I enjoyed reading through "The Catch" forum created last year, learned some new tricks posted in the comments by some elite paddlers on this site...so that inspired me to ask about the technique used at the end of the stroke, which seems to be almost as important as the initial entry/catch...
More specifically, focusing on bottom wrist and how "deep" your paddle should be at the end of the stroke. I've been told slightly different things by various great paddlers/coaches (in Hawaii)...some say you should "break" your wrist before your recovery, others say that you don't necessarily need to break your wrist but just be sure to not allow your blade to sink too deep before the recovery but to keep wrist loose (?).
How do you define exactly how deep your paddle should be under the water at the end of the stroke? For example what would the curve look like exactly from the Catch (plant) to the Exit (again I'm focusing only on the exit however maybe this would help explain by picturing a curve/line) by looking at the line the bottom of your paddle traverses under water - would it go straight (with the boat) from the "catch" then come up, or go down a little before coming back up?
Again to clarify I'm not asking about where proportionally to your body should you be exiting or other technique related questions (as I think we all know you can write books on every different little piece of the stroke and muscles used), this question is more about just "the exit" - e.g. bottom wrist movement and paddle depth or whatever else needed to explain this part of the technique. Appreciate any input, I've been paddling about 6 years now and have been told by several coaches this is the primary thing I need to work on - so hoping an experienced paddler(s) on here could help to explain or clarify this...? Mahalo!
PS this is more of an OC-1 question rather than OC-6 however I understand this part of the technique would be considered pretty similar to any OC-* paddling.
I enjoyed reading through "The Catch" forum created last year, learned some new tricks posted in the comments by some elite paddlers on this site...so that inspired me to ask about the technique used at the end of the stroke, which seems to be almost as important as the initial entry/catch...
More specifically, focusing on bottom wrist and how "deep" your paddle should be at the end of the stroke. I've been told slightly different things by various great paddlers/coaches (in Hawaii)...some say you should "break" your wrist before your recovery, others say that you don't necessarily need to break your wrist but just be sure to not allow your blade to sink too deep before the recovery but to keep wrist loose (?).
How do you define exactly how deep your paddle should be under the water at the end of the stroke? For example what would the curve look like exactly from the Catch (plant) to the Exit (again I'm focusing only on the exit however maybe this would help explain by picturing a curve/line) by looking at the line the bottom of your paddle traverses under water - would it go straight (with the boat) from the "catch" then come up, or go down a little before coming back up?
Again to clarify I'm not asking about where proportionally to your body should you be exiting or other technique related questions (as I think we all know you can write books on every different little piece of the stroke and muscles used), this question is more about just "the exit" - e.g. bottom wrist movement and paddle depth or whatever else needed to explain this part of the technique. Appreciate any input, I've been paddling about 6 years now and have been told by several coaches this is the primary thing I need to work on - so hoping an experienced paddler(s) on here could help to explain or clarify this...? Mahalo!
PS this is more of an OC-1 question rather than OC-6 however I understand this part of the technique would be considered pretty similar to any OC-* paddling.
Submitted by rippa on Sun, 09/14/2014 - 8:22pm