Re: [Paddlewise] "Regular" paddle stroke

I have been reading this string of messages with a degree of interest and a
degree of amusement.  The former because there are some nifty thoughts here
and there.  The latter because I see the beginnings of a doctrinaire
approach to paddling, i.e. do it by the numbers in a specific way or else it
is wrong.  I think this results from enormous specificity that has creeped
into training and evaluation of strokes for various certification procedures
and levels of instruction.

As I listen and read all this, I am thinking of marathon runners.  No two
run in exactly the same way.  Some are swinging out their elbows like two
basketball centers fighting for position under the hoop.  Some hardly move
their arms or one arm is swinging and the other imitating a broken wing
sparron.  Some bounce.  Others glide with nary a millimeter of rise and fall
to their heads.  Some are taking small strides.  Others are fully extending
in their strides.  All of them are elite runners.

Paddling is somewhat similar.  Your anatomy, your muscle structure, your
degree of stamina, your aches and pains and flexibility and lack of
flexibility that you bring to the water, which is always changing under your
paddle, which itself is not uniform; and all of this is going on in not a
standard boat but rather a range of 100s of different models with different
shapes and lengths.

Matt seems to make a lot of sense here by poking holes in some of the
doctrinaire aspects of paddling palaver.  There are certainly a wide range
of ideas about how to paddle and how to turn but so much depends on you,
your paddle and your boat.  Look at them, give them a try but please don't
feel that you are doing things wrong if you don't conform to any of the
cookie cutter ideas floating around out there about right and wrong ways to
paddle.

ralph diaz


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