How to Blunt

Few kayak tricks are as satisfying as a nice blunt. Done right, it’s fast and smooth, weightless. The boat carves along the face of a wave or a hole then snaps around, spraying the paddlers in the eddy. You can do it almost anywhere: small cartwheel-like blunts in holes, or huge aerial dive bombers on big waves. It’s also the gateway trick to lots of other moves; air screws, Pan Ams, and helixs all incorporate skills learned while doing blunts. So, to put it -- yep, you guessed it -- bluntly, you need to learn this.

The Gist of It

In its first incarnation, the blunt was the natural evolution of a cross between a round house and a cartwheel. The round house is like a cut back in surfing: the paddler travels across a wave or hole with some speed, moving towards one of the edges of the feature, then whips the stern of the boat around 180 degrees. The boat ends up facing the opposite direction it started in and stays relatively flat throughout. In contrast, the cartwheel is done with less lateral motion. The paddler drives the bow of the boat into the oncoming green water so that the bow goes underneath while the stern is pushed forward (upriver) by the recirculating water that forms the hole’s pile. The more vertical the boat goes the better. The blunt combines the cross-wave travel of the roundhouse with the verticality of the cartwheel. The paddler carves the kayak across the wave face, then uses a combination of quick edging, a strong pry stroke, and the wave’s shape to whip the stern around 180 degrees in a near-vertical arc, landing in a backsurf.

Setting Up

As with most things in life, careful preparation makes the blunt so much easier. Many waves and holes have a blunting sweet spot, in most cases a steep, green water shoulder at the edge of the wave that helps the boat “slide” into the motion. This wave has two elements that make for a good blunting feature to learn on - a overall "v" shape and a steep, green shoulder (follow the red arrow):

Surf your boat as high up on the wave as you can, leaving yourself space to get some momentum at the place you plan to do the blunt. If the sweet spot is, say, on the right shoulder of the wave, set up high on the wave’s center pointed towards the sweet spot (you may only be in this position for a moment before gravity pulls you back down the wave face, but it is a crucial moment). Your paddle, in this case, should be positioned to take a right forward stroke to drive you down the wave and into the blunt. The kayak’s edges are really important here: you should be on your right edge and balanced to hold that edge firm as you carve down the wave’s face.

Dropping In

Perch high on the wave you are ready to drop in. If the wave is steep, gravity will start pulling you down the face. If not, you might have to take that right forward stroke to get going. Either way, as you shoot down the wave, carve on that right edge towards the blunt spot.

Hold the edge firm by pulling up on the thigh brace with your opposite knee, the left one in this case. This accomplishes two things: first, you keep your speed and can control the boat trajectory better: second, you are loading up the carving edge with pressure that upon reaching the blunt spot will recoil pushing the boat up out of the water into the blunt. If you didn’t take a stroke to begin dropping in, take the stroke as you carve down the wave face; this will set your paddle up for the blunt motion. Blunt That Mother So your screaming down the wave face, locked on your right edge with your left paddle blade forward -- your ready to blunt. If you have a wave with a perfect, upstream shoulder, you’re golden. As you hit the shoulder do three things simultaneously: (1)“flick” your hips and knees to the left so that the boat pops off of its right edge, showing the bottom of the hull to anyone on the surfers-right bank; (2) as the boat twists on its lengthwise axis, drive your weight forward over your feet as if doing a cartwheel, sending the boat goes vertical with the tail in the air; and to give you leverage to whip the boat around quickly, (3) plant your left paddle blade into the wave’s face and use it and your torso as a fulcrum around which the kayak spins like a compass needle. Your paddle blade and body will be pulled around by the oncoming water, but for the ends of the boat to keep up they have to go really fast, as they are traveling in a longer arc, making the blunt a really fast and powerful trick. Engage your stomach and hips to pull the blunt around even faster. Roar.

Backwards Yeah, that’s where you end up. But really, if you are trying to blunt you probably already know how to back surf. If not, go practice. A couple of suggestions, though: if you feel really unbalanced when you land, try putting in a back stroke in with your right blade (in this example) to send you back into a solid back surf; or, try coming all the way around to a front surf by looking over your left shoulder as you land the blunt (this looks cool).

Abstractions and Tips

As with any trick, sometimes just thinking about the blunt a certain way can help. Experimenting with you forward-backwards balance will often give you some room to make the move happen. Just as you are about to throw the blunt try rocking back slightly to lighten the front of the boat. The shoulder will act like a ramp popping the front of the kayak up in the air a bit. This lightens the boat for you and sends the blunt higher. Perfect this, and you’ll be doing aerial blunts.

Reaching for the blunt stroke on a big bow bounce.

It also helps to severe your torso from your lower body (figuratively, of course). Just as bearing down leads to Preparation H use, it can also make your blunts stiff. Loosen up at the waist and let the boat and your legs move through the whipping motion of the blunt while your upper body stays upright and ready for the next stroke. Mess around with the angle at which you carve into the trick. Is it easier if you go almost directly up river at a shallow angle, or when you carve at a near right angle to the oncoming flow. It will probably be somewhere closer to a 45-degree angle to the flow, and vary from feature to feature. Finally, experiment and mess up a bunch; you might end up doing something nobody has seen before. If you’re like us, though, you’ll probably just look dumb for a while. But it’s worth it.