Re: [Paddlewise] Why your legs go to sleep.

In a message dated 12/8/98 9:49:10 AM Eastern Standard Time, 735769_at_ican.net
writes:

<< 
 According Eugene Arima (Contributions to Kayak Studies and others) they
 used skins to pad the bottom. Many used no backrest or just used the
 cockpit back. Since cockpit heights varied considerably one suspects they
 did not recognise back pain as a problem or did not associate it with the
 backrest.
  >>

For what it's worth, it was really interesting watching Maligiaq (sp?) get
into his sealskin kayak at DelMarVa.  He sat on the back deck on a pad of
something that looked like quilted plastic foam packing material --- thin,
maybe a half inch thick or less.  (It may have extended into the boat to serve
as seat padding.)  After sliding into the boat --- in the most literal use of
the word "slide" --- he folded the rest of the material into a sort of
backrest, stuffing it into the area between his back and the cockpit rim, and
then closed himself in with his tuilick (sp?).

Whether this is <the> Greenland method or not could be debated for a while.
And probably will.  The boat was not his own, and this may have been a kluged
method of seat/backrest formulation.  And, as anyone who watched him paddle or
looked at the paddle he brought to use, he clearly hadn't yet read all the
definitive books on Greenland style equipment or technique.  Guess we'll have
to forgive the junior national champ for his "unorthodox" paddling.  Does make
you wonder about standardizing methods of Greenland instruction, though,
doesn't it?

Jack Martin
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