About 5 or 6 years ago we stopped teaching the ol' school push and punch out the top hand forward stroke as it was discovered that using a push/ pull action moves the pivot point of the shaft to the center, causing the working blade to travel in a small radiused arc . If you move the pivot point of the shaft up and away from the center of the paddle to say the top hand, the working blade would have a flatter, more efficient path. This involves NO pushing or punching out , but a rotation of the top hand to the side. It's like planting with the fish stab, then looking at a wrist watch and keeping the watch 8-10" away from your eyes. That way the blade stays buried at the same depth throughout the stroke. Then as the blade passes your knee, a wing paddle style side release, as was mentioned, works great. ah.....rotation, that's the ticket and that's what goes away with a p/p stroke. Like the difference between swimming with a dog paddle (p/p) and a serious crawl stroke (high pivot). The arms only could get the p/p to work, where if you use the high pivot point the shoulder rotation must happen for the blades to move. It's more effecient to use less push/ punch/ pulls and use more high pivot and rotation. Steve *************************************************************************** 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 Tue Dec 04 2001 - 08:29:58 PST
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:30:46 PDT