I’m Talking About the Complete Novice
The brand spankin’ new paddler learning to roll usually needs a lot of paddle purchase.
Recently a neighbor kid asked me to teach him to roll. Someone had given him a non-adjustable feathered paddle and he wanted to use it. It just seemed like it made things more complicated… for no good reason.
Regardless of the pros or cons
I am not wedded to any particular feathering.
I have found that I can keep a straighter wrist paddling with a 60 degree feather (on my crank shaft) with less effort than when I paddled with no feather. Then again the crank shaft may have something to do with this aspect. I haven’t tried 75+, but from what I have read here will give that a try to, but since my crankshaft is a fixed angle I’ll have to use my straight shaft paddles for this. I have tried 0, 30, and 45 degrees on my adjustable straight shaft paddles, and currently seem to prefer the 60 crank shaft. I look forward to making a Greenland paddle and using it also.
re: knowing something
"Where did I say that?"
Look 5 posts up.
Far as the rest of what you say goes, your points are well-taken. It’s just that your initial characterization of Barton as ‘just an athlete’ seem to be off, as Mr. Stamer pointed out.
I’m prepared to listen to what Barton has to say, as an athlete and an engineer, without thinking of his opinion as ‘the Hand of God’. Is that kind of what you were going for?
If so, already there.
R&D
R&D gets done on subjects that have available funding. The Ivy boys want their rowing crews to win, and Olympic committees want their crews to win, so they organize funding to research how best to do that. There is kayak research too, although not nearly as much - a lot of it is proprietary, so is not accessible to lay readers.
Rowing crew and kayak research is pretty much all race-centered, not general paddling. Most of the well-reasoned arguments in the thread above are relevant to racing, but not necessarily normal kayak touring, I think. I have no interest in going fast (and bad wrists), so perhaps that is why I opt for zero feather angle.
It absolutely complicates rolling
I think it’s pretty fair to say that feathering is largely responsible for the whole “onside/offside” myth. It’s definitely easier to teach people to brace and roll when the motions is an exact mirror image on the left and right sides, which requires an unfeathered paddle.
If you hand a beginner an unfeathered paddle and speak only in terms of right side and left side - so you’re not polluting their thoughts with the idea that one will be harder than the other - they can generally learn to roll on both sides. The paddle helps to reduce physical barriers to learning and the neutral language reduces psychological barriers.
It seems to me that learning to roll is at least 75% mental. It’s about overcoming:
- The natural fear of entrapment/drowning
- Disorientation when upside-down
- The embarrassment of failure
- The thought of repeated wet exits and re-entries
All this while trying to learn new and foreign physical skills…
Any thing you can do to minimize complication helps the learning process and and unfeathered paddle is a key element in minimizing complication. A completely symmetric paddle that’s easy to orient, like a Greenland paddle, takes that one step further, but I think it’s less critical than getting rid of feather and you want to teach people with the paddle they will be using.
Wrist mechanics
Thanks for your nice pictures of Remington, this proves that feathered paddles are not a WW slalom creation, and are used since the late 1800’s at least.
So back to my point! The main reason for using feathered paddles is… paddling efficiency! Not only against the wind, also because of body mechanics!
For me, the ideal wrist angle is not the same when pushing or pulling, which makes the shaft rotation natural. When you push, the shaft is better positioned if it is nearly in the forearm alignment (less wrist muscles stress), and in that position, the palm is nearly perpendicular to this alignment.
When pulling, lower hand, the palm is nearly aligned with the arm. That’s already some 30-80° rotation, but you can push with a fairly open wrist, almost 90°, and pull with a slightly closed wrist.
I agree that comfort is the most important point, so if you feel better with unfeathered paddles and you are not into racing! Fine! Just open your mind, experiment different angles, and make your choice. Just be careful not to pull a muscle while experimenting with weird wrist positions!
Feathered paddling is a little more sophisticated, and it’s asking for some body learning, notably when you are rolling with rounded shaft and feathered paddle.
expert opinion
"I’m prepared to listen to what Barton has to say, as an athlete and an engineer, without thinking of his opinion as ‘the Hand of God’. Is that kind of what you were going for?
If so, already there."
That’s more or less it.
I would pay more attention to his opinion on HOW, since he already proved he can do it better than a whole lot of us. I still wouldn’t take it as a bible, but definitely ahead of many others.
But of his opinion on the WHY part, he hasn’t proved he’s better than another average engineer who also kayak.
He’s an “expert” in paddling a kayak fast. Doesn’t mean he’s an expert in everything else kayak related. In fact, there’s no obligation he become so.
Actual observation
Yesterday I took the occasion to watch the difference in my wrist actions while comparing zero feather to 60 degree feather. I almost always use my left hand as the control hand. I found that the rotation is very subtle for the control hand and of course the free hand doesn’t rotate at all.
I prefer almost no feather when wind is not a factor and depending on the force of wind, I might go all the way to 90 degrees, but usually 60 is sufficient.
I guess everyone has to decide what works best, but what I know for sure is that you really do need to do your own experimenting and not just do what somebody suggests. Heck, I’ve seen paddlers who were happy as a clam with a 90 degree feather and the paddle upside down, but I suspect they were pretty green.
No argument about that
I prefer zero feather and think it’s easier to wrap the mind around, if you’re starting from a truly blank slate (no prior experience using a feathered paddle).
But that assumes one hand doesn’t dominate the other. I still occasionally have to check that one hand isn’t trying to control when it should be letting the other one control. And this has happened for BOTH my left and right hands, even though I am right-handed. Oddly, it’s not always the right hand that tries to dominate. When they are working against each other, form (both forward stroke and rolling) deteriorates, and then joint pain can begin. It’s amazing how quickly those beginnings of joint pain simply vanish when I correct this lapse. This is why I like to do a really good warmup with no conversation going on at all. It “sets” good technique immediately.
