Footage of American freestyle canoeing master Marc Ornstein

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Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/28/footage-of-american-freestyle.html

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Why isn’t this an Olympic sport?

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Now that is how to dress for a sport!

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Thanks for this. Excellence in obscure disciplines gives me more hope than anything else.

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Gentleman Paddler

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I’m impressed enough just that during regular paddling out to his starting position, he never takes the paddle out of the water. I noticed in the park the other day that ducks feet collapse to become hydrodynamic when they pull them forward and then expand to push backward. It reminds me a little of that. I mean, there’s a lot about this guy that is like a beautiful mallard.

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This looks quite silly, however this guy is out there on the water living his best life and i can’t fault him for that.

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Sort of like synchronized swimming, without the swimming.

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I am awkwardly… aroused?

He’s going to paddle off into the distance after this, and make sweet love to that canoe, isn’t he?

This is perhaps the most surreal thing I have ever seen, I am so confused right now, but can’t stop laughing at the fact that somewhere, right now, people are doing this. Wonderful things, indeed

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I’m getting a pretty serious Boy Scout boner over here. Not a boner over Boy Scouts but. . .over his. . .paddling. . .ah, nevermind. I’ll see myself out.

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Sometimes called the Indian stroke (not, for once, a pejorative). It’s ideal for seeing how close you can get to a loon before it dives. The trick is to flip the paddle over during the recovery stroke.

Years ago I went to a paddling demo at a local swimming pool by the legendary Omer Stringer, then in his seventies. The style of paddling with the hull heeled over is one he invented independently in the 1920s, often called “Omer style”.

http://www.carryingplacecanoeworks.on.ca/html/omer.html

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:rofl:

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He’s like a graceful and dapper aquatic centaur. Good form, sir. Good. Form.

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Next year’s championships will be broadcast live on NPR for 12 hours, complete with whispering commentators.

Also, the costumes need more sequins.

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‘Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.’
Kenneth Grahame - Wind In The Willows

Yep.

I have no idea how he did some of those moves. Which one was the ‘inverted wind slide’?

I also wondered this. Despite my hatred of Olympic sports that have artistic merit judged as part of the scoring.
I would definitely watch synchronised freestyle canoeing with teams of 3 or 4 trying to keep it all aligned.

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whatever floats your boat … er … canoe

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Whatever manoeuvres your canoevre?

(We should both get our coats.)

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Golf is a dying sport, and those commentators need to land somewhere.

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Different strokes for different folks?

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