Genotype 2 DVD Review

PDVD_001 Genotype 2, White Water, the Fundamental Core – An Instructional Film by Simon Westgarth.

Featuring

Athletes include Simon Westgarth, Dave Carroll, Deb Pinniger and Matt Tidy.

About

This is an instructional DVD for all types of paddlers wanting to improve their river running/creeking skills.

Content

Simon Westgarth has spent four painstaking years to produce this film. I don’t think there is any instructional out there that explains the type of information shown here. The main focus is on what he terms dynamic stability with focus on active blade pressure and the role of lower torso body tension. Quite the mouthful isn’t it? The only thing I can possibly criticize is the possibly excessive use of technical jargon which may be lost to some viewers. It sometimes makes relatively simple things sound more complex than what they really are.

But rest assured, the DVD shows numerous examples in its 50 minute runtime so you’ll soon start to grasp what all these fancy new words mean. It runs through all the concepts of form, lower torso and upper body rotation and provides good examples of what they mean, with animations on the paddling footage to show exactly where the eddies, eddy lines and all the other river features are in a given scenario. Then there is also lateral momentum, eddy turns, focus on the key strokes required to do certain maneuvers, lateral waves, changing speed and direction, a full set of examples on running rapids and then finally balancing and bracing. Sound good? It is, actually.

The settings are on the beautiful Soča and Piemonte Rivers. The rapids shown make it easy to understand what is being explained to the viewer and you won’t find someone explaining the finer details of a class VI rapid where everything just looks violent and unidentifiable.

Music

The music is very relaxed and when the female voice narrates it drops down to an acceptable level. Strangely, some DVD’s don’t do this. No complaints.

Conclusion

For either the intermediate, or the beginner, if you’d like to improve your paddling skills, then I’m sure that you will benefit immensely from this instructional. Advanced paddlers would certainly gain something too.