Shawn Baker wrote: but it's not a true reflexive brace if your hard wiring doesn't tell you where the blade is. I knew somebody might call me on this technicality, but for lack of coming up with a better term I used "reflexive" anyway. Technically, a brace is learned behavior and not a hard wired "reflex" you were born with. By "reflexive" I was trying to say "reflex like" because the brace has become such a well polished habit and requires little in the way on conscious thought to apply it (much like a reflex). This makes it much quicker than having to analyze the situation (including which feather angle that you earlier chose to use today) and making a conscious decision as what is best to do each time. My experience (as a high speed mogul skier, a mountain biker (who likes to go fast on single track) and a WW kayaker among other things) has been that the more you can operate at a subconscious level where your body is freed (from your thinking mind) to do what it has learned to do the better it works. When things are happening too fast to process you must do something now then think about what happened later when things have calmed down and you have a little more time for analysis. I can switch from feathered to unfeathered fairly easily. I believe this is because my hands weren't rotating on the paddle shaft-as perhaps the upper hand should be, but I hadn't discovered that yet, and was lifting my elbows and throwing hooks to compensate for the rotation caused by lifting the paddle on one side to take the next stroke on the other-but I digress-anyway by having my hands fixed on the paddle shaft the blade was already in the brace position on both sides. The real problem for me comes when trying to switch back to a feathered blade angle. I'd get a lot of unwelcome edge strokes at first, before readapting to feathered. Sure you can do it, but I doubt anyone can switch back and forth and not lose some of their quickness when suddenly caught off guard by the need to brace right now. I want a brace to be like a pole plant when skiing fast, quickly do its job of putting you back in balance and then just as quickly retract to be ready to do brace again. I get the feeling many folk see a brace as a deliberate move that is planned for and can be executed to meet some anticipated situation (like that breaker you can see coming from the side). I want it for those times I didn't see the need coming in advance. GP downsides-can't wear pogies and move your hand around on the blade. How does one do a sliding stroke if you've wrapped a line around the blade to act as a drip ring? Tonight I was trying Eskimo style strokes with a wide bladed "Euro" paddle. The sliding stroke was a little awkward at first but I got better at it with a little practice. I can't see when I might want to use it though. It might have some advantage in high winds but I've gotten along with out it these last 25 years some of which were in high winds where I'd rather not be sliding my hand around on the paddle. During high winds, or in real rough water, is when I keep a tight grip on the paddle. I think we have come upon another one of those "religious" debates in paddling. Matt Broze http://www.marinerkayaks.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 Wed Sep 18 2002 - 02:24:36 PDT
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