Cat’s Paw
Published May 13, 2006 | 
She comes out of the sun in a silk dress runningLike a watercolour in the rain
Don’t bother asking for explanations
She’ll just tell you that she came
In the year of the cat – al stewart
One thing I always find a little challenging with first timers is teaching them to keep their hands down when they paddle. Inevitably their inside arms are always sneaking up above their heads. What I’ve noticed is that it seems to stem from a natural tendency to want to keep your paddle blade near the surface of the water. I call it the “cats paw” effect. New kayakers seem to have a built in aversion to getting their paddles wet. Of course if you don’t get your paddle blade under the water you are forced to either keep your inner arm way up over your head, or reach out in more of a sweep, than a normal forward stroke. So we spend a lot of time talking about keeping your arms down and keeping your paddle blade UNDER the water. As new paddlers become more comfortable on and IN the water the “cats paw” effect goes away and with that their strokes begin to become more effective. Tomorrow we move on to rescues and recoveries. Good thing the weather will be improving from a rainy 50f today to a scorching, rainy 54f tomorrow. Party on!
Oh, and thanks for the links guys. Certainly keeps me on my toes!!
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3 Responses to Cat’s Paw
Cats’ paws don’t always stop at beginner level – at last year’s NorCal Symposium I was working with a group on forward paddling and getting some people to make the ‘catch’ phase of their stroke more positive. For the PC ones, pointing out that, as they had paid for the whole paddle, they might as well use it, worked. For some others, I used the ‘spear the fish’ or ‘kill the seal’ imagery (those of a sensitive nature please look away now!). What cracked me up was, after about 5 minutes of the exercise, a loud shout came from the campground – ‘Rowland! I knew it had to be you! – Only a Brit could get Americans to paddle up and down shouting ‘kill! kill! kill!’. Still brings a grin to think about it! Happy days! – and good luck with the cat herding!
)))
Rowland
Kill, kill, kill, eh? Should have thought of that!!
I think the problem could be me. . When we work on draws I start talking about mermaids grabing their paddles if they get them too close to the boat . . maybe I should just leave the mermaids out of it!
NO, NO, NO! Bring ON the mermaids!!! (well, think who I paddle with!!!
)))) )
rowland
(and, somewhat oddly, my verification is xxoox – which is open to WILD interpretation!)