#2 Waterfalls, Freestyle & Evolution

All right, here we are, another podcast.

This time I'm doing the driving through this podcast, which is number two of Wet N Dry.

And speaking of driving, I have to address it in the last podcast.

I said that maybe the 14 year old brand wouldn't be that stoked with the car.

I'm driving around him right now.

And that is honestly not the case.

Like 14 year old me would be like, dude, do you have a car?

Do you use it to go kayaking?

That's sick, man.

You know, he wouldn't care what car I'm in.

But we do have a lot of friends having mid life crisis right now and buying big expensive

fast cars.

That's right.

Just a matter of time until we're there.

But for now, let's enjoy just being mobile on the road.

Dude, I would settle for reliably starting and making it through the entire journey.

True.

But in fact, this is the first time, I guess, on the trip where we have a reliable car,

which is quite a new way.

Unbelievable.

I think I'm still not used to it, not like trying to hear for like weird engine noises

or like making it uphill and like always checking the temperature gauge on the car, stuff like

that.

I thought I was going deaf because I was like, I don't hear anything.

It's so silent.

You know, it's not an electric car or anything.

It's Adrian's van, which is sick.

But you know, to not hear like knocking or like some whining, there's like something's

wrong.

Maybe I'm deaf.

But yeah, other things to talk about based off the last podcast is we were talking about

waterfalls and I especially was pretty critical about people stepping up to waterfalls.

And that's sort of fair and sort of not fair because the only way to know is to go over

the edge.

That's the only way you're going to learn.

But at the same time, you want to give yourself the best possible chances for success, you

know?

If you're not always wrong, you can really get hurt or worse and you want to give yourself

the best chance to get it right.

And for me, that comes with being a good all-round kayaker, learning how to control your kayak

in like multiple angles and different environments.

And you know, then after that comes waterfalls and air awareness and all of that stuff.

But I unfortunately, I see so many times a lot of people stepping up to big waterfalls.

And I don't, I think it's just a bit too soon so many times.

Yeah, definitely.

I feel like we're in a different phase now.

I feel like maybe five years ago when running big waterfalls was everything, people would

come into the sport and then really quickly transferred to that side of things.

I remember a few people who like just went quickly into running big drops and got super,

quickly super good at it.

But that was their thing.

Whereas now, just in general, I feel like I see less, even on social media, I see less

big waterfalls being run on the daily compared to like a few years ago.

Obviously now it's different stuff.

It's way more versatile.

It's the done with a freestyle apart.

We're going to talk about later a little bit.

But just a pure amount of like 60, 70, 80 photos being run on the daily, I think is decreasing.

I don't know.

What do you think?

Yeah, man.

I think it goes through waves.

I think at the moment now, it's hard as well because we're in our own bubble.

But for me, the downward the freestyle movement is the thing.

It certainly got to a point where it was hard to differentiate between people on waterfalls.

And now with downward the freestyle is a big way to separate people.

Are you just kayaking down the waterfall?

Are you hitting flips and tricks off it on your way down as well?

I think with that and with that pursuit of down river freestyle, you have to work towards

being the most well-rounded kayaker you can be.

And for me, that's always been my goal.

To rock up to any river, any spot, get in any kayak and just be able to rip and shred.

That's what I've always wanted.

That's certainly all my heroes did as well.

Like Rush Sturgers, Dave Fassili, Pat Keller, various others.

Anymore, although, Denny Mar's epic on big water and stuff, but his whole freestyle is

lacking for sure.

I think I can never say I saw Benny do any whole freestyle tricks.

I think only by accident.

And even then, not that often.

But yeah, I think it's cool when people find a part of kayaking that they really love and

they devote themselves to it.

But for me, I want all of it.

I want to be the best that I can at every side of this sport.

Admittedly, I'm not into competitions anymore.

But yeah, like, saw kayaking and trying to be good at all the sides of the sport is my

main focus.

And I think we're seeing that more because of the slicey kayak movement as well.

You know, like, for those that don't know, kayaks come in all different shapes and sizes.

I would say a slicey kayak is sort of similar to maybe like a sloped style mountain bike.

