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:
- 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.
- 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.