The PaddlerUK magazine December 2015 issue 5 | Page 81

Paul Bull Coaching
Disassociation of the top and bottom half of our bodies:

When learning something new, or when something unexpected happens we have a tendency to stiffen up
and become rigid in our movements. This is exactly what we want to try and avoid happening to us when
we attempt to prevent a capsize. If we allow our bodies to become rigid we will soon have our centre of
gravity outside of the gunnels and the boat will continue on it’s capsize path. By “rolling with the punches”
as boxers do and being flexible, keeping our centre of gravity over the boat we are often able to absorb
the impact and allow the boat to move underneath us. At that point, if we disassociate the top half of the
body from the bottom half, shift the weighting from the knee nearest the gunnel that we are capsizing
towards to the opposite knee the boat will start to flatten. If we then follow this movement with our
torso and upper body we can then get our centre of gravity back over the boat and prevent a capsize
from occurring. .

A CAPSIZE
3

Having an active, weighted blade:

Trimming the boat differently changes the shape of
the boat in the water. When we trim towards the
back of the boat we deepen the skeg of the stern in
the water and the boat wants to go straighter. If we
trim forwards, we release that skeg and the bow
bites into the water and the boat pivots around
more quickly.

Once we have initiated our turn we can then microtrim the bo