How to do a bow stall - T Buckley

Knowing how to bow stall is the gateway to doing many fun, and epic flatwater freestyle tricks. These tricks can include the flatwater loop, my personal favorite, and the cartwheel. 

Step 1: The first part of doing a bow stall is gaining speed, having speed will help your boat rotate from flat to vertical easily. The more speed the better. When you have your desired speed you need to pick the side, left or right, that you want to bow stall on. 

Step 2: The second step to getting into a bow stall is picking up the nose of your kayak on the desired side. For this step, you want to take a forward or sweep stroke, both work well, and pull you knees to your chest as hard as you can. During this whole step you need to be adding more and more edge to your kayak. 

Step 3: The second to last step is to push down on your back paddle blade, add just a little bit more edge, and swing the back of your kayak over your head by pushing your feet down into the water. If done correctly, your boat should be completely vertical. All you need to do now is balance. 

Step 4: The last part of a bow stall is balancing it once you have your kayak vertical. When you're throwing your feet down, you want to plant your paddle flat on the water, so that once you are vertical your boat, and each of your paddle blades form a tripod. But once you are in this position you have to keep working and maintaining the bow stall by balancing it. When you are in the tripod position, if you feel yourself falling forward on your face put your paddle farther away from your boat, and if you feel yourself flattening out, and falling backwards, move your paddle closer to your boat. 

Bonus Tips:

- Having a paddle with high buoyancy will help balancing

- When you are initiating, if you keep getting vertical but falling on your face immediately, try initiating with less edge. 

- Likewise if you are not even getting vertical, add more edge to the initiation. 

- You're not going to get it on your first try, even if you fallow these steps perfectly, it takes a lot of practice to get a consistent bow stall. So don't ever get discouraged when all your friends are cartwheeling and looping while you're just falling on your face over and over again.