Craig wrote >Maybe if a few short-paddle users try Chuck's technique and report back we >could get some better perspective. Until then I'm keeping an open mind. G'Day Craig, I've several years experience of both long and short paddles. This started at the age of 50 almost exactly as Matt described. My first kayak was a Klepper and I used a paddle whose length was determined by the classic method of standing next to a vertical paddle, holding my arm up and choosing the length that allowed me to grasp the top blade in the palm of my hand. The combination of this paddle and the Klepper was wonderfully stable in conditions that I would consider challenging even today, but then I was young and foolish. I also developed tennis elbow from the stresses involved, being a skinny sort of cove:~) About four years years later I'd moved to a fibreglass kayak, a Pittarak. Then I met Linda Lehman who trains Olympian kayakers but was quite happy to hold a work shop for us mere mortals. The first thing she did was sit us in a circle with out paddles and exclaim that each paddle was far too long and that short was ideal. She suggested about 210 cm for most of us and taught us the vertical racing stroke and exercises that would allow us to change over. It was my Damascus, A year of struggling followed to reform my stroke, and eventually her technique made me considerably faster and with much less effort and no more sore arms. A sore butt yes but that's a different story to do with ischial tuberosities (bum bones) and my lack of padding where it counts. Eight years on at the age of 61 I've been continually frustrated at the comparison of my prowess and my deep respect for Linda's ideas, against the fact that I often paddled with strong, solidly built, relatively inflexible men and women who managed just fine with a longer paddle and a shallower stroke. So was forced to the conclusion I tried to describe in my last post. Different strokes for different folks. Probably time to be more specific about what's long and what's short. Here's my usage of the terms for a Euro paddle: - LONG 255cm or 8.5feet Selected by standing next to the vertical paddle and grasping the top blade SHORT 205cm or 6.8feet Selected by adjusting the length and feather angle of a smart shaft paddle for best performance as assessed by an expert paddling instructor and using a vertical stroke. I suggested this to our club some years ago and it caught on. Then in 1998 Nigel Dennis visited our club and he had been doing exactly the same thing in the UK but with more finesse - he included removable paddle blades of different size in the assessment. All the best, PeterO *************************************************************************** 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 Fri Jul 16 2010 - 05:23:37 PDT
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