You know, you can kayak down some harder rapids in it, but you can also hit some tricks in

it as well.

It sort of blends between the two different styles of kayaks and really just opens up

a wall to possibilities to you on the water.

And you know, if you think when we first started in the half slice kayaks, you were in the

rexie.

I was in the rexie.

You were in the rip up back in 2019 with the first trip to Norway.

And these things be like, yep, that's going to be it.

Elsewise.

Yeah.

Well, I remember talking about it with you and we were like, Oh God, I don't know if

this is such a good idea because, you know, Norway's big, stout and powerful and normally

you want to be in a creek boat out here.

But we were so hyped on those designs and how good they were working and how much fun

we were having.

We like screw it.

Let's just go and see what happens.

Young dumb.

And it mostly worked out.

We made an edit called Knives to a gunfight, which was your say, eh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I found that very fitting rocking up with these small kayaks with very unforgiving

stirrens compared to like this huge, huge creek boats who were just in the year before,

basically running the same things.

I was like, I do feel somewhat under a quip, but here we go.

But with that, you have to learn a whole different style when you're using the half slice kayaks.

You know, you have to hit things with more angles and more speed and like really like

working on being protective, you know, like getting your weight forwards when you come

in down stuff and you just have to be on it the whole time.

I think I think in a creek boat, you have a little bit more margin for error, even though

you obviously have to be on point to hit big lines in it.

But you have a little bit of comfort and safety there with that volume behind you and the

half slice takes that away completely.

So, you know, if you're trying to hit the same lines that you do in a creek boat as with

a half slice, you just have to be that much more on it.

You know, you can do it, but you really have to be on it.

Yeah.

I mean, for me going with the half slice for a couple of years, no, I think it's,

it was one of the most influential changes in my kayaking just because, as you say,

you have to paddle way different, but it also makes you think about water and current and

rough.

It's so different that you really just have to rethink everything you thought you knew

I would say.

And that way my style of kayaking really changed and my understanding of water really changed

and just having like less room for error makes you use the river so much more, I would say.

And I mean, right now we're talking all about how much harder this, but in the end of the

day, like a half slice sometimes sounds like a compromise or is, but there's definitely

also reasons why it's more than a compromise and it's actually better than a creaker.

There can be features on the river where I think a half slice just outperforms any big

modern creek boat just because you're able to kayak way more dynamic.

I always like to call it 3D kayaking because you like racking your boat up and down forward

sideways, you're using colors, you're hitting things.

Like you can be so much more agile and dynamic using the water.

At the end of the day, there are rapids which I think are easier to run in a half slice compared

to a full size creek boat, even though there's a smaller kayak.

Dude, great point.

Very true.

And I mean, you can also, you can use your body movement more in the half slice.

You can like not only preload it more before you pull up with your paddle and take a booth

or something, but you can also just sort of use your hips and your core to like pick yourself

up over the little waves and then the blade is free and you can look ahead for your key

move, you know?

But I will say every time I swap back into the creek boat, I'm like, oh my God, this

is so much easier.

Normally, at least, although you do have to adjust for like getting pushed from that

volume behind you.

But yeah, I'm all about the half slice movement.

It genuinely, it makes me go kayaking more.

Like I just love it that much more and it really bridges the gap between like small

days where I'm not that motivated and big days where I'm hyped and I'm frothing and

yeah, every day on the water in a half slice is a good day.

I guess, yeah, as you say, that's the thing.

Like obviously, traveling as much as we can, kayaking as many new rivers as we can, but

the reality is that you still do end up on the same rivers very often throughout your

season and especially over the years.

And I think that's also why these kayaks come in so clutch because all of a sudden you're

well now in river becomes a new playground because you have such a fun design which makes

you wants to try things.

Like if you think about it just last week on Ospick the this one rapid, we've been running

that since half a decade now.

And you know, we thought that's that's it.

That's how you do it.

That's how it goes.

And coming back now in these kayaks and like with, I guess also like an adapted mindset,

not just a different kayak, but like having an open mindset about possibilities and solution

solving, like all of a sudden, you know, like things go very different and something new

happens.

Like I'm yet still always amazed what these type of kayaks make me think about kayaking

and about how to use a current.

