Who's better, Hawaii Women Paddlers or Tahiti Women Paddlers? If so why?
I think this an important question to ask as there have been countless threads and posts regarding Tahitian men's dominance.
Throughout our discussions, women's paddling has, for the most part-and to our collective fault, been ignored. However, in discussing women's paddling I think the same themes apply, and offer insight into each of the posited theories. what do you folks have to say regarding the below arguments/theories?
"professional" vs. non-paid/non-sponsored athletes
cultural vs. newbie
v1 vs. oc1
total sacrifice vs. do what i can/competing obligations (ie family, job, sanity)
I think these theories/ arguments are extremely fascinating when applied to women because the result regarding the difference between hawaii and tahiti are completely different than the men. Obviously different factors come into play regarding the support for women paddling/cultural differences, but said analyses remain fascinating.
What say you folks?
Submitted by numerouno on Mon, 09/23/2013 - 8:58am
You need to sit less in front of a computer & more paddling
#1 Mon, 09/23/2013 - 9:59am
thanks for your insight, you have a point; however, while i may be a superior paddler, i am genuinely interested in people's opinions. i think this is especially important since we have ignored women's paddling.
#2 Mon, 09/23/2013 - 10:07am
It was a tough channel out there yesterday. Messy water, tricky bumps, strong head-current as you got closer to Oahu. It took years of trying before the Tahitian men became able to dominate the Kaiwi channel. The Tahitian women don't come to compete in this race as often or in as many numbers. I wonder if they just need more time in this type of conditions before they are able to master it. I have no idea what their training or support system is like in Tahiti, but I had the honor of battling back and forth with those women in the middle of the channel yesterday. They did a great job.
I could type more about women paddling... but my hands hurt.
#3 Mon, 09/23/2013 - 10:32am
The Tahitian women are tough! Molokai girls had an all out gun fight with them for about a half hour, side by side about 3/4 way thru Kaiwi. Its was great!!!
From what I understand the women in Tahiti dont get the same kind of support as the men so I can only imagine how hard they have to work to get here, kudos to them! Good job ladies!
#4 Mon, 09/23/2013 - 3:15pm
Aloha to all,
I'm not Tahitian but I've been there a couple of times. It's a very traditional society and in my opinion, it's a cultural difference. The majority of Tahitian women do not paddle, they dance traditional dancing. Simple as that...
#5 Tue, 09/24/2013 - 9:31pm
Perhaps the original question wasn't the right question... but I do agree that women's paddling is largely ignored on this forum. Since the original framing was about Tahiti paddlers vs Hawaii paddlers, just thought I would share this photo of 3 crews -- Tahiti, Kai Opua 40s, & WBBCC-2 -- battling across the channel about 2 hrs into the race. We went back and forth several times before separating lines a bit and going our own ways. Much respect.
#6 Wed, 09/25/2013 - 11:26am
Womens paddling does get ignored and with that some valuable data can get lost. We notice the dominance of Tahitian over Hawaiian, but we haven't ever talked about the dominance of Waikiki Beachboys Women's program against all other women's club programs. Domination in Regatta and distance. 14 minutes ahead of the second club program in Na Wahine this year. This is a program without any kids program at all and almost all the paddlers started paddling within 6 yrs and started late in life on the Ala Wai. Since most are mainland girls most don't have ext families to support them with their families and kids. This is not a magnet program that attracts the best paddlers from other programs either.
One of the reasons I don't like magnet teams competing in the club arena is because they diminish the actual small things it takes to take to be a champion. They (magnet teams) do their work so don't extrapulate this out too much. Ultimately talent can take you 90% of the way to be the best and all the way to a championship when you playing in a small pond. But the bigger pond includes the Tahatians (when speaking of the mens pond) and talent alone is not getting us over the top. WE ALL SHOULD KNOW BY NOW THAT FUNDAMENTALS ARE THE CRUTCH OF THE TALENTLESS.....per Kenny Powers at least. So when we talk about Bradley girls winning and how they rarely get to train together that is really not a the example that would lead to overall excellence in Hawaii. The Livestream commentator was talking about how smooth the Bradley girls looks and I was like "what the hell do you consider blending". A couple of those girls we so far off that if they were any more off their timing would be been better.
This all reminds me kkk808 said about Kamu or Kumu his coach that doesn't spill info on OCP.com. He said a bunch of details about what makes a canoe go faster , blend, shaft, power application, etc.... All boring details. But, his message won't get out there with the force it should until we get rid of the magnet programs. If we didn't have magnet programs then Kamu's team would be one of the elite teams out there with no superstars at all. THey have good paddlers but not the level of the level of the Magnet programs. People would be saying oh my what's their secret, sort of like people should look at Beachboys women and go "Hmm, what are they doing right that we can build on, and how are they doing it.
I looked at the pics from the end of the Henry race, if you look at the still pictures from the end of race you will see that the blades are not entering at the same time nor have the same angle entering. If you look at Tahitian still shots you will see all very similar posture, blade angle, timing etc. Their detail work is as far ahead of our detail work as they are in front of us (especially my crew) in the Hoe.
Right now talent is winning, but when the pool of talent evens out..... having a master of detail will be the new magnet.
#7 Wed, 09/25/2013 - 3:01pm
i dont really mind the "magnet crews" gives you incentive to train harder to beat them. Its not like theres alot anyways. Im pretty sure Team Bradley give WBB a bar to train harder and get better. WBB have shown the great improvement throughout the years. Vice versa those crews motivate eachother as well as the rest of the field who has their races within the race .
#8 Wed, 09/25/2013 - 10:15pm