Stern pry
Paddling a short canoe in whitewater - learn a good strong stern pry. Faster and more power. After a while you will start linking strokes and doing things with a paddle that have no known name, they just feel like the right thing to do. It’s a ZEN thing.
stern pry, rudder, goony
To me, the stern pry is pretty much the same as what lots of people call a goony stroke and laugh when they see you doing it. It is often considered much inferior to the J, but although it’s slower than the J–you lose speed during the pry–it can be a great stroke for quiet movement when combined with an underwater recovery. The pry at the end of the power stroke corrects the course, then without rotating the paddle any farther you slice it forward, and you don’t have to rotate your palm at the end of the recovery, the paddle is already in position for a C stroke…the power face doesn’t change. I find the stern pry to be a much easier and more comfortable stroke than the J, and I really only use the J when I’m wanting to go fast. At leisurely paddling speed and slower the stern pry is less tiring, especially if you brace your lower hand on the gunwale during the pry part…just don’t let the paddle shaft touch the gunwale or it’ll make lots of very annoying noise and people a hundred yards away will laugh at you.
I never learned any of these strokes by reading or being taught…50 years of taking canoes down Ozark rivers helped me figure them out on my own.
Ray Special
wow, that shouldn’t happen. i’m guessing your RS is not his best paddle, with some asymmetries that the water quickly discovers. my RS runs perfectly on the First Nations stroke (;]) . of course, it’s a fairly thick and sturdy blade, despite it’s fine edges, so there’s always a nice soft zip as i knife it forward.
have fun Matt, it’s a gas eh?
One Remark
This is not a statement regarding what you “should” do, but I believe there’s no reason a J-stroke can’t be every bit as comfortable at slow speeds as the stern pry. You said the stern pry is easy and comfortable for you, “especially if you brace your lower hand on the gunwale during the pry part”, so it follows that the same can be done during a J-stroke, correct? In fact, this is EXACTLY how I learned to convert my J-stroke from an awkward-feeling stroke with a rather weak correction to a comfortable stroke with a (potentially) strong correction. I paid attention to what my lower hand was doing during the oh-so-comfortable stern pry, and then made sure that hand did exactly the same thing during the correction phase of my J-stroke. Presto - it wasn’t long before my J-stroke was extremely comfortable, and yes I DO brace my lower hand against the gunwale during the correction phase. It also helps to maintain a slightly angled grip on the upper knob of the paddle shaft, so you don’t have to crank your wrist so far down. This angled grip actually comes pretty naturally if you reach across your body with the upper arm so that the paddle shaft is nearly vertical (as seen from the front or back), so that kind of grip reduces TWO big potential causes of discomfort.
The only time I find a stern pry to be a lot more comfortable than a J is in very shallow water, where the higher paddle position screws-up the comfort level of the wrist action of my upper hand. In that case I do a much longer power stroke and let the stern pry act as a rudder way behind me. Putting the “rudder” way back minimizes the amount of drag relative to the correction effect obtained, and since the paddle is gripping the bottom anyway, nothing is lost in terms of blade efficiency by lengthening the stroke.
It does kinda bug me a bit.
That and the round shaft, which I’ve since ovalized (personal preference). Eyeballing the blade doesn’t reveal any obvious assymetry, and I don’t want to mess with it, as there’s not much in the way of extra meat there. Ray’s such a sweet guy on the phone that I don’t have the heart to complain and, otherwise, the paddle is beautiful.
Goon stroke HAH!
I crack up when I hear folks disparage the pry. For traveling the J is a nice smooth stroke. But when I need to honk the bow around fast and hard there’s no other choice but to pop a pry.
Got to keep all the tools in the box, sharp and ready.
Tommy
Paddles do make a difference
The ones I use are a BB Day blade and a Turtleworks Guide. The BB straight from the factory felt to me like a club - blade heavy, thick and blocky at teh throat. I worked it down to a more svelt size, leaving the rockguard tip essentially unchanged. The edges are now finer, the blade profile cambered, the shaft thinned. Before my mods I could not make a noise-free underwater recovery. I am not knocking BB - their mastery of lamination, teh tips , and price are all winners. But face facts: They ain’t custom paddles.
The TW Guide is being worked down as well. Time will tell.
I have no plans to use either of these sticks in WW. My BB Expedition and Mitchell blades are for that purpose.
Sweet, fine sticks make for quiet noodling.
Jim
Yup
The stern pry is my choice for whitewater…gets the back going the way I want quickly.
Its a much more forceful correction than the J. On flatwater this is a handicap, as there is too much braking compared to the J usually though some paddlers can finesse a stern pry pretty well.
