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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Even with hips
Posted By: Ed K. In Response To: Re: more questions on edging (Robert Woodard)
Date: Friday, 16 July 2004, at 1:27 p.m.
: One thing that may help is making sure your normal stroke ends roughly with
: the blade even with your hips. Stopping the boat from beginning to turn in
: the first place will be less tiring in the long run.: Woody
You know, this is one of the things that greatly confused me when reading books and articles about proper forward stroke technique: they often state that the blade should be removed when it is "even with the hips". To my mind, this instruction means drawing an imaginary line along the axis of the keel, and then a second line that goes through your hips, at right angles to the keel line. With this mental image, then, pulling the blade out when is crosses the second (hip axis) line feels very strange, and allows for only a very short stroke. It always felt to me much more natural, and powerful, to pull the blade out when it was significantly aft of this hip axis line. FINALLY, I read an article somewhere which made a lot more sense to me: it said to imagine a metal rod protruding from your hip----then only remove the blade when your hand hit this metal rod. This of course means that the blade is aft of the hip-axis line. A good picture of how far aft the blade actually should be before removing it from the water comes from an article in Seakayaker by Brent Reitz (http://www.seakayakermag.com/2003/03August/stroke03BR.htm)----see the figure labeled "High stroke part 4---the exit". But I would be curious to hear if others actually do remove the blade as it reaches the "hip-axis", as defined above.
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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board is maintained by Nick Schade - Guillemot Kayaks with WebBBS 5.12.
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