Kit Reviews, Travel and Advice
If any of you have ever tried an Exo kayak (or a plastic GuiGui), you’ve probably noticed how easily the backband pops out. It’s very difficult to lock the rope into the cleat properly, and just when you think it’s finally secure… it pops out again! If this happens mid-trick or mid-boof you can waste […]
Hello everyone! I know it’s been a while since my last blog post – and this one is quite niche – but hopefully we’ll be getting back into the swing of it this summer with some more widely applicable posts. I have owned a GoPro Hero (2018) for around two years now, but after fiddling […]
Moving on from my tutorial of how to Lunar Orbit on flatwater, I’m now going to explain how to do it on whitewater – something I recently learned myself. For the purposes of this tutorial I will be explaining the steps to do a lunar orbit on a steep feature (as pictured below) – a […]
I realised that one tutorial which would probably help with some of my other recent posts like how to tricky woo, lunar orbit or double pump would be how to cartwheel. Continuing with the same layout as previous posts, a cartwheel is officially defined as “at least two consecutive ends in the same rotational direction, […]
In this post I’m going to go right back to basics and explain how to surf in a hole/stopper (which is where water pours over a submerged object causing the surface water to flow back upstream towards the object). Whether you’re interested in freestyle or river running this is probably one of the first things […]
Following on from my previous tutorials I’ll be explaining how to flatwater Tricky Woo. This is a trick I’ve been able to do for a while on my right, but learning how to do it on my left reminded me how confusing it can be and how a few little tips here and there can […]
Today I’m going to be explaining how to McNasty on flatwater which is a trick I’ve been focussing on a lot over the past month, even working to get it down on my offside (something I’m normally quite lax about). To be able to do the trick you need to know how to double pump […]
In this post I’m going to be following on from two of my previous tutorials (https://patrickyak.blog/2020/05/08/how-to-double-pump/ and https://patrickyak.blog/2020/07/02/how-to-bow-stall/) and will explain how to loop on flatwater. Once you can confidently double pump and bow stall, learning to flatwater loop isn’t particularly difficult and could be learned within a few hours if you really put your […]
The back deck is one of the most popular rolling techniques when kayaking, it is easy to learn if you can already sweep roll and is much faster to complete making it a favourite with whitewater paddlers. In this tutorial I will be assuming that you can already sweep roll comfortably and that you understand […]
The lunar orbit is a freestyle trick that you can do both on whitewater and flatwater, but while it is an advanced trick on whitewater, on flatwater it is considerably easier and can be learnt alongside the cartwheel, tailey and bow stall. In this post I will only be focussing on the technique involved in […]
Warming up is boring. You want to get on the water and start paddling, stretches only slow you down and get in the way. Wrong! I’ve managed to pull my shoulders and lower back a couple of times while kayaking and normally these things go away in a few hours, but last Tuesday I injured […]
Last Saturday I went to Chertsey and spent the day there. I’m going to go over what I thought of the feature, give a few tips as well as explain the typical things like how to get there, safety and whether I think it’s really worth travelling to in order to train… Chertsey will be […]
It’s been a while since my last tutorial post (How To Double Pump) so I thought I’d do a follow up article explaining the next step – how to bow stall. Some people manage to figure this out almost immediately and others take months, I found that the process requires three key steps and once […]
The double pump is pretty much the first thing you should learn if you’re trying to do any sort of flatwater freestyle. Effectively it’s the first end of a cartwheel and it sets you up to learn more complicated tricks like a tricky woo or loop. Some people learn how to tailee beforehand but I […]
In this post I’m going to go over how I tie my kayaks to our roof rack, I had some interesting experiences trying to figure out the best way to do this and I’ve seen that there many different ways to do it with either multiple straps, bungees or even just a throw-line. I chose […]
This is one of the hardest tricks to learn but it is also one of the most impressive. A phonics is defined as a “pirouette initiated by a cross-bow stroke in a front surf position, followed by a front loop in one fluid motion,” and it is worth 140 points (190 with air) which makes […]
I have spent quite a lot of time outfitting each of my playboats; starting with my original 2016 Rockstar I then progressed to a plastic Jed and now a carbon Jed; I also have an Exo Rexy for river running. Each of these boats has come with slightly different stock outfitting and consequently I’ve had […]
Alright. What is a blunt? A blunt is a 180 degree horizontal rotation at a vertical angle greater than 45 degrees, clear of the foam pile, where the competitor rotates around the bow of the boat. Ignoring boring definitions, the blunt is probably one of first wave moves that you will attempt to learn and […]
Patrick Kyak 