Time for a technique post again. It’s been a bit since I’ve given you some actually useful information. Luckily after the recent symposium I have all sorts of information I can steal from really good kayakers. In many ways kayak instructors are just like poets. Poets as you know, are thieves.

So last spring when paddling with a friend I noticed she had this weird cantor when she paddled. Every couple strokes her paddle would rise up to the “catch” position, (meaning the paddle was just about to enter the water to take a stroke), and at that moment she would pause. Not too long mind you, but at least long enough for a good clear photo, and then the spear would enter the water and the stroke would continue to the other side and back and . . pause. . . It was like watching a DVD skip. So after flushing my eyes out with nasty green water a few times and checking the chemicals in my energy bars I went over to ask my dumb “beginner” question. “Why the hell do you paddle like that?!!” Well no, It was more “eyes to the ground” and I don’t think I used the word “hell” but you get the picture. The Answer. . “Do I?”, she said. Ok. Well that one was going to wait.

The first time I watched Brent Reitz’s DVD “The Forward Stroke”, I found that adding a bit of a pause right before you “speared” the water was a great way to be sure you got a good clean catch. But in a few minutes I’d be back to my old ways and forget about it again until I realized my catch was getting sloppy again. Then I’d go back to that little pause. My inner “Kayak Ninja” hates a noisy paddle! In fact I know a few “Brentites” that have that little pause on and off when they’re shooting for that clean catch or as he says, “Spearing the fish“.

I sort of forgot about the whole paddle-pausey-paddle thing over the summer until I was out in my 4 star training with Mark Schoon. (Mark by the way, has a really good shot at winning a national “Big Labowski” look-alike contest. Now don’t go telling him I said that! Not that I think he’d mind. After all, “The dude abides. . .” Anyway, I’m wandering off again. Back to the point!) At one point in the day he paddled up along side me but back enough that I couldn’t really see his stroke. Then he asked the other students if they noticed anything. (I hate being the chosen “bad example“, I really, really do. . ) Almost in unison the others called out “You’re paddling half as much as he is!”. Yeah, he certainly was. But he was not losing ground. In fact he may have been edging forward on me.

Ok you cross-country skiers out there, what’s going on? Yeah, it’s “glide”. You see, after you’re up to speed your boat is going to glide across the water a bit without losing much forward momentum. You don’t really need to be constantly paddling. In fact if you’re a really sloppy paddler, putting your paddle in the water too much is probably a bad thing. Let it glide. I’ve found my rhythm in 1 stoke on both sides, then about a 1 second pause before initiation that next stroke (more or less depending on conditions). I’ve seen others do 2 strokes on both sides and then pause. You sort of have to find your own rhythm. But the point is the pause is your rest time. The boat will glide forward on it’s own with very little change in momentum. Over time you’re saving yourself a ton of work. Who knows, you may find that the only reason you’re at the back of the pack is that you’re just working too hard.