The Flatwater Loop

 - Thanks to team fluid member Adrian Tregoning for the photographs used in this article!

The loop is a very cool looking trick, and it's within the reach of most paddlers. It's a great trick that is easier to pull off than it looks. With a bit of practise you'll be able to add this one to your collection.

The only pre-requisite for doing the loop is a very stable bow stall. If you can bow stall comfortably for 10-15 seconds, you'll have a very good chance of getting the loop right when you start to work on it. If you are fighting to stay balanced while in a bow stall, spend a little bit more time getting that nailed. If you are concentrating on your balance, you won't be able to focus on the steps required to loop. A quality play boat like the Nemesis will also help!

If you can hold your bow stall, get into a bow stall and begin experimenting with bouncing your boat up and down. The bounce helps to get your boat a little bit higher, buying time for you to loop the boat. The coolness of the move is in direct proportion to how high you go when you loop it! You need to coordinate your upper and lower body movements while you bounce.

When you are in a bow stall, your paddle blades are in the water, with a blade on each side of you. If you pull the blades toward you, the boat will sink. If you push the blades deeper into the water, your boat will rise. The trick with this is to push and pull as hard as possible, without losing your balance or pulling the blades out of the water.

Once you are comfortable with that, try using your legs to get a bit more height from your bounces. When you pull the blades toward you, use your weight to sink deeper. When you push the blade away from you, push your feet against the foot block. This will add height to your bounce. Work on this to make sure that you can still balance while bouncing. See how high you can get the boat to go! Once you are comfortable doing this, you are ready to follow this step by step guide to the flatwater loop:

Step One: You need to bounce your boat so that you can get the required height to loop. For a start, it is easiest to bounce twice, and launch the move off your second bounce. Get into the bow stall and begin to bounce. Take one smaller bounce and go straight into the second bounce.

 
When you push off the foot block at the end of the second bounce, try to make it a solid movement. (A top tip here is not to get carried away with the bounce when you are learning. If you are getting a stable bounce with some height it will be sufficient to learn, trying too hard on the bounce often leads to people blowing the next steps).

Step Two: At the end of your second bounce you should have pushed off the foot blocks to gain height. You will be able to feel when the boat is reaching the maximum height that your bounce will give you. Make sure that you start with step two before you start to fall back down! When you are about to reach your maximum height, throw your head towards your crotch.

This should be a forceful movement that begins your rotation.

Step Three: As soon as you moved your head towards your crotch, your legs need to finish everything off. Getting this right is more important than the height of your bounce, and failing to do this is why learning to loop can frustrate people.

The best way to explain this is to simply throw your legs backward, away from the rest of your body. The first two steps put you in a position to do this, and by using your legs you complete the move. Use as much force as you can to do this.

If you do all three of these steps, and get the timing between them right, you will begin to get a feel for the loop.

In my opinion, you don't need to worry about your upper body while you learn the move. The more things that you try to focus on the harder the move is going to be to learn. As long as you throw your head forward during step two, your upper body seems to end up doing the right thing. Have fun learning this one!

By Rowan Walpole