      Learning the Roll

      The Hand Roll

      Bombproofing Your Roll

      CHAPTER 5: BRACING

      High Brace

      Sculling Brace

      Low Brace

      Catch Yourself from Falling Drills

      Whitewater Bracing

      CHAPTER 6: TEACHING THE ROLL

      My Winning Strategy

      Tactics for Teaching the Roll

      Summary of Teaching the Roll

      INTRODUCTION

      This book is a compilation of the best practices for rolling and bracing that I have learned or created over the years for the most basic and key skill that any whitewater kayaker needs to enjoy the sport safely and progress with confidence—the kayak roll.

      The definition of a good kayak roll is Rolling up the first time, every time. The definition of a great kayak roll is Rolling up the first time, every time, really fast. I will teach you how to achieve a good—and preferably great—roll for yourself by breaking it down into its parts and then taking a holistic approach. Once you can perform the kayak roll in flat water, we’ll learn how to make it work for you in whitewater. We will also learn lots of fun drills to improve your roll in any situation, and you will even learn to hand roll. Bombproofing your roll, simply making sure it works for you when you need it most, is always a fun part of the process. You will find more great drills to do that here. For those of you who want to spread the love of kayaking to others, I have included a Teaching the Roll section at the end of the book. Before we get started with the actual roll, let’s have a little dialogue about best practices in kayaking.

      CHAPTER 1

      Kayaking Best Practices

      I made my biggest discoveries while standing on the shoulders of giants.

      LEONARDO DA VINCI

      Best practices can be defined as learning from, collecting, and using the techniques, skills, and methods that have the highest success rate for any given activity. What that means for a kayaker is that the best way to learn to paddle, feel safe, and have fun, is to familiarize yourself with techniques that are easy to learn, effective, fun, and safe. There are world champion slalom racers who can’t roll in whitewater. There are amazing extreme creek boaters who can’t make it through a basic slalom course, and there are awesome freestyle kayakers who can’t creek boat or paddle a slalom course. Why is that? It is because they didn’t follow some best practices. They have spent so much time learning their specific skill sets and using their amazing skills in one area that they have failed to develop some of the basic skills needed in other areas. All kayakers, no matter what type of boat or waters they paddle, benefit from knowing the best practices and techniques that apply to paddling overall.

      I have been fortunate enough to not only rub elbows with, but also spend years of my life with and paddle daily with many of the best paddlers in the different whitewater categories. River running, playboating, creeking, expedition, and slalom racing are key areas where today’s paddlers have developed important techniques, equipment, and safety skills. These developments and best practices are available to you to help you make your kayaking experiences as fun, safe, and fast-tracked as possible. This book shows you the best practices for rolling and bracing, so you can learn and apply them, no matter what type of whitewater kayaking you choose to do.

      Learning something incorrectly hurts your progress, making your efforts frustrating and not as much fun. Kayaking has no centralized forum for sharing best practices, so beware: The sport is full of rhetoric that just isn’t true, will hurt your progress, and may even put you at risk. My goal is to help you steer clear of that. The information in this book is the best I can offer today from the sources I have available to me.

      Getting out of a hole upside down. Learning kayaking best practices will help you feel safe and have fun on the water.

      CHAPTER 2

      Developing a Strategy

      The difference between the professional and the amateur soldier is that the professional focuses on logistics, while the amateur focuses on tactics.

      WINSTON CHURCHILL

      Setting Your Priorities

      What setting your priorities means, as I apply it, is that you should first decide your overall goal. Once you know what you want, you can determine the order, scope, and method of what you need to learn. You need a logistical plan first before you can select the specific skills and techniques you want to learn (i.e., the tactics).

      For example, if you want to bombproof your roll, be proficient in your strokes, or win events, you’ll need to devise a strategy that will allow you to understand what you need to learn and why, and then begin learning the skills that will help you achieve those goals. It is not uncommon for instructors and students to teach and learn individual skills without an overall strategy. These people find the skills difficult to master and often lose their skills quickly. A good strategy starts with deciding what you want to learn and achieve and

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