Now that the ice is out I have to work on that totally impractical but fun to do compound cross forward stroke.
a word to the O.P.
Hey Matt :
See what happens when you broach the subject of canoe solo forward strokes! Avid solo canoeists can talk about this forever and usually stray off-topic and begin conversing among themselves. It can be hard to separate the basic concepts from all the very esoteric and numerous nuances being discussed now. I believe your original question was concerning the usage and linking of the J, C, and Canadian strokes. I learned during years as an instructor that folks need to get the concepts down and will learn the minutia on their own. So, without discussing every little specific exception and detail, which usually only serves to confuse, the short answer is yes, they all have their uses and can be linked. Just in general ( I know there’s all kinds of exceptions to this), the C stroke is good to take off from a standstill, then the J once underway. In WW the stern pry (thumb-up correction) is necessary if the current is strong. A river such as the Ocoee will eat a J for lunch. A paddler can quickly tell what will work and what will not once they learn the correct technique for the various forward strokes.
There exists many types of solo forwards and each is there for a reason. The Indian Stroke is a good example; it is simply the photographers/fishermans stroke because it is quiet. It has become my favorite for general travel because I find it less tiring but that’s my personal preference and each must find their own way.
Someone mentioned it took them 50 years to learn these strokes on their own and that’s about right. Good instruction can flatten that learning curve out and reduce this by many years. I know, I was fortunate enough to have been tutored by some of the great paddlers. One or two who post here.
Yeah, stern pry, j-stroke, rudder, but I
usually don’t need them, and I paddle short whitewater boats.
I’m trying to inspire y’all to wonder why you need to use them so often. Your need for them often reflects problems in the first half of the stroke.
Watch a video of Olympic c-1 paddlers some time. They aren’t using correction on most of their strokes. It’s called cab-forward boat control.
paddling the inside circle
– Last Updated: Apr-15-09 12:58 PM EST –
Ditto. That technique is somewhat more common to whitewater OC1 boaters but is well-worth learning for flatwater boaters or those who paddle easy rivers.
Tom Foster used to call this "paddling the inside circle" and I have heard it described as "using a bow wave to pin the bow". It lets you apply short pure forward strokes at a high stroke cadence, with no time or power wasted on correction.
This is very helpful when making a quick move (as in an eddy turn) or a move against the current (like an upstream ferry or to jump onto a bow surf wave), or against a strong headwind. But I like to use it when cruising along on flatwater along with straight forward sit and switch, or C strokes, J strokes and Canadian strokes. It provides variety and uses different muscle groups.
To learn this, it helps to heel the boat a bit towards your onside, and start it turning in an arc toward your paddling side. Keep the strokes short and well-forward, as said, and close to the bilge of the canoe. You then straigten out the arc until it is a virtual straight line. The little wave that builds on the off-side bow resists the tendency of the boat to turn that way, as long as you don't overpower it with your stroke. You can also adjust the balance between the bow wave and your paddle stroke with minute changes in the lean of the boat.
Initially, you will tend to overpower the bow wave and turn to your offside after a few strokes, at which point you can reverse the boat's lean, and use the same technique on the other side by either changing paddling sides, or switching to cross-forward strokes (more common on whitewater).
I have to agree. Someone once
commented to Picasso that it had taken him only a few minutes to make a drawing, to which the master replied, “No, it took me my whole life to make that drawing”.
The Canadian stroke
is not an Indian stroke or a J stroke. It is best described as combining correction and recovery in one smooth operation. It depends on the blade of the paddle being slightly lifted upwards and not sliced as recovery begins. As a result water runs down the blade propelling the canoe to turn towards the paddle side. From there one can slice out of the water or keep the paddle in the water as one desires. The key element here is the slight lifting action of the blade.
No sane person does a pure J stroke for correction except in weather or as part of an inside turn as it interferes with the forward motion of the canoe. It should not be viewed as an efficient correction stroke.
I paddle on the left side and do not call it a C stroke. I do not know what I call it.
inside circle, what hull(s)?
g2d and pblanc,
What boats are you padding the inside circle with?
The reason I ask is that I find it very useful in my whitewater hulls (Outrage, Encore, Atom, Cascade), but not in my touring hulls (Osprey, Independence, Malecite).
Charlie promised to show me how and he did last summer at AFS. Charlie’s method relies on an outside heel and an inside paddle. It works in the Osprey but I can’t say thay I find it useful as any gain in efficiency is offset by the awkwardness of paddling over the high side of the boat.
