At 11:24 AM 4/14/00 -0800, Seng, Dave wrote: >> From: dmccarty_at_us.ibm.com [mailto:dmccarty_at_us.ibm.com] >> >> Anyone else notice how fast you can paddle backwards? Does >> anyone else >> paddle backwards or is it just me? Anyone else notice it is Friday? > > I practice paddling backwards frequently, especially when I'm just poking >around shore or checking out a little inlet. It's also a nice change-up for >muscles tired of doing the same old thing. My secret reason for practicing >is because I'm sure that one of these days I'm going to quietly slide onto a >beach and a bear will stick its head out of the underbrush yards away - then >you'll see a back paddle sprint!<grin> I took a class a couple of years ago from Derek Hutchinson and he had us do quite a bit of paddleing backwards. He started off with everyone facing him and started to demonstrate paddling backwards, and asked everyone to catch up to watch. He kept paddling asking us to get closer. It became evident that one could paddle backards as fast or faster than forwards. He demonstrated the "correct" way to paddle backwards early in the lesson for a number of reasons. Some people were turning the paddle over and pulling the cupped face forward and he wanted to correct that right off the bat. Using the back (cupped) face for the stroke provided a very powerful stroke. Showing how to present the back face of the blade to the water also led to an easy segue to a low brace. Paddling backwards correctly also required a lot of torso rotation. I find it much easier to get a lot of torso rotation on a backards stroke, and it makes it easier to teach torso rotation on the forward stroke. Later on in the lesson he was teaching an extended paddle brace turn both forward and backwards. He had us build up a lot of speed paddling backwards, grab the paddle in an extended paddle position, place the powerface about 30 degrees off the bow and then really lean on it and sweep slowly back. I find that is fairly easy to do a 180 degree turn that way. One of the major benefits of practicing paddling backwards, and iniitiating turns while paddleing backwards is that it may come in very useful if you're paddling along ahead of someone and they capsize. In many cases, it would be faster to do a couple of stop strokes, then paddle backwards to the capsized paddler than turn around 180 degrees. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Mon Apr 17 2000 - 05:48:59 PDT
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