Like, yeah, I just love it.

Obviously it turns out we love half slices.

It's fucking amazing.

Yeah, spoiler alert talking about that.

I was big D river and that's a classic in telemark Norway and Adrian of the name named

Little Waterfall there hit one of the sickest down river freestyle tricks I've ever seen.

You go see footage of it real soon.

It was amazing for myself.

I just walked back to a creek boat and I felt I was in like for this trip to Norway, I took

the smallest kayak I have, which is the Prawnifier cracker and I took the biggest kayak I have,

which is the Prawny Scorch.

And I think for that river and that move, something in between the two would have been

perfect, which is sort of what you had.

Exactly.

So actually a perfect example of like what we're trying to say of like creek boards,

half slice and how these things interact with each other.

Yeah, that's my one regret is before the level drop, they didn't give it a go in the firecracker.

I probably would have just got back looped in it, but maybe, maybe it would have popped

and I would have been able to throw it.

Dude, going back to waterfalls though, that's a key one I think to talk about.

For me, I feel like you always had an easier time like slipping into a nice free fall,

you know, and getting into like the box, you know, and just staring it down and riding

it out.

And I think as well like throughout the years, you've always thrown your paddle, whereas

I've always tried to keep hold of mine.

And that definitely changes it a little bit.

But can you can you explain when you're going over over a waterfall, what you're doing for

people?

Yeah, so for me, like going up like running waterfalls, especially running big waterfalls,

where you want to make sure your bow comes down is obviously a very important moment

and you don't want to mess it up because it can definitely result in injuries or stuff

like that.

And I feel like everybody develops a certain style throughout the years, like I'm 100%

positive, you can show me 10 kayakers going over waterfall in the same piece of gear without

me seeing their face and I can name you who it is purely based off like their style of

like doing it.

And everybody develops that style, adapt it to their body composure, their size, the

character in their kayaking style.

Do the personality, like where they learn how to kayak, like there's so many factors

that play that the era that they learn to kayak.

Like you can really tell.

And for me, how I like how I learned to run waterfalls and kind of like went that route

of technique is that I come over my back side of my pad rather than my front side.

I kind of go on the back side with an angle and I push my bow down and straight it out

on the way down rather than like pull and bring it down, which is something I think T

Brat was doing a lot back in the day and some people were doing it.

But it just became like my approach and my way how to run waterfalls and it worked early

on and it just stuck with that and try to make it more controlled and better over the

years.

So for me, it's all about coming over the lip on my backside, nice and controlled, straight

in and out and then quickly finding my angle to be in the box.

That's what we call when the when the pad is parallel here 90 degrees, you have your elbows

there.

So you're like in a stable body position to like stop yourself or your kayak from still

changing angles on the way down and then waiting until I would either throw my paddle

or tuck up funny story there.

For whatever reason, so many waterfalls are being run on a lefty.

We had this discussion before, so many waterfalls you run on a lefty.

I'm left handed so I pretend or I prefer to tuck up so to put my paddle on the right

side of my kayak, which is not where you want to put it when you come off of a lefty.

So first I started throwing my paddle so I would go over being the box, get rid of my

paddle and tuck up, hand roll at the bottom.

Obviously not all waterfalls, you can do that, you can do that.

So I had to develop this kind of weird technique of like coming over with a lefty, going into

the box and then tucking up on the right, which you know over the years again I worked

on it, now it works just fine and I'm happy to do it like that.

But yeah, this is how I solve waterfalls for myself.

How about you?

Dude, I think for me I have too many trust issues, you know, like where you talk about

just getting into the box and just letting the kayak ride, it took me so long to get

comfortable doing that and even now I tend to have one blade like more dominant and like

in the curtain of water and then I can pull and push myself to adjust the angle of the

kayak the whole way down if I need to.

And I think for me, like I was never into throwing the paddle, you know, like because

I want to start the waterfalls like a complete kayaking set and I want to finish the waterfalls

like a complete kayaking set, you know, so you know, like one of the few times I throw

my paddle is off one of my earlier waterfalls and I never really did it after that.

