Kayaking - Session 3 Overview

• Skill Area #1: The paddle motion is continuous, not broken into jerky pieces.

  Tips: Now you are starting to "feel" the boat move through the water, and the paddles smoothly enter and exit the paddle. When you paddle a few paddles with your eyes closed, the paddle motion may be more smooth and effortless than with your eyes open. What’s happening is that your paddle motion is becoming more continuous. There are fewer stops, starts, jerks, and heaves throughout the paddling sequence. This is good. HOWEVER, if you are finding that one or more parts of your paddle motion are jerky, unsettled, or worse yet unstable, time for a fix-it tip. Try to think of the entire paddle motion as flowing, connected, without seams or stitch marks. Like gliding your hand across a piece of fine silk, the process is very smooth - no lumps or bumps. Numerous paddling problems seem to disappear, at least temporarily, if you concentrate on trying to make the entire paddle motion a continuous, flowing movement throughout the catch, drive, finish, release, and recovery. Don’t feel alone if you struggle: novice athletes in ballet, swimming, running, gymnastics, and many other sports also have trouble developing this continuous movement approach to finesse.

• Skill Area #2: Have the blades (paddle tips) enter the water at the same speed the boat is moving.

  Tips: Now that you are more aware of what’s happening at the time of the catch, it can help to fine tune your blade entry. For now, rather than thinking about what your hands are doing at the catch, try to visualize the spoon of the paddle entering the water at approximately the same speed the water is moving underneath the boat. Although simple in principle, this concept is actually quite difficult to apply and even tougher to master. Interestingly, one of the best metaphors for learning this principle is to learn from little children playing with their bicycle wheels. Imagine two 6 year old children are playing with their upside down bicycle wheels. They are having a contest to see who can spin their bike wheels faster. The first child spins the wheel quickly by placing the open hand on top of the tire and moving or pushing the tire faster and faster which each successive hand push.

  The second child needs to find a faster, more efficient method in order to win the contest. This child chooses to not use the open hand, but rather one finger inserted between the moving spokes. Dangerous yes: the child could seriously hurt a finger if it is inserted too slowly between the moving spokes or if it is left in between the spokes too long. In order for the second child to produce more interrupted wheel speed the finger needs to be inserted between the quickly moving spokes at exactly the same speed the wheel is currently moving. As the wheel spins faster, the finger needs to be moving incrementally faster as it enters the spokes. This motion in paddling will help you develop a more clean, knife-like entry into the water.

• Skill Area #3: Have the blades (paddle tips) enter the water with a knifing motion that produces little splashing of the water.

  Tips: Unfortunately, many novice paddlers intuitively try to turn kayaking into canoeing. They raise their upper hand far above their head, slam the paddle into the water, tug on it with their lower hand, and keep it in the water until the blade slaps the side of the boat hull. Ugh, too much splashing and wasted motion. The effect of this activity is to slow the boat with each paddle entry. You are doing well if the paddle enters the water, under full pressure, with very little foaming water around the entry point.

• Skill Area #4: Once your paddle enters the water and you are fully "connected", simultaneously push with your upper hand while rotating your abdomen as if you are pushing the water past the boat.

  Tips: Swinging your abdomen during the drive allows you to help lever the boat through the water. Unlike leg drive, or propulsion, which causes significant build up of lactic acid in the shoulder muscles during a workout, leveraging the back with each paddle motion does little to wear you out. So effective paddlers understand that the combination of propulsion from the shoulders coupled with leverage from the back produces more power and also helps the shoulders to not tire as quickly - wouldn’t runners or bicycle racers wish they could use leverage to help them last longer?

  So for each inch your shoulders move during the drive, you back should swing about the same distance. When your arms are fully extended on the stroke, your back and shoulders should rotate approximately 40 degrees past the perpendicular.. Keep in mind that "swing" does not mean that your body rotates forward at the catch - such "head dipping" upsets the boat and makes you a candidate for a flip.

