I have had very little benefit of the experience of others in learning to paddle. My first instruction book indicated that one should try left and right hand controlled feathered and unfeathered paddles and choose the configuration that seems most comfortable. The caveat: stick with the choice so that you have blade awareness built in to your reactions in tricky conditions. I bought a couple (long and short) of cheap Campmore 2-piece paddles and tried them in various configutrations. Decided that I liked the feathered, right hand controlled arrangement. Then, i build a long wooden paddle with BIG blades figuring that I would rather have the boat slip through the water than the paddle. In a few weeks, i had such a sore right elbow that i could not paddle. This was bad bad, because the boat had become very important (to the exclusion of most of my cycling). I got a much smaller paddle and re-learned to brace using it unfeathered (after a winter off to let my elbow recover). No more problems. Note, that a high cadence with a low force produces just as much power as a slower, harder pull. My top speed is improved with the smaller blades. I just want to encourage folks to be smart with their joints and comfortable with their paddles. I doubt that it is easy to brace reactively if you don't really know your blade orientations, so I would discourage changing feather for different days on the water if you are not really "into it." Bob Phillips SE MI, where the local ice left yesterday. Yeah, the snow was bad all winter anyhow. *************************************************************************** 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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