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BeginnerCourseOutline

The course takes place over four Sunday evening sessions 7:00pm - 9:15pm at the Templeton Park pool. Please arrive early to allow time for changing. The following is an approximate course syllabus. Contact training@vankayak.org for more information.

Day 1

• Fitting, lifting and carrying boats and gear.
• Entries and exits - dry and wet. Emergency wet exit.
• Strokes:
  • Basic forward and reverse paddling,
  • Turning: forward and reverse sweep strokes
• Introduction to t-rescue
• Plus fun and games

Day 2

• Learning about types of whitewater boats
• Strokes:
  • Draw stroke (to move sideways in the water)
  • Feathered draw
  • Sculling draw
• T-rescue (a useful skill, and a good intro to rolling)
• Fun and games

Day 3

• Learning about gear
• Strokes
  • C-stroke (a.k.a. bow-draw or duffek) - a turning stroke
  • Combining all the strokes
• Your boat has edges, let's use them!
• T-rescue practice
• Game/Free Time

Day 4

• Review
  • All the strokes so far
  • Anything specific the class wants to work on
• Introduction to rolling
• Games

A note on rolling: Some students find rolling hard to learn, so we don't expect students will complete a roll during this course. We will, however, show you how it's done, and give you the resources you need to work on it after the course. You will have pool time available to you after the course.

Also note: when learning kayaking, people often put a lot of emphasis on learning to roll. It's important, but it's not the most important skill to learn to get down the river. Arguably, a kayaker's goal should be to get down the river without accidentally flipping over. To do that, your best tools are the strokes we're teaching in this course.