• Skill Area #5: Your head and nose height remain unchanged throughout the stroke.

  Tips: An athlete’s head weighs approximately 12 pounds - the same weight as a 12-pound shot put. A high performance single racing kayak weighs around 30+ pounds, only 2.5 times the weight of your head. During the paddle cycle, the more you move your "shot put" (your head) from side to side or up and down, the more this movement will upset the boat. And since your head is hopefully connected to your abdomen, extreme head movement results in abdomen shifts as well - further upsetting the kayak. Even experienced paddlers develop lots of nasty head movements. The two most common bad habits associated with head movement are the "head turn" at the catch, and the "head bow" at the release. The head turn at the catch results in a huge loss of power at the start of the drive because the back is not well supported to produce maximum propulsion from the shoulders. And the head how bow at the release causes the lower spine and pelvis to curve or curl under the paddler, thereby significantly increase the potential for serious back injury. Keep the chin up throughout the drive.

  One good drill for helping you improve is to videotape your paddling performance with particular close up attention to your head height. Then when you are replaying the video, take a non-permanent marking pen and make a line across your TV screen the height of your nose during the first catch. Run the line all the way across the screen. If you are paddling correctly, your nose should remain on that pin line (assuming the video operator has a steady hand) throughout the catch, drive, release, and recovery. The straighter your spine, the more braced your back, the less head movement you will experience.

• Skill Area #6: Following the stroke you recover by quickly relaxing your extended upper shoulder and then gently letting that arm drop toward the water and then pick up speed just as your paddle enters the water.

  Tips: If you surveyed 10 experienced kayakers and asked them "at what point in the paddle cycle does the boat reach maximum velocity?" probably 7 or more of them would get the answer wrong. The incorrect answers would be "at the end or finish of the paddle." In fact, until the peddler’s body weight (the abdominal weight) has shifted and the paddle removed from the water,, the boat is not reaching maximum velocity. By quickly and smoothly exiting the water at the finish, the kayaker is able to keep the boat gliding longer through the water, thereby increasing velocity of the boat to its maximum.

• Skill Area #7: When paddling continuously for more than 10 minutes, practice the use of recovery cycles of 50%, 30%, and 10% in order to preserve energy and propel the boat under power.

  Tips: Paddlers going on a multi-hour trip, may tire or develop sore muscles far sooner than they think - often turning a fun outing into a nightmarish amount of work. Learning how to save ones energy is a critical process. In running and cycling this concept is called "recovery". When going on, say, a 4-hour paddling adventure you and your companions may elect to spend the first hour on a 20% recovery. This means that for every 8 complete strokes you take using full pressure, you will then take 2 strokes with almost no paddle pressure. Amazingly, you will go faster, have more fun, see more sights, and mostly importantly travel significantly farther. During your last hour of paddling, with sore muscles, you may shift to a 40 or 50% recovery and produce much better results than if you tried to power up the entire time.

• Skill Area #8: After 30 minutes of continuous paddling, practice energy conservation (in your shoulders and arms): leave your arms straight longer on the drive, pivot your hips more, and trace an imaginary horizontal figure 8 with your paddling hands.

  Tips: In addition to using a 20-40% recovery cycle on longer paddling adventures, you might also try using less propulsion from your shoulders. This is accomplished by locking your elbows in a straight arm position and rotating your extended arms and abdomen in a figure 8 position. When you are near exhaustion from paddling, this technique will prevent or reduce lactic acid buildup, and substantially increase your paddling time.

• Skill Area #9: This fluid stroking motion allows the boat to glide through the water, without being upset by abrupt body movements.

  Tips: A number of novice paddlers equate hull speed with number of paddle strokes per minute. In fact, stroke rate has much less to do with sustained paddling speed, than quality of stroke motion. A nice, fluid stroke motion stabilizes the boat so it can run, reduces lactic acid buildup in the shoulders, and makes it easier to balance and glide in turbulent conditions.