manoeuvres

If you ignore distinctions such as left/right and forward/backward, there are six classes of canoe manoeuvre plus stationary. By stringing together manoeuvres you can construct routines, and by coordinating manoeuvres and routines for multiple canoes, you can create dances. Michael Ketemer has written a very useful article on the manoeuvre which you can download in Acrobat Reader format.

The chart below shows six classes of manoeuvre. These, plus stationary, correspond to the thirteen manoeuvres in part one of Michael’s article (Michael calls some things classes that I call variations, no real problem, just a difference).

To do any of these well requires good paddling skills, but they are all quite possible. The curve pivot is, admittedly, conceptually challenging. I’ve constructed a page of curves with animations to help clarify the relationship between pivots and curves (and also to stretch my own conceptions).

I’ve also added a page of pivots which extends the notion of the pivot.

Click any figure to see an animation.

stationary: where it all starts and ends

1) pivot

2) straight line

3) displaced circle: curved path, no pivot

4) circle: curved path, matching pivot

5) line pivot: straight path plus pivot

6) circle: curved path, different pivot