Posted: I have a friend, ten years younger, bigger and stronger than me, who is a pain to paddle with. He contends that it is more tiring and just plain hard to do: to slow down to match my speed. So he scoots ahead and then rests every now and again while I catch up. So there are at least two of you with a minimum speed fixation. Count me as a third. I have a racing background and paddle hard a lot. It is literally painful for me to paddle slowly. Fellow paddlers get annoyed when I paddle circles around them, but it is a good way for me to stay comfortable. I can't add a lot to the forward stroke discussion but I will chime in. Again, my background is racing, starting as a sprint racer, so my forward stroke ideas may be skewed that way. Some students understand and learn from technical explanations and some can't stand them. For the techies the kind of analysis that has been in this thread would be useful. I have, however, been able to teach and to coach some very successful kayakers without ever getting too analytical in the beginning. When I do get technical is in the process of perfecting their natural stroke. Since people are put together differently they will paddle differently. In my opinion. In the last century, I trained with the Polish champion sprinter Stefan Kaplaniak (world champion in 1958). He is short, barrel-chested and has very short arms. I am short, skinny, with very long arms. Movies (we didn't have video in those days) of us paddling alongside each other make it look like we are two different species. No similarities. All this to say that what works for one may not for another. My bottom-to-top way of analysis looks at what muscles kayakers have that are well-developed and then asks why. Sprint racers, the forward stroke specialists, have huge triceps, lats and quads. The tricpes muscles extend the elbos, then pull the extended arm straight down, so, if I am correct, sprint racers use a lot of energy pulling the blade down. We always think in terms of 'rotation' but I think there is some pull down as well. I think the triceps also lock the elbow in place while the torso rotates, so maybe I'm wrong about the pull down. I also think the triceps wouldn't be so big if gravity did most of the work. My own teaching of the forward stroke emphasizes leg involvement to keep the body and boat firmly connected and emphasizes torso engagement through blending a sweep into a forward stroke (http://www.paddlewise.net/topics/technique/forwardstroke.html). I strongly agree with Matt that a good forward stroke should not be vertical. Moving out away from the hull at the end of the stroke keeps the blade in one's own wake, providing a nice solid resistance. I guess I shouldn't turn this into a discussion of how I teach the forward stroke, but, of all the details I am concerned with, using gravity was never one of them. Now maybe I have another detail. I've learned a lot from this thread and want to send my appreciation to everyone to has contributed. Thanks. 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 Fri Apr 29 2011 - 06:42:10 PDT
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