The technique I learned from Tom Foster clearly involved an inside heel. No doubt my technique could be better but I find it easy in the whitewater hulls and near impossible in the touring hulls unless I use Charlies outside heel.
Tommy
Take a gander at Bill Mason’s
Path of The Paddle film on NFB’s website…
http://www.nfb.ca/film/aviron_qui_nous_mene_-_Solo_elementaire/
Go ta 8:15 on de footage counter fer de Indian Stroke. Yer will also see the Candian, J, C, etc. in de rest of de footage.
(It’s in Frencher lingo, but yer will get it)
FE
Good info here…
in the end though I think, as was mentioned earlier, with experience and in normal practice all these strokes end up getting combined according to need and almost without much conscious thought. Its probably a good sign if we don’t know “what to call” a stroke. In my opinion the naming and practicing of specific strokes is necessary and useful for learning and training - one has to call them something and describe them somehow - but as the day wears on it just turns into paddling.
I learned like Al A (but in a different place) and was somewhat surprised to learn later on that people had bothered to name these things.
There is sure something satisfying about the “zip - plop” rhythm of the Canadian stroke, in my opinion.
I have to agree that if you want to turn really fast or are fighting weathercocking the goon stroke/stern pry is a very strong stroke. The biggest problem with doing it all the time (though it does waste some momentum) is that if Gooning becomes habitual Canadian and Indian strokes require aforethought. That isn’t good. I don’t know about youse guys, but I go out to paddle, not think about paddling. The goon doesn’t transition to a brace very well either.
Inside circle heel
That inside circle can be paddled with both onside and offside heels; both lift the stems.
Offside, or outside heels help by setting the bow to carve into the circle. Onside, or inside heels help us keep the paddleshaft vertical when we’re in over-wide hulls.
Tommy is a compact guy, maybe that Osprey is a little wide for him to keep his shaft vertical when reaching over the high side?
Of course, this uncorrected forward stroke can be used to drive the boat on course. I find myself using it more and more, probably because I’m getting lazy, and don’t wabt to waste energy correcting.
Which is the issue with the Indian Stroke. That long in-water recovery generates lots of drag, which slows the boat and worse, wastes lots of time when we could be taking another stroke and moving the canoe somewhere.
There are times when we need to use an in water recovery - mostly with draws, cross draws and cross forwards, where the stroke is so short that a horizontal recovery would waste time and cost control.
But, the Indian/Canadian stroke looks neat though, even if it isn’t efficient, and is very restful.
Indian Stroke
is a three phase stroke: Power,correction, recovery
Canadian Stroke is a two phase stroke: power, recovery/correction in its purest form.
I see many people doing a mutt hybrid of a J and Canadian. It works for them.
I think the “zing” of the slice at high speed is due to micro wobbles of the paddle. Slices work best at low speed. Its not very noticeable on the Canadian Stroke as the correction time can be quite short.
The loons are back…time to practice the silent stroke.
inside circle
I am refering to paddling with an onside heel, and I was also taught this by Tom Foster. I often use the offside heel technique when paddling sea kayaks, but I’ve never gotten very good at it in a canoe
I agree with you that this is more easily done and maintained with a rockered whitewater hull, but I have found it quite useful with a mildly rockered boat, such as my Merlin II. I don’t have any absolutely straight keeled solo canoes, so I can’t comment on how well it works in that situation.
The balance is trickier to maintain in a flatwater boat, at least for me. Once you get a feel for the particular hull, you can tell when you are about to “lose it” and have the boat start to turn to your offside. At this point, often you can regain balance by slightly adjusting the heel of the boat, or adding a slight draw at the beginning of your stroke, as in the C stroke. But Tom taught that it is more efficient at that point to simply switch paddling sides and start a circle on the opposite side.
I find that a few cross-forward strokes will usually start the boat turning a little back toward your onside at which point you can resume your onside, inside circle.
Judging from the boats you have, I’m sure you have a good bit of whitewater experience. I’m sure you have watched a beginning whitewater OC1 paddler try to jump on a surf wave. They put in a hard forward stroke to get on the wave, the boat starts to turn to their offside, they put in a J stroke, a stern pry or a sloppy rudder and immediately pull themselves off the wave.
On flatwater, I find this technique most useful when a quick burst of forward speed is required, as when paddling around a wind swept point into a headwind, or when paddling side by side with another boater on a river and coming to a tight spot where only one boat at a time can pass.
digging these canoe threads
just moved to a place with more lakes and the ocean is less exciting locally than previous city. rediscovering the joy of canoeing. have a new canoe en route, should be here on Monday or Tuesday, can’t wait!