correct paddling technique?

[east]

Years ago I read an article in maybe Tracks mag?, about correct paddling technique using an 's weave', did'nt go into detail though so I never found out what this was... anyone know what it is and are we talking about the same thing as Nick here?

[S,M,L,XL]

semi kidding , Down South and Perth metro are two very different surfing propositions. the waves down south are amazing and rotto is great. The reality, however, is that ds is three hours away, so the majority of my day to day surfing is done in the city, which presently is in the longest summer wave drought i can remember. Yeah i can try and get away every weekend, but committments mean that isnt always possible. It is very rare to get access to quality city waves in WA, that's all im saying. It looks like you eastcoasters are having a dream run, its 38 over here and my local resembles a lake, even a three foot crowded beachie would look pretty good to me at the moment. bring on autumn!

[Nappy]

semi kidding , Down South and Perth metro are two very different surfing propositions. the waves down south are amazing and rotto is great. The reality, however, is that ds is three hours away, so the majority of my day to day surfing is done in the city, which presently is in the longest summer wave drought i can remember. Yeah i can try and get away every weekend, but committments mean that isnt always possible. It is very rare to get access to quality city waves in WA, that's all im saying. It looks like you eastcoasters are having a dream run, its 38 over here and my local resembles a lake, even a three foot crowded beachie would look pretty good to me at the moment. bring on autumn!

Living in Perth for the surfer is alot like living near the mid in Adelaide cept belive it not perth would get bigger.
Horrible flat spells here that can last weeks. Rarely gets bigger than 3tf, 5ft is unheard of (altho when i was a grommet I swear my local at the time Y-steps would be over four foot consitently in winter, whether or not the swells are smaller now im not sure but i think so. Thats another thread tho)

We have down south which quite frankly isnt the greatest setup, mainly beaches couple ok reefs they need sizey swell tho. Like you we have the 3 hour drive to get to the good stuff, when we go around the gulf.

Pity us lot east coasters, getting good stuff around is nearly always a mission

[DV8]

Nick C wrote

Put your hand in soft and flat -- fingers slightly apart, wrist tilted at 45 degrees

Call me forest gump , but isnt the above a contradiction ? If your entering the water with a flat hand then how can it be tilted at 45 degrees ? Does this mean the heel of the palm is first point of contact with the water ?
Can NC or other explain if I'm on the right track or tell me otherwise.

[Nick Carroll]

No, not a contradiction. The wrist is tilted so that the hand slopes down into the water at around a 45 degree angle to the line of the forearm, which is kinda parallel to the water surface. The angle of the hand and palm thus "catches" the water before drawing back.

By "flat", I mean don't try to turn your hand into a scooping device. You don't wanna be cupping it. Thumb, fingers and palm should be flat on the same plane. Relaxed but not floppy. Cupping the hand causes tension in the arm, tightens the shoulder and shortens the stroke, and it doesn't hold as much water as a flat open hand either.

[Toby Wan]

i used to swim competitively and thought i'd add that what nick's saying above about how you put your hand in the water and how you pull it through is the same concepts we were taught technique-wise..

if you can visualise it then that's great, the technique definitely applies although like most things everyone is going to achieve this a little differently..

i found the best way to make sure that you're paddling effectively/efficiently for yourself is as follows:

as you're pulling your hand through the water, you should be able to feel the pressure on the back/top of your hand (its subtle but you'll notice if when you're thinking about it) - essentially its the feeling of the displaced water is filling in behind where you've just stroked..

so the more of this pressure that you're feeling the more water you're pushing/displacing backwards which means you're being more efficient with the individual stroke..

you can paddle as fast and hard as you want but unless you're pushing that water back then you're spinning your arms around without making much movement forwards..

with long paddles its great as well cause you can paddle slower and still have that level of efficiency in your paddle which means you get tired less..

i hope that makes sense and is a little constructive - can give you an idea of what you're supposed to be feelilng for..

am i even in the ballpark Nick?

[Nick Carroll]

Well yeah...except when I'm paddling really fast it feels like my hands are locking into the water and I'm pulling the board past that point, rather than my hands pulling back past the board.

Like I'm displacing the board not the water.

Occasionally have had the same sensation while swimming but it's harder to hold on to that kind of speed unless you're one of them Olympic humans.

But yeah overall, correct water feel is a big thing in paddling like swimming and it helps you to correct your stroke as you go.

[SAsurfa]

All this technicality about paddling .

I think we all know and feel when we are centred on our board correctly as to not be pushing water or creating too much drag when the nose dips too far under

We all know how much to spread our fingers apart to get the maximum amount of movement without letting too much or little water flow between them

After paddling over hundreds of thousands of times, probably even into the millions you know if your paddling technique is right and you know how to adjust your style or positioning if it feels a little out of wack. Surely after paddling this much you don't need someone to help you improve your technique more, surely any advice on top of what you already know will only be useful for shaving off a second or two paddling over 100m, and why is that useful it's not a race

My 2c

[wanto]

well i've probably paddled as far and as hard and as often as anyone my age and as a result have got cartilage damage in one of my shoulders. very annoying pain. i always thought i paddled 'correctly' and my shoulders are just worn out, but after reading this thread i can now reduce the ache after a long session to about half. so roll your eyes if you want, but there's benefit to it.

