Clyde wrote; (SNIP about forward stroke) Perhaps you will appreciate this instruction on the forward stroke that I received from the great Inuit paddler Tawanisse. We were hunting seal off the south-eastern tip of Cape Dorset after a rather gruelling night in Tawanisse's camp. The women were most demanding and insistent as is often the case in anticipation of the dangerous seal hunting season from which the men might not return. We were both rather tired and I was concerned that I might not be able to keep up with this great paddler unless my stroke was as efficient as possible. I asked the great paddler what the proper stroke mechanics were. His response was that you placed the paddle in the water and pulled with one arm and pushed with the other and you would go forward. If you began to hurt somewhere you were doing it wrong and should change the way you did it until the pain went away. This seemed so elegantly simple that I inquired where he learned so much wisdom and he explained that no one taught him. It was common sense and that the body possessed a great deal of common sense without interference from the white man's obsession with explanations. He told me that once a BCU coach came to Cape Dorset to teach the Inuit how to paddle. They tried very hard to follow his instructions but always the Inuit capsized while they were thinking about it. The BCU coach went away very upset that the Inuit could not be taught how to paddle. Later he wrote a paper that he presented to the Explorers Club stressing how important it was that the BCU launch an expedition to the Arctic to teach the Inuit about Christianity, alcohol, and paddling in order to make them self sufficient. He said that they would soon become an extinct race if we did not act soon. Being a through gentleman he also included instructions on how to build a proper kayak claiming that the indigenous kayaks were very poorly designed (they did not even know who Frank Goodman was) and that the proper stroke would not be very useful without real Greenland kayaks. Tawanisse laughed a bit and said, "It is good the BCU coach did not come to teach us about making babies. Our women would leave us while we tried to remember how to do it properly." Dr. Peregrine Inverbon, Ph.d., DD, LL.d, Ph.G Transcribed by his humble servant John Winters *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.gasp-seakayak.net/paddlewise/ ***************************************************************************
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