The PaddlerUK magazine September 2015 issue 4 | Page 7

Kickflip:

From skateboarding (the inimitable and amazing
Rodney Mullen no less), and adapted to kayaking
by Corran Addison sometime in the late 1990s.

ORIGINAL
Airscrew:

Corran Addison, “The air screw was originally called
the Airchimedes Screw (named after the Archimedes
screw that pumped water circa 500BC) but no one
knew what I was talking about so it evolved to just
airscrew.”

Pan-Am:

Corran Addison, “Because of the Lockerbie crash
back in the 1980s – the first Pan Ams I was doing I
described as ‘take off, and then go into a spiralling dive
to crash’. I pulled the first one off in competition in
early spring 1999 at the Chambly Rodeo in Quebec.”

Helix:

The helix was invented and named by Steve
Fisher after some years of development on the
Zambezi River. The name presumably derives
from the definition of the word (‘spiral’).

Matrix:

Tyler Curtis, c1999, origin of name unknown, but
it’s probably named after the movie, which came
out in 1999.

Tricky Whu:

Invented on the Ottawa at the right-hand side of
Horseshoe Hole in the summer of 1999 or
2000 by Brendan Marks. A blind splitwheel into
the recently-invented matrix (above). “It’s a weird
name by design as it was a parody of the other
freestyle names at the time.There was a band
named Tricky Woo, and I remember paddling with
Tyler laughing that it would be funny if announcers
had to shout out moves like ‘tricky whu’ over the PA. I
was planning to win the local rodeo that year with the
move, but the week before the event I taught EJ how
to do it and I ended up placing behind him in second.
He beat me using the tricky whu!”

Morphius:

Corran Addison, c2000. “Morphius came from the
matrix move as a sort of nose variant.”

Side Kick: 

Eric Jackson, “This is where you start an airscrew,
bring the boat over your body, then bring it back down
the way it came… super fun but not on the score
sheet.”