OP-- we were concerned about aches and pains as we already have those. Funny thing is that my partners bum shoulder responds well to paddling. Thinking it must be in part due to trying to paddle in form as some videos on here suggest.
CapeFear-- you mentioned about a relaxed grip–my right thumb is the only part of my hand/arm eetc that seems to suffer. Would that be just gripping to hard? Admittedly, it does the same thing with the lawnmower, paint roller hand, using a shovel.
actually you should strive for a very light grip. I do like Cape Fear… pull back with finger tips and push away with palm of hand.
Seems you may have an injury from something else. Perhaps work? Texting… ( now running for cover!)
You can train yourself to get used to paddling just about any way you want, but there are good reasons to train yourself to do it the logical way. When you are paddling with the wind, or no wind, for most people, there is no particular reason to be feathered. Into the wind, there is plenty of reason to be feathered and it will become perfectly clear the first time you try to paddle into a very strong wind. The same is true with paddling while feathered with a strong wind on your beam. There’s plenty to do without giving the wind a flat surface to work on.
I know there will be paddlers who will argue the above and that’s fine–whatever works.
I’m right handed and I suppose that logic would indicate that my right hand should be my control hand. I don’t know exactly why, but somehow I trained myself to use my left hand as the control hand. I can switch, but why mess with something that works.
A sixty degree feather should be enough to deal with paddling into most wind, but there might be times when 75 degrees is called for. With a sixty degree feather, there is minimal to hardly any wrist flexing. It isn’t by pure random chance that paddle manufacturers use sixty degrees on paddles that only offer two settings.
I also might disagree somewhat with what some people prefer about pushing the paddle out of the water with an open hand. That means that you will be opening and closing your hands a lot and that could be tiring too. I do concur with relaxing the pushing hand, but I don’t see the benefit in opening it.
My final bit of advice has nothing to do with feathering, but I very strongly suggest trying some open fingered paddling gloves. Your hands will thank you for it. Hint: you don’t have to spend a wad on official paddling gloves; there are lots of inexpensive open fingered gloves available that work just fine.
No one I worked with since 2003 has taught a dominant hand thing, That is beyond old school now.
That said, I found that my 12 degree offset whitewater paddle worked extremely well for me. I have tried a similarly minor feather with the sea kayak and it also feels good.
I can also name people who teach a fairly big feather for efficiency and power. That is not exactly the same as the dominant hand idea though. You are using both hands equally, you just might find that the rest of the equation like torso rotation is better on one side than the other.
Best advice for aging joints is as above, open the hand not in the water on every stroke. It gets automatic very easily and saves the wrist a lot of strain. After that it is torso rotation and placement of the blade to save your joints. I play violin and I can this works.
Note that the bigger the feather, the more significant is the adjustment or rolling on what is for most their less adept side. aka the off side., Most of us find upside down orientation easier on one side than the other.
For me, going with zero feather significantly reduced wrist fatigue, exacerbated by a history of wrist breaks/sprains and carpentry-related stress (hammers, drills). It also simplifies going back and forth between Euro and GP. FWIW, the GP causes much less wrist/arm/shoulder fatigue for me, and many others too - I use it most of the time now.
I tried not feathering this morning.Didn’t like it but I have been using featherd for years.
Kayamedic— never texted a message in my life. Still use an old flip phone–we are caught up in Mr. Peabodys Wayback machine.
It does seem that at times not even putting the thumb on the bar helps-- mowing the lawn the PM have to check my grip.
@CapeFear said:
The good thing is that you’re just getting started. I would never teach dominant hand, nor wrist control. I only suggest unlearning it - never learning it. And I always use a feathered paddle. I’m not advocating for feathered or unfeathered. I’m suggesting that whatever you decide - decide and learn to do it without a control hand and wrist motion. I feather 60 degrees right-hand, and my goal has always been keeping my wrists straight. I promise you, the wrist thing is not part of feathering. It’s just that years ago some folks described it that way, may have even done it that way, and it just stuck - oh has it ever stuck in kayaking vocabulary?
Most folks I know go unfeathered. To this day, I still hear folks talk of control hand and wrist control with feathering. I don’t really bother with explaining or demonstrating unless asked. Just know it’s not part of good technique with a feathered paddle.
I would like to reinforce this. Whatever you do, become consistent with it. Let your hands cradle, not hold, the paddle. The death grip on this paddle causes more overuse injuries than whether the paddle is feathered or not.
Like many 40 some years ago, I started with a feathered paddle and was taught the “right control hand,” methodology. I quickly dropped the control hand because, for me, it was just as easy to swap from hand-to-hand. Then, I started pushing the paddle in my rotation with an open hand. I really liked this and I find that eases a lot of the stresses. Since it worked so well on one side, I formed a claw on the other side and had an open palm and four fingers cupping the paddle shaft like talons.
The first time I paddled in a storm, I was in Elkhorn slough and I experienced beam winds gusting in the 45-50 mph range (weather report cited this). In the slough, you are forced to pick a direction that is the shape of the slough, so you really cannot point your bow into the wind and ride it out.
