In the spirit of the olympics, now in full swing; I thought I might share the um… wilder side of paddling.
Freestyle canoeing! Freestyle canoeing is essentially the figure skating of paddling. A paddler in costume, (though not always) sets a series of maneuvers to music in a solo canoe on flat water. I believe there is a tandem or couples event as well. Would love to see videos of that. The rules for a sample competition are here, if you are morbidly curious.
There are those that would say any judged competition is not a real sport, there are those that would say if it is set to music and you have to wear tights it must be for sissies, well maybe; but damn if the freak flag isn’t flying high and proud in these videos. I wonder if Justine Curgenven will have freestyle in the final cut of This is Canoeing?…
Editors note: I think I spotted Will Ferrel in the first video, so look out for Blades of Glory II, Freestyle Canoeing.
I admire your work , regards for all the good posts .
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I definitely enjoy every little bit of it and I have bookmarked your blog.
Jonathan Hammond from NY did a great routine with the Pirates of the Caribbean theme. Well done!
These are all Canadiens, right? Occams razor, and all that.
hi Ketih,
Yes, freestyle is in the final cut of “This is Canoeing”. former gold medalists Karen Knight and Bob Foote peform beautiful routines – Karen gives a graceful solo dance, and Bob and Karen do a tandem routine. This film, called ‘Canoe Dance’ is playing at the Reel Film festival around America and Canada. You can see a preview of it on the Reel Film Festival website. http://www.reelpaddlingfilmfestival.com/
I’m fairly certain freestyle made it into TiC. Here’s a short film featuring Karen Knight called “Canoe Dance” by JC.
http://www.blip.tv/file/3221021/
Lovely! Do you guys invite any Freestylers to the WMCKA symposium?
We invited Mark Molina, former gold medalist freestyle canoeist.