I was working on my sculling braces and interesting situation came up that I hope someone can clarify for me. I normally paddle with a Greenland paddle but I have been playing around with my older Euro blade. Background info: I am using a 60 deg feathered paddle. I am setting up initially for the high brace position by putting my hands in the normal paddling position and then bending elbows so hands and paddle come up about shoulder high. In this position on the control hand side the blade is parallel to the water. It is in the exact position for a high brace. I can rotate my control hand wrist such that either the front or rear edge of the blade can be angled up. That is I can move the blade forward and back and with a slight wrist roll always keep the "leading" edge angled up. It is my understanding that this is what should be happening for a high brace scull on the control hand side. For my problem: When I bend my elbows as described above to start the high brace the non-control hand blade is not parallel to the water. For a high brace on that side I now roll the control hand back (without changing my grip position on the control side) and let the paddle rotate in the non-control hand until the blade on the non-control hand side is parallel to the water. Then I tighten my grip with the non-control hand in this new position. This is very similar to the rotation and re-grip I do in normal paddling, but it seems to take a little more rotation of my control hand for the brace position than for normal paddling. I can brace fine in this position, but if I try to scull the paddle forward I can not rotate my control hand any farther back to make the leading edge of the blade be angled up and the paddle dives. I have no problem keeping the leading edge angled up when I scull the paddle to the rear. Questions: 1. Am I doing something wrong in setting up for the high brace? 2. Should I be rolling my control hand wrist back to get the non-control hand blade parallel to the water for a brace/scull on the non-control hand side? 3. If #2 above is a no, then how do I get the blade parallel to the water? 4. In order to scull on the non-control hand side should I relax the grip on the control hand side and allow the paddle to rotate to the needed angle to keep the leading edge up? 5. Is there a part of the proper technique I am totally missing? Mark Arnold mjamja_at_earthlink.net *************************************************************************** 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 Feb 19 2004 - 07:00:52 PST
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