I like to try and keep myself like a complete package and that's definitely I think helped

on more consequential waterfalls where there's not a big safe pool to land into where there's

something else afterwards and you have to hold onto your paddle and that I was comfortable

doing that always and maybe more so than others because that's just always how I did waterfalls,

you know, I was always tucking and holding onto my paddle mostly because I preferred

how it looked but then in most situations it sort of worked out worked out even better

to have that set up.

So I'm pretty grateful for that.

I think because I spent so much time freestyling and doing phonics monkeys and tricks where

you're really rotating over to the side of your kayak, I'm pretty happy tucking both

ways.

They're mostly the same for me.

I think as Adrian saying because most waterfalls are lefties, I normally end up tucking to

the left so right hand coming forward is the front and tucking over the left of the kayak

but I'm always grateful when there is eventually a righty waterfall.

Me too.

And I'm on my more dominant hand and I can tuck up that side as well but I think a key

thing for me as well is when I was coming up, especially in a creek boat, I was just behind

Dave Fassili the entire time and just really absorbing and learning for him and Dave Fassili

has for me an incredible style.

It's powerful but really chill and lazy boy and what I mean by that is he'll take so little

strokes down a rapid, he'll just be ruddering back here chilling all on a rudder and use

in the back of a blade behind his hips and it's so impressive to me and seeing that I

always wanted to do that and I do find myself doing that more now but I always had a lot

of respect for how much you can do with your paddle back here.

And there are certainly some waterfalls where I was using the back of the blade here rather

than having it out front with the power face or the back face of the blade as actually

on a rudder.

And one of the first big waterfall stories I ever heard of someone fixing a problem in

the air was Chris Grappmann's on, it was either DeSoto or Nokalula.

In America there was a two big 80-90 foot waterfalls.

And the story goes that Chris goes over the vertical, like over the bars at the top and

he reacts and he decides to save himself and he froze his paddle back behind him like this

in a rudder, back face down and just prise himself back from past the vertical and then

tucks up.

And that was one of the first stories I heard when I started Kike and off waterfall so I

always had a lot of respect for what you can do from here as well.

But yeah, I mean waterfall Kike is an amazing part of the sport but it's not everything.

And I am stoked truly to see people enjoying and pushing more.

What in my opinion is the best side of the sport which is river running, probably in

a half slice with your friends.

That for me is the absolute best thing I can do.

My best way to spend a day is a long river run with my friends hitting moves the whole

way down.

Yeah, no, no for sure.

I think the problem is like in order like just the waterfall side of things tends to

get the most exposure and the easiest.

So especially when you're coming up, you want to make a name for yourself, whatever.

The best way to do that is by running waterfalls or used to be.

But as Brian says, that's not what you do every day.

One, because your body gets so eventually and two, there's so much more to the sport.

But these things kind of tend to stick I would say.

Whenever I show somebody something of my kayaking, especially if they're not from the sport,

the waterfall pictures will stick the most even though it requires a complete different

skill set and maybe even a less versatile skill set compared to river running.

What I think as you say is like the pinnacle of the sport and the true essence of the sport.

So yeah, I think I can only double down and burn with that.

If you want to kayak every day, it's not going to be the 80 foot waterfalls every day.

It's going to be long rivers, amazing moves with your friends where you challenge each

other, you push each other to try new things and just keep progression going that way.

Dude 100%.

I guess I honestly don't know.

I think I just I think I just found the image of a kayaker going off a waterfall when I

was younger.

It's all mind blowing.

For me, I just wanted to know what that felt like.

And then when you when you know what that feels like and you get you know, you experience

that like all the all the emotions that come with dropping off a big waterfall, you know,

the nerves and anxiety at the top, you know, like calming yourself down, feeling confident

that you're there and comfortable and then going over the edge and you're in that hyper

focus, like beautiful state of mind where you're not you're not thinking, but if you

need to think, then you think faster than you've ever fought before, you know, it's really

hard to explain.

But like I've done things like it new and which is a 80 footer in Chile.

And when we were doing it, I think it was I think only annual and Ian, Ian Garcia had

been there first, right?

So we didn't know fully about the waterfall.

We hadn't seen a bunch of lines off there.

And so we went over like river left of the waterfall.

