The Origin of the Brown Claw!

What is the “brown claw” hand signal?

In case you’re ever driving down the shuttle road and see a fellow boater flash you a downward-facing “claw” sign, realize you’re in good company. That’s the telltale “Brown Claw” signal pioneered by Demshitz founding father Dave Fusilli and his cohorts Jared and Graham Seiler, which has emerged as an unofficial greeting among kayakers.

While the internet is still teeming with great old school Demshitz videos, the claw has kept itself even more mainstream, almost enjoying a resurgence of sorts in paddling circles. Show up to any river festival or popular put-in and you’re bound to get flashed the claw. It’s replaced the “one finger off the steering wheel” salutation and even the Hawaiian-born  Shaka brah sign, with thumb and pinky extended and knuckles in between.

“It pretty much comes from Borat,” says Fusili of the gesture’s origin. “At one point he says, ‘I have to take a shit, where do I take the brown?’ So we just kind of starting joking around with it. But now it’s pretty much become the kayak wave or how river runners say hello. If I see some one flash me the claw, I know those people are going to be fun to kayak with.”

“At one point I went back East and Graham had a brown claw on a stick that he was waving around at the Upper Yough,” he adds.

Other rumors point to it originating from a trip to Chile, where, paddling the Cochuma River at flood, utterances of it inferred “paddling the brown water” or “soiling yourself” because of the high water.

Regardless, it began as an East Coast thing that has slowly migrated its way westward and into the greeting lore of kayakers everywhere.

Listen to Podcast Interview with Dave Fusilli Here:

Watch Fusilli Youtube Vid of Claw’s History Here!