Whether the winds were actually that strong, I cannot state. What I can certainly state is that the swells on the bay were large enough that my entire 17’ boat fit entirely on the face of the waves when I took it out onto Monterey Bay (easily 20 feet - as I could look back, see that my stern was on the wave, then look forward and see the top of the wave bearing down on me). It was pretty convincing weather.
On the slough, my ability to control the paddle was gone. The beam winds either blew the paddle out of out of my hand or got under the windward side of the blade and lift the paddle. Effectively, when holding the paddle with a tight grip, I was actually bracing on the wind and had to let go to keep from capsizing. After about 1/2 hour of this, I was arm sore and beat. I unfeathered the paddle (something I read in Hutchinson and/or Dowd about beam winds) and, voila, problem solved. The blade was no longer parallel to the water, so air could not lift the blade from my hands. I was able to go back to my relaxed grip and paddle in (realtive, if not someone nervous) comfort. Turned out to be a great day paddling and there was a lot of wildlife taking shelter in the slough.
I will never paddle with a feathered paddle again, but that is my choice.
Rick
My experience: When I first started kayaking I did the feather thing. My wrist hurt. I went straight and my wrist quit hurting, Shortly after that I switched to the Greenland paddle and never went back. Feathers are for the birds.
Reading this I get the thought that when the blade is in the water then that side would be “gripped not hard” but the opposite hand would be lightly holding on and helping to guide forward and being pushed/directed forward with the shoulder extension and a bit of torso twist?
Yooper16 -
Pretty much yes. The in-water blade is mostly being pulled, you can do that with three fingers without a tightly closed hand. Unless you are really in the soup the paddle isn’t going anywhere.
And the more torso twist the less you are asking of your shoulder. Allows the wrist to be fairly straight as mentioned above. always healthier for the long haul.
This is where pedaling comes in. If you can pedal to push your hip back a bit, it increases your torso rotation.
The wrist issue from paddling is first too much tension, after that sheer use. If you boil it down, most of the above suggestions produce a less tense wrist.
Also to someone above, I don’t find alternately opening my hand at all tiring. I don’t go any more open than needed to keep the wrist safe, but what I o feels pretty natural.
@Yooper16 said:
Reading this I get the thought that when the blade is in the water then that side would be “gripped not hard” but the opposite hand would be lightly holding on and helping to guide forward and being pushed/directed forward with the shoulder extension and a bit of torso twist?
I try to not grip the paddle at all, but the mechanics you describe are correct.
Take the paddle in your hands and open your fingers. The paddle shaft will sit in the V between thumb and index fingers. That is the “push” side. As you rotate your body, arms are bent at the elbow and the rotation presses the paddle into this V. It feels remarkably solid.
On the other side, hand is open in the same manner, but you curl fingers over the paddle shaft so that the shaft makes contact at the base of the fingers with the fingers forming a U shape over the shaft. This can be done without bending the wrist and keeping the wrist more relaxed reduces the odds of overuse injury.
I use this “grip” even in heavy conditions. When rolling or bracing, I have to close the fingers on one side due to the forces involved, but I rarely close my fingers at all when paddling, regardless of conditions.
Not to argue the point, but if you’re paddling at a serious pace, one hand is pushing (blade out of water) and the other hand is pulling. That’s just the way it is and I would find it kind of hard to pull without closing my fingers and that’s called gripping. When you’re in big waves and strong wind, especially when going to windward, you’d better have a grip on the paddle, or you might lose it.
Glad the curtains are shut so that the neighbors can see me practicing while reading your posts.
Hey 12t, Get yourself a Greenland paddle and you don’t even have to think about feathering or dominant hands.
magooch -
I didn’t say not to hang onto the paddle.Just that the force of the grip needed is often overrated and can leave damage to the wrists.
I messed around yesterday when I was out, coming back from some wet work. Too lazy for a long paddle. Going into 12 to 15 knot wind and a little splash around a southern tip because it was low tide. Not unusual paddling conditions for many. The paddle drew back fine and was not going anywhere with one finger and my thumb. The more I rotated the less I needed in my grip.
@Yooper16 said:
Glad the curtains are shut so that the neighbors can see me practicing while reading your posts.
Wait, what are you practicing?
@magooch said:
@Yooper16 said:
Glad the curtains are shut so that the neighbors can see me practicing while reading your posts.Wait, what are you practicing?
Guess I didn’t think that one through>
My contact with the paddle appears to be the same as magooch. In flat water I can get away with the two/three finger approach and push with my top hand open, but the dynamics of waves, wind, and boat wakes changes that. Played around with that last night while a couple of ski boats were out yanking people around…and sliced my blade a couple times. That was disconcerting.
I was looking at some forward stroke videos today and except for a couple of brief frames when explaining how to hold the paddle, the instructors have a full grip on their paddles, albeit lightly.
@Yooper16 How’s the bug situation up there? Are they still in full attack mode?
During the times when I’ve been caught in rough conditions, like the wind trying to blow the paddle out of my hands, I have used a very firm grip. Not quite white knuckles, but close.