And with that, like I had to do like a like my nose came up in the air and I had to do

this adjustment and I swept from the right of my kayak all the way around to the front

of the kayak and then tucked on the left.

And I have no idea where that came from, you know, like if you presented that to me as

a problem of how to solve, I would never have come up with that solution.

But because I'm going off the waterfall, there's a lot of consequence.

Somehow my brain just found that solution and fixed it, you know, and I was not really

thinking of anything other than having a good line, you know, like you really, I think if

you make too many plans before you go for waterfall, you're going to give yourself some

issues, you know, you have to, you have to just be calm and ready to react, you know.

Yeah, it's like such a fine line.

As Brian just said, like many times, nearly actually nine out of 10 times, I will watch

back, let's say, PUB footage of me going over waterfall, especially over a high consequential

tall waterfall.

And I will do something different than what my initial plan kind of had foreseen.

And I will do something in a way where if you would told me before, I'll be like, no,

no way, that's way too risky to try to do that for the first time off a 90 foot waterfall.

Like, I would not like maybe it would work, but I would never try that or like actively

go for that kind of move.

But this is the fine line you have to write because as Brian just said, like, you want

to be, you want to prepare yourself, you want to visualize your line, you want to see all

that, but you don't want to get the focus too narrow because at some point it's so nice

to be able to trust your experience.

So I personally like to find myself in a state of like, okay, like I know what I want to

do.

I have my markers of like, okay, go left off this wave, go over this color, look for that

ripple, do that and that stroke there and there.

But leave like wiggle room for unforeseen changes and then to be able to react properly

and quickly and not be stuck in my game plan, which I made on shore.

But yeah, like many times I watch back GoPro and I'm like, what?

How did I do that?

And like, why did I do that?

I remember, for example, one line of Alexandra in Canada, where like kind of pull like a

boot stroke to bring my bow up and then let it drop on the way down, but it's a long way

down and I would have, if you would have told me that before, I know I wouldn't have done

that, but it just felt right at the moment and I think that's that situation.

Everybody likes to talk about flow state, whatever, but it's just amazing what you bring

can come up with in split seconds in a high risk, high consequence environment.

And when it works out, it's definitely the best feeling.

Dude, I just shed it there when you said when you said Alexandra's name for me, that's like

Voldemort from Harry Potter, like you who must not be named.

And we'll talk about that in a later podcast series, but that waterfall is where I had

a sick line, but a horrible accident off it.

And yeah, it still gives me the shivers thinking about it.

But interesting one for me is I don't honestly feel much at the bottom of the waterfall now.

You know, like when I was starting out, it was a crazy adrenaline rush because, you know,

like you don't know what you're doing off a waterfall until you start going off waterfalls,

you know, and you get to the bottom and you're okay and you're like, oh my God, you know,

like it worked.

I'm fine.

Whoo.

You know, you get these crazy adrenaline rushes.

And I think now we've been doing it for so long and I'm such a perfectionist and Dana

does this as well, you know, but like you very rarely do, do I or Dan pop up and claim

it or cheer, you know, only if it was like really, really sick or if it was really scary

to do, you know, but like I'm always like landing of an analyzing about I'm trying to

figure out what I did.

And yeah, I wish, I wish that I, I wish that I had kept like more stoke at the bottom of

waterfalls, you know, like, like those bigger adrenaline rushes at the start are wild.

That's next level.

It definitely fuels you for days.

I remember my first word of, yeah, first years of running big drops where you just like,

gave you the craziest rush and you'd be on fire for the next few days.

And as you say, now it's kind of like a very contempt feeling at the bottom because you

did what you plan to do.

And it worked out the way you envisioned it to.

And it's nice for sure, but it's not like that burst of emotions, what it used to be.

And I think the experience part is a huge reason for that kind of when you, you know, you

play the lottery and you win the lottery because you had luck, but it didn't really,

you know, like you didn't calculate the numbers while you would win the lottery, you had luck.

And I think it's similar in like learning how to run big waterfalls are running your

big waterfalls.

Like you obviously kind of know what you're doing, but you don't have it like figured

out yet.

So you do get that element of luck, which is like a surprise.

