MIDWEST CANOE SYMPOSIUM – 2018
John Paul Tolson
After 40 years of paddling, mostly on rivers in the same canoe, it was time for an old paddler to add spice to paddling life. I had shown up briefly for the Western Pennsylvania Solo Canoe Rendezvous and the Midwest Canoe Symposium several years ago after some gentle and enthusiastic urging from Bruce Kemp, and enjoyed a small taste of FreeStyle canoeing. The impressions of the paddling skills and beautiful boats that I witnessed on those occasions remained with me. I promised to return, more fully committed to learning some of the techniques that allow FreeStylers to achieve such smooth and graceful command and movement of their canoes.
Though I feel confident in getting a canoe to go where I want it to, it hasn’t always been the most efficient or most pleasing to watch. I likened it to having a paddle connected to a universal joint jerking randomly in three-dimensional disorder. It was easy to see that FreeStyle techniques bring order to such chaos and add elegance to a paddler’s strokes. Acquiring a modest level of these skills at the 2018 Midwest Canoe Symposium was my aim.
But a lumbering 17-foot, 80-pound Old Town Tripper and a whitewater paddle are hardly the choices of serious freestylers. Even after 40 years of paddling they were all I had and would have to do until two instructors, Tracy Hunt and Paul Klonowski, took pity and allowed me to try their FreeStyle blades. Wow! What a joy! What a pleasure! What a revelation! And a host of other superlatives! The beautiful wooden and lightweight paddles sliced so quietly and smoothly through the underwater recovery strokes that they seemed effortless. It was a wonderful new sensation, opening my eyes even more to this paddling subculture.
The weekend was filled with learning and practicing the building blocks of freestyle maneuvers–axle, post, christie, and wedge as well as draw and pry sideslips–using forward strokes and onside paddle placement. (It was also filled with lots of rain from Hurricane Gordon, but we hardly noticed.) To see and feel how subtle changes in paddle placement and blade angle move the canoe in these maneuvers was stimulating and recharged my paddling batteries.
Among many other classes offered during the weekend, one on reverse strokes was particularly useful. The mental light bulb of understanding how better to move and control a canoe kept getting brighter and brighter. The philosophy and practice of using different instructors to teach the building blocks throughout the weekend was also a big plus. Each brought a different approach and way of explanation to instruction. All were helpful. All were excellent.
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Learning the freestyle building blocks and improved back stroke would have been enough to take away from the symposium. But there was so much more–many other classes; a night paddle with music and floating glow sticks; outstanding freestyle performances, a seminar on canoe design; music with the freestylers open band; and incredible amounts and variety of delicious comestibles.
Organizing this event is a big effort. Bob and Elaine Mravetz and the others who put it on are to be highly commended. It must be a labor of love, because it is certainly a lot of work. To all of you and my instructors–Tracy Hunt, Paul Klonowski, Tim Burris and Bob Man–thank you for a terrific experience.
Ed. note: Images are compiled from several sources, but most likely Bruce Kemp’s collection, unless otherwise noted.