[pig champion]

All this technicality about paddling .

I think we all know and feel when we are centred on our board correctly as to not be pushing water or creating too much drag when the nose dips too far under

We all know how much to spread our fingers apart to get the maximum amount of movement without letting too much or little water flow between them

After paddling over hundreds of thousands of times, probably even into the millions you know if your paddling technique is right and you know how to adjust your style or positioning if it feels a little out of wack. Surely after paddling this much you don't need someone to help you improve your technique more, surely any advice on top of what you already know will only be useful for shaving off a second or two paddling over 100m, and why is that useful it's not a race

My 2c

thanks for your 2c worth mr know it all ... you sound like one of those guys who knows everything about everything ...

[Nick Carroll]

All this technicality about paddling .

I think we all know and feel when we are centred on our board correctly as to not be pushing water or creating too much drag when the nose dips too far under

We all know how much to spread our fingers apart to get the maximum amount of movement without letting too much or little water flow between them

After paddling over hundreds of thousands of times, probably even into the millions you know if your paddling technique is right and you know how to adjust your style or positioning if it feels a little out of wack. Surely after paddling this much you don't need someone to help you improve your technique more, surely any advice on top of what you already know will only be useful for shaving off a second or two paddling over 100m, and why is that useful it's not a race

My 2c

usually takes a surfer about 20 years before he/she starts realising he/she doesn't know s**t

And THAT's only if you're trying real hard. Some surfers go all their LIVES thinking they know what they're doing.

'Course they never really get any good.

Realising you don't know s**t is the start of your true development in surfing or any other worthy area.

Take paddling for example, like beyond surfing I've done a fair bit of it, three Molokai races, a bunch of shorter distance races, tons of training, all the short course surf club races I could go in for the last four years or so.

In that time must've done a million and a half knee paddle strokes, going from not being able to balance at all, to being comfy in 30 knot open ocean downwind runs.

So I'm beginning to think I know something about it. Am out training recently in Perth before the Aussie clubbie champs, smashing my training buddies as always, come in, and see a board coach from a well known club on the beach. He just grins, goes: "Come here".

In five minutes this guy shows me one simple thing and it completely changes my whole idea of knee paddling. Turns me inside out.

I don't know s**t and as a result I'm suddenly paddling 10% faster.

It's the same with surfing but a hundred times so, because there's so much you can not know about one turn! let alone the four or five others most people manage to get a handle on in their surfing lives.

let alone good paddling style. Wich as wanto says, can save you a lot more than a second or two per 100m.

[daryl]

Been feeling dunno shoot the last 5 years, so oi must be unreal . How darned sxciting to think how much more there is to know whoohoo

[Brentano]

hmmm that really has got me thinkin.....everything i know (or think i know ) im goin to try doing differently from now on.....not just surfing either, that can be the case in shit loads of other things too!!

[Cookie]

I'm with Wanto and NC on this one.

I've been surfing on and off for 30 years with a paddling style straight out of NCs book as How Not to Do It. Maybe not quite that bad but pretty close. As a result I have had tendonitis in both shoulders and a degree of cartilage degeneration in the right shoulder capsule. It never really bothered me till my mid 30s but eventually it got to the point where I was about to resort to a longboard just to ease the load on my knackered shoulders.

After altering my paddling style, I would guess I am now paddling at least 20% more efficiently and can easily maintain a speed I would have had to windmill furiously to get near before. After about a month my left shoulder is now pain free and the right is improving significantly. I can now surf for longer than 90 mins without being kept awake at night from the tendonitis flaring up. I slept like a baby after 3hrs in the water yesterday which would have been an impossibility without a serious dose of ibuprofen before.

I never knew or even suspected my paddling style was to blame - it just felt the natural way to do it. It was my new physio who pointed me in the right direction. Now I watch other people's paddling styles all the time out in the surf and its amazing how many do it the "wrong" way.

So two thumbs up from me NC, the tips have made my life a better place

[SAsurfa]

Hmm, well that did stir the pot a little didn't it

[daryl]

If you feel your hands feathering before letting go the tension, is that on the right track

[Nick Carroll]

Well if you're beginning to notice that you're feeling the water, then you're on the right track...

ideally, however, there's no "feathering" happening. Hand flat, relaxed, but firm against the water, all the way from catch to release. You can work toward that over time.

[daryl]

Sure different to feel a mitt firmly full of water as I pull along!



The feathering is like with awd when all four wheels are spinning, well not spinning, trying to spin, but grabbing in chunks, even tho you've got traction control, mine only does it in the wet and giving it a full hammering. My hands were bouncing back, like fluttering from resistance. Same as with rear wheel drive when you're finished a standing burnout, and you're laying a track of rubber, or on a bike and it's snaking without wheelstand, or a bit I dunno, something like that .