So I think that's the reason why it just sends you into these fears of happiness and joy

and whatever.

Whereas eventually you learn it and that element of luck kind of recedes and it's more like

a scale you do.

And so that for me changed, I think it changed because of that for me from like, just like,

like feeling like I won the lottery to like feeling very contempt and be like, okay, nice

that went after plan.

Yeah, yeah, still still a beautiful process and a nice feeling at the bottom where it's

more of a like a good job, you know, rather than, you know, celebrating like a football

player at the World Cup, 20 scores a goal.

Yeah, for sure.

But I also man, I find that cooler, you know, like I just find it cooler when you just land

and you just and you just kayak away like it was nothing to you because it's just part

of the everyday thing.

I find that cooler.

But I'm also British and that's certainly a thing about being British.

You know, we don't really like overreact or like, you know, yeah, but I don't want to

take away any stock from any young.

No, never.

If you want to be stocked on the waterfall, fuck yeah, you should definitely be.

It's an amazing thing to write down 10, 15, 20, 30 meters of freefall.

It's definitely a big reason to be stoked.

I think it just comes down to a personal level.

Yeah, dude, for sure.

Don't let me put anyone down there being stoked at the bottom of the waterfall.

I'm just saying I personally am miserable.

No kidding.

So yeah, dude, we talked a lot about waterfalls in this one.

Yeah, we sort of touched on it a bit already, but are we seeing a return to like an all

round skill set from kayakers in the sport or not?

I would very much say so as we emphasized earlier with the waterfall and the under the

freestyle thing, as well, I would say so, but also seeing events like GoPro, GoPro Mountain

Games there.

It's like a multi-sport, but it's like different stages of the sport and the same people being

in the first few spots.

For me, it's a good sign that it's all about everything, racing, freestyle, creaking and

going away from the competition part, I would still say so I think nowadays in order to

do certain things, for example, down to freestyle, you just need to have all the basic foundations.

You're not going to be a good down to freestyle kayaker if you don't know how to freestyle

at all.

You're kind of like a basic building stone or building brick in order to level up to the

next one.

So I think because people are striving for these new phases of the sport, there's no

way around other than learning the building foundations of everything in order to get

there.

What I mean?

Whereas back in the day or maybe five, 10 years ago, you would just specialize in one

thing and one thing only, which kind of made it necessary to be able to do everything

at least on like an advanced level.

Yeah, dude, I agree with all of that for sure.

But I would say the comment about Go programs, I would love to look up how many people are

actually there competing.

I do think that sort of event sees way less competitors than it used to, unfortunately.

And I'm not sure what that is because it's a sick venue and there's good events on there.

I used to love that Creek race they did.

It was super hard at that altitude coming in and trying to breathe alone race hard,

but it was a really good technical race course.

The freestyle venue, it was always changing with the water levels, but you had pretty

legit freestyleers rocking up there and competing every year.

And man, I have to look at all of the results.

I just be interested in seeing how many people were there, because you were talking about

how the same names were popping up.

And I just want to know how many people were there and to try and understand whether they

were people that were specialized in certain categories or they were just all-round rappers

or what was going on there or whether people that have been doing it for years, like day

in a nick, were just dominating through and through.

But I have to say as well, shout out Tom Dole from France for winning the freestyle.

I was so stoked to see that.

That was an amazing watch.

Like, yeah.

That was his opening move, that entry move, McNasty, that was the same as his mentor,

Metru de Moulin used to throw.

And that was so cool to see that style coming out and being rewarded at GoPro games and

seeing a new name up on the podium, you know, that's really rad to me.

So yeah, nice one, Tom.

I think, brother, let's end this podcast here and I'll write down some more show notes

for the next one.

And yeah, have you listened to this and you have some topics you want us to cover?

Just hit us up and we'll talk about them.

But yeah, cheers to you.

Catch you in the next one.

Catch you in the next one.

Wet and dry episode two.

It's a wrap.

See you soon, guys.

Cheer.

It's not a wrap.

You didn't rhyme anything.

Not yet.

Come on.

Give us a freestyle in front of the mic.

I'm not staying Jackson.

I am qualified to do that.

All right, guys.

All right, guys.