How to Survive and master slides in whitewater kayaking

No matter how you cut it, slides are tons of fun. There are all types of slides, and while some are big and scary, many are not. Regardless of whether you are having a blast on some mellow slides or trying to set a world speed record on something large there are a few techniques which will help you ensure success. Watch below as Shane helps us out with some basic slide technique:

Keep your hips loose and your weight centered over your boat. Just like riding a snowboard or any other board sport for that matter, the last thing you want to do is get sideways and catch an edge. Just focus on looking where you want to go and setting your angle at the top. Lots of times there are curlers and other features you may have to deal with on the way down, so be sure to plan ahead for those. Typically, if the curler is parallel to your boat, you want to give a slight lean into it so you don't get flipped. Don't lean too much though to keep your balance. Sometimes you are more perpendicular to the curler or at an oblique angle to it. To make sure you punch through it, take a stroke on the side opposite to the curler's direction so you don't get tossed to the side.

Notice the paddler (who has a broken right paddle blade!) doesn't take a stroke to counteract this little curler coming from left to right.

You can see in this photo where he wound up. If he had taken that right stroke to counteract the curler's rightward momentum he would have gone straight through it instead of being pushed right.