Always in motion. PHOTO: CHRIS KUHLMAN
GIVEN SOME GLASSY WATER as a stage, Karen Knight will make a canoe dance. Knight is among the best
in the world at freestyle canoeing, a discipline in which ca- noeists use their canoes as extensions of their bodies, em- phasizing precise movements that demonstrate boat control and finesse. Though now a world-class paddler and teacher, Knight
came to the sport relatively late. Growing up in Alabama and then Maine, she first picked up a paddle in 1989, when she spotted an ad for sea kayaking and took her first les- son. Within a few years Knight was teaching both kayaking and canoeing, and by 1996 she’d won her first of five con- secutive U.S. National Championships in interpretive free- style canoeing. Married to world-renowned whitewater paddler Bob Foote,
Knight has spent much of the last decade travelling North America with Foote, teaching courses in flatwater, whitewater and freestyle canoeing as well as sea kayaking. After years of circling the continent in an RV with a pile of boats tied on top, they recently settled—up to a point—on a private lake in Maryland. “We have a home base now,” Knight says, “but I’m still on the road as much as I can be.”
Freestyle is about letting the boat dance to the water’s rhythm.
After retiring from competition in 2000 (perhaps it was time
to let someone else win) Knight shifted her focus to teaching and promoting freestyle canoeing. There was a lot of promot- ing to do, as few recreational paddlers have witnessed the waterborne art form that epitomizes grace in a canoe. Pad- dling tandem or solo, sometimes to musical accompaniment, freestyle canoeists are the paddling equivalent of rhythmic gymnasts, without the twirling ribbons. In Karen’s case, she often removes the thwarts and seats
from her boats to allow her to move freely from bow to stern and back during her routine. “Water has all sorts of rhythms,” she says. “Freestyle is about letting the boat dance to that rhythm.” Knight credits freestyle canoeing with enhancing her pad-
KAREN T KNIGHT
KAREN KNIGHT CUTS THROUGH SURFACE TENSION WITH WELL-PRACTICED GRACE
HE DANCER 38 SUMMER/FALL 2009
dling across the board by improving her balance and her understanding of how boats move through water. When teaching, Knight encourages her students to go back to the core strokes and focus on their balance within the boat. By getting back to the basics, freestyle paddlers focus on refin- ing their small movements and not on propelling the boat quickly. “I tell my students that with the patience to practice the simple strokes, they’ll develop the skill to master the dif- ficult ones,” says Knight. While she may have settled in one place for now, Knight
shows no signs of coming to a stop. Still teaching regularly, she is also completing a master’s degree in occupational therapy to complement her background in therapeutic recre- ation. Knight believes her canoeing skills extend naturally to her other pursuits, as they do for all her students. “Canoeing is about knowing your body and what it can do,” she says. “Your paddle is just an extension of you.” » AMY STUART
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