Question: When paddling at a more leisurely pace, is it more better to lower the cadence (pull slower) or reduce the stroke length (less body rotation?)? It is more better to do what feels most better to you. I've watched some really good paddlers and almost all the really good ones use torso rotation no matter what the speed. But cadence and length are quite variable. Even Nigel Foster, the best sea kayaker I've seen, paddles quite a bit behind his hip at very slow speeds. This is what I have seen a lot in racing: the faster the speed the shorter the stroke. The reach is long but the sprinting racer takes the blade out of the water earlier than when not sprinting. My own stroke gets farther in front of the cockpit the faster I paddle and the take out of the blade gets farther forward as well. So, paradoxically, the shorter stroke is the faster and the slower stroke gets long just because, I think, there is no reason to hustle the blade out of the water. Jim Tibensky *************************************************************************** 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 Jun 11 2003 - 16:22:48 PDT
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Thu Aug 21 2025 - 16:31:07 PDT