Feathering paddle and wrist motion

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> :slight_smile:

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.

Mosquitos are not bad, actually better than where we moved from. We lived in the area known as the Black Swamp in SE Michigan, so most things are an improvement up here.

Black flies, seem to recall them being worse years ago, but we live intown in the thriving metropolis so maybe that helps. Recall them being really bad during our backpacking years.

Mayflies are a bit heavier than I recall the last couple. Or are these Julyflies?

Had a massive infest of army worms this year all over the area. The resultant moths laying for next year are starting to reduce. Overall for us not bad. Have visitors on and off for the next 6 weeks, and probably some of our road trips will come upon swarms of the little darlings.

Hope to get out tomorrow --gonna re read this thread beforehand.

The whole grip thing is getting way overworked here. Most people likely show their whole hand on the paddle in regular circumstances. The point is that the force of the grip can be greatly reduced over what people starting out often assume. To the detriment of their wrist. A good way to find out if more work is being done than necessary is to pull fingers off the paddle side being drawn back to tell how little tightness you can get away with.

There is distance, power paddling and there are exercises to discover more about limits in paddling. Both are a good idea.

Wind forces are minimal on an unfeathered paddle. Only when the wind is directly behind or in front (a rare occurrance, especially when following a coastline) will the wind “catch” the blade, even if the blade is fairly large. On a slim greenland paddle, the effects are considerably lower. There is no need, even in high wind (alone) for a full grip on the paddle. I just curl the fingers and leave the thumb loose. It often will not make contact with the paddle.

When entering/exiting surf, however, or bracing, sculling, and cresting waves, a full grip is necessary. The forward stroke does (unless you are practicing surf or heavy paddle moves, as described above) require anything more than a stable platform between thumb and index finger. The forces involved are such that the paddle does not need to be gripped. The push locks the paddle in place on one side and the pull does so on the other. There may be some wind conditions where a full grip is needed with an unfeathered paddle, but I’ve yet to encounter them.

With a feathered paddle, you pretty much must grip the paddle (though not as powerfully as some seem to think) at all times in winds. In heavy winds, this means holding the paddle quite firmly. Now, the wind has a very easy time getting, and grabbing the paddle. Many capsize when this happens. You cannot (or I should say, I cannot - I won’t speak for others) shift weight quickly enough to lean on the paddle, so I am forced to release the paddle on the windward side. This causes problems, as well, but I can avoid the capsize as the paddle flops over in the air. In my experience, this will not happen with an unfeathered paddle.

The above sentence should read:
The forward stroke does NOT (unless you are practicing surf or heavy paddle moves, as described above) require anything more than a stable platform between thumb and index finger.

I’ve certainly had the wind try to take the paddle out of my hands on several occasions. Sometimes feathering helps this. Sometimes it doesn’t. Depends on wind direction. I tend to paddle high angle.

@Yanoer said:
I’ve certainly had the wind try to take the paddle out of my hands on several occasions. Sometimes feathering helps this. Sometimes it doesn’t. Depends on wind direction. I tend to paddle high angle.

Ditto

I have tied feathering several times, and with the 15° many of my friends use, I notice little difference in back pressure from the wind. What I did notice was going into strong wind the feather tended to push the upper hand inboard on the left, and outboard on the right ( I use high angle). I found that tiring. Without feather, that did not happen.

I am curious about the control hand statements earlier in this thread. Could someone elaborate why one should not use a control hand with a feathered paddle, and what one should do instead to twist the paddle shaft into the correct position before the catch?

I would like to give some background for my question:
When I do a paddle stroke, the paddle shaft twists forwards during the stroke. So with an unfeathered paddle, I will after the stroke have to twist the paddle shaft backwards (bending my wrist up) so I reset the paddle blade position before I do the catch in the opposite side.

Whether this is caused by body mechanics or by a subconscious effort to keep the blade perpendicular to the kayak movement direction during upper body rotation I don’t know. I just know that it happens. I also know that it is not just me who does it this way, because:

2 years ago I joined a wing paddle class. Here the concept of “correct feathering” was explained. The feathering for a right-handed wing paddle is correct when you can go directly from the end of a stroke on your left side to the catch on your right side without doing anything to reset the paddle blade position. So this acknowledges that the above described twist of the paddle shaft during the stroke is actually supposed to happen.

OK. With the basics down, now let us go back to the control hand issue. What happens when we end a stroke with a right-hand feathered paddle on the right side and want to do a catch on the left side?

It should be obvious from the above that we need to twist the shaft backwards a lot - double of what is needed with an unfeathered paddle. Not only will we have to reset the twist we did during the stroke on our right side - we also have to counter the feathering.

I think it is also obvious that our left hand hasn’t followed the twist of the shaft during the stroke on our right side. We push with an open hand, so the shaft will twist freely in the open hand. So our left hand will now be in the wrong position on the paddle shaft.

As I see it, we now have two choices when we want to bring our left hand into the correct position on the paddle shaft and twist the paddle shaft before the stroke:

  1. We can twist the shaft backwards with our right hand, letting it slide in our left hand. The right hand is probably already in a good initial position for this, because it will have followed the paddle in its forward twist during the stroke. Now both the paddle and the left hand are in the correct position.
  2. We can bend our left hand forward - a lot. Then grab the paddle shaft and then twist back the paddle shaft. Now both the paddle and the left hand are in the correct position.

To me, method 1 seems to be a much simpler and easier movement than method 2. And method 1 is the control hand method as I understand it.

So those of you who use a feathered paddle without a control hand, do you really use method 2? Or is there a method 3 which I haven’t considered?

I acknowledge that this topic will be difficult to discuss, because most of us don’t really think what we are doing when doing a movement. And we will often vehemently claim that we are doing the movement in one way while we are in fact doing it in a completely different way.

My favourite example of this disconnect between what we do and what we think we do, is making a turn on a bicycle. Most people will deny that when they want to turn to the left, they start by turning the handle bars to the right. They will claim that they turn them to the left. But to keep the balance during the turn, you need to lean to the left. And the way you make yourself and the bicycle lean to the left is by turning the handle bars a bit to the right.