Closing your eyes. Hmm. During a somewhat nasty Kailua Ironman Race, I am reminded of when Rene Connors' semi prophetic husband suggested that I close my eyes prior to getting a major facial in seat 1.

Closing my eyes is when I attempt to do those proprioception feedback drills paddling my canoe without an ama. Chance em!
Anyways, before you retire again Eckhart: Figure 3.2-D Kinematics in Sprint Canoeing of the Sperlich article, pretty much sums up the canoe stroke mechanics. ie: the blade stays put, while the position of the paddle shaft changes as the canoe pivots passed the staionary blade.
You are into surfskis? Now that explains everything. Good luck in the double bladed world.
KGB: With Eckhart on a surfski, that means you get somebody for go paddle? The buggah is fast, for he went beat your double big time. Anyways, go spend the money and go get one of them new kine skis for you can sit real low and get the splash in your face w/o closing eyes. Your S and G Bennett paddles are now classics, for they no make em anymore. The big "G" is worth gold. Now time for get Harold back on skis, for Eckhardt just might be setting a new trend?

Onnopaddle,
That is simply cool. It would be a simple tool to help refine the stroke and see perhaps in training sessions what is going on. I wonder if it could be sync to see how well about is timed together as well?

You vill have a serious paddling discussion und you vill ejoy it!

Pat and I were just with Dr. Sperlich last week in San Diego at the Olympic Training Center. While I cant quite explain the "in's" and "out's" about it as well as Eckhart can. I can say that this type of technology can be very useful information for a paddler because it gives you information on each stroke / each side. The information on how much power is being generated per stroke/side, but more importantly how effectively you are applying your power. If you look at the pics that Eckhart attached your curve should spike from the power applied then become flat at the top (meaning your maintaining the power and getting the most possible work) and then drop back down rather than just a very steep spike in power and an immediate decline. Like someone said before a high school foot ball team could win because they can bench 300 lbs. Not true, if their curve is not right (meaning they can generate all the power in the world but have no clue for what you hear a lot about "feel for the water" which I think is a simpler used term of how well you're applying power on and through out your stroke.)
All in all, testing and video analysis can be hard to get ahold of but is very beneficial. But at the end of the day it will only work if the paddler takes things into their own hands and tries to work on their problems or flaws. Maybe its with the help of a coach, eyes closed, video or whatever.

Thanks Eckhart, another insightful angle.
How would one go about measuring their kinetics/bio-mechanics?

I was just joking. The use of these methods is essential at the highest levels, and would be cool for average joes, too. I do believe that there is no better tool for evaluating certain things like team chemistry and blend than the human mind, however.

I think the paddle is using strain gauges not pressure sensors. The actual electronic parts are probably quite cheap. As with most things you're paying for the idea not the parts.

It seems to me that the fundamental goal of Sperlich-style measurement is to help paddlers optimize the translation of paddle force into forward movement.
So, let's fantasize a minute: assume you have installed some sort of pressure/strain gauge on your paddle, a GPS on your boat, and fancy sunglasses that connect to your strain gauge/GPS via bluetooth and instantaneously display the force you are using in little numbers on the left side of your sunglasses and your current hull speed on the right side.
Now you go out into a canal and start paddling. Hey, it works great! You paddle a stroke, see the force, see your speed, change your stroke slightly, see the new force, see the new speed, and after some amount of time you figure out how to position the paddle throughout the stroke in order to optimize the translation of the force you apply into forward movement.
Flush with victory, you paddle out into the ocean, and suddenly your instrumentation is no longer any help at all. There is no longer any obvious connection between force and forward movement! For example, you catch a wave, stop paddling, and your speed increases at the same time that your force drops to zero!
This, I think, is the basic difference between Olympic, Sperlich-style paddling and typical OC paddling: they paddle in "static" conditions and we paddle in "dynamic" conditions. In static conditions, you can use relatively simple measurements to connect your behavior to the outcome. In dynamic conditions, it's much harder: the "optimal" stroke actually changes from stroke to stroke, because the optimal stroke at any time is contingent upon the current state of the wind, waves, currents, the current direction of your boat, etc.
Not to say that the fancy sunglasses are useless, but I'd trade them in a minute for an hour on the ocean with Nappy Napoleon paddling beside me and telling me what I'm doing wrong.

I was enlightened when I first got a GPS, sometime I would be given her and I was going slow, and sometime I would be flying and I felt like crap. I wish there was a gadget that could produce emotional content like