Question: My Balance Brace is giving me trouble. It works, but only barely. I end up in the “sweet spot” quite deep, with only my nose above the surface. It’s hard to be relaxed in this position. I try to get my shoulders parallel to the water, apply pressure to my right knee, keep my upper body square to the boat, left arm under the stern and the right arm slightly bent above my head. Was there anything else?

Answer: You seem to have all of the main points. One thing that you might try is to slide your left arm further under the stern of the kayak. If it’s okay on your shoulder, you can slide your arm under the kayak all the way up to your armpit. The other thing that might help is to arch the right side of your lower back (this is for a right-side Balance Brace, vice versa for the left side). You can either think about arching the right side of your back, or lifting the part of your belly that is about two inches to the right of your belly button.