Dirk Barends wrote: I don't know about water compression and lift but when making a forward stroke you are pulling yourself forward _and_ downward. When your blade comes past your hip you start to pull yourself downward _only_. Since that is not what you want when your intention is to go forward, you could describe this as losing efficiency Dirk - How is it that pulling yourself forward and downward is good but pushing yourself forward and upward is not? When I paddle with my Inuit paddle I must be doing something hideously incorrect because the blade goes well past my hip and the boat jumps foward when the flex of the shaft straightens out. Same with my Euro paddle, although not as pronounced. Forgive the sarcasm, but my own experience says this "pull the paddle out at the hip" thing is just not always the best advice. We are all built differently from each other and use our paddles in many different ways. For some of us, Inuit and Wing paddlers especially, the longer stroke makes the boat go nicely. Olympic paddlers all go past their hips, to my eyes, and they are able to go long and hard and fast. Many people who go past their hips are basically letting the blade float up, there isn't much force being applied. Others fling the blade out and get forward propulsion. If it makes for a relaxed, graceful, powerful stroke, I count it as a good thing. I look forward to other thoughts on the subject. Jim Tibensky _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jun 14 2001 - 12:55:20 PDT
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