Illustration of pull/push wrist rotation
Just to illustrate my previous post!
Natural position of the wrist when pulling:
http://www.nkhome.com/rowing/newsletter/images/april/image002.jpg
Natural position of the wrist when pushing:
http://i.istockimg.com/file_thumbview_approve/1330542/2/stock-photo-1330542-gymnast-on-parallel-bars.jpg
It’s clearly ~60° or more wrist rotation.
Less water dumped on my head when
using high angle strokes when using feathering of the blades.
Both of my Thumbs point UP
When paddling with a single blade canoe paddle without a top hand grip (T or palm).
But when kayaking, both thumbs face each other: one pointing up and the other upsidedown pointing down.
pushing hand/terminology
Your use of “rotation” is a bit confusing. I assume that you are mixing wrist flexion/extension (cocking the wrist backward/forward) with rotation of the forearm (wrist/forearm pronation/supination).
Of course the athlete on the parallel bars has rotated his forearms. That’s the only way to grip the bars. I assume that you are calling attention to how his wrists are cocked backward. This is necessary to support his full body weight over the bars. The force on your airborne pushing hand isn’t anywhere close to that for a kayaking forward stroke.
Most instructors agree that a bit of “wrist cock” (moving the back of your hand toward your face) is OK, but that any side to side wrist movement is a recipe for injury.
I try to keep both the wrists of the pulling and pushing hands as neutral as possible. I don’t think that there is any real benefit to cocking the wrist of the pushing hand, as you and Synder suggest. If you cock it back for the push, you have to flex it forward for the pull. Repeat several thousand times. That’s only an additional, unnecessary movement to cause repetitive stress, especially for long distance paddling.
By far, the greater force, in a conventional or a lateral wing-style stroke, is on the pulling (stroke-side hand), rather then the airborne “pushing” hand; upmost care is needed to keep that wrist straight.
Greg Stamer
No! I’m talking about WRIST rotation
and not arm twisting!
Only wrist rotation is involved when you rotate your paddle shaft in your hands! This is related to paddle feather angle!
(Do not mix with arm twisting, that is more about low or high angle paddling. In fact the arm twisting angle is the same as the - more or less high - angle of your paddling style, try paddling with straight arms for some minutes, which is a good thing anyway when you feel something in your articulations, I hear?)
Again, the parallel bars example is just here to show that the “relaxed” wrist position for pushing is not the same that that when pulling. The pictures clearly show the 2 different wrist positions.
Notice that if you push your shaft with the same wrist position as when you pull - palm aligned with forearm, you should get what Jim Snyder is describing: “(At feathers below 30 degrees) you push with the flesh between your thumb and fingers.” and another problem with this wrist position - see Glenn’s posts about Snyder! - is that the paddle shaft is NOT aligned with the wrist and arm bones structure, and that creates a wrist twisting moment (the wrist is less relaxed).
But to keep it simple, if the wrist position changes at each stroke (push - pull - push - pull), you have to rotate the shaft, more or less depending on your own anatomy. And if your flexibility is high enough it’s not too hard to adapt to +80° angles which are - by chance - perfect for going against wind and waves!
Some stubborn facts remain unexplained
Again, I’m not trying to voice or urge an opinion in this thread. I’m just trying to push the debate along with some research and re-statements of other people’s arguments.
There seem to be two facts or trends that exist. The vast majority of racers, both sprint and long distance ocean racers, seem to still use significant feather, though maybe not the old 90 degrees. This remains unexplained to me – especially since Barton doesn’t explain it – other than the arguments some have made here that feather enhances their stroke mechanics. I don’t disbelieve these arguments; I just don’t yet fully grasp them, technically. I also don’t fully accept the lemming explanation: that all these current racers use significant feather because Eva Remington did.
(Here’s more Eva for those who think she’s hot:
http://nyheritage.nnyln.net/cgi-bin/getimage.exe?CISOROOT=/slcha&CISOPTR=80&DMSCALE=66.59267&DMWIDTH=600&DMHEIGHT=600&DMX=0&DMY=0&DMTEXT=&REC=20&DMTHUMB=1&DMROTATE=0)
Greg Stamer has done an effective job of rebutting certain feather claims and making technical arguments in favor of zero feather, especially regarding GP’s. He is, for those who may not know, literally a world famous kayak instructor and expedition tripper, who has circumnavigated Iceland and Newfoundland among other things. However, it could be that he is being persuasive simply because he is more interested in analytic writing on chat forums than the feather fans.
For the sake of all our educations, perhaps Greg would switch into academic mode and make the technical or technique arguments that he thinks the racers should be making in favor of feather. He can then rebut them if he wishes.
“Greater Force” Comes From Top Hand
If from the bottom hand, the canoe goes backwards. So canoe travels in the direction of the force, which is the top hand. Since forces work in pairs, the bottom hand is receiving the opposite and equal force generated by the top hand. Or as my favorite canoe guru likes to say: “the purpose of the top hand is to move the bottom hand forward.”
Kayaking is personal feel
Each of us are individuals and it all boils down
to what feels comfortable to get some mileage under.
Racing Viewpoint
My take is that most racers simply do not believe that you can achieve an aggressive vertical stroke unless you use a feathered paddle. The prevailing belief is that for a strong catch and solid mechanics you must feather.
In my experience racers rarely argue that the efficiency of feathering is due to reduced wind resistance in headwinds.
Feathering is certainly the way to go if you want to conform to the status quo – and don’t get me wrong, that is often the smart thing to. When faced with unknowns there’s strong logic to staying with what works and copying kayakers faster than you – emulating your competition is a great strategy for defeating them. That said, this won’t create any “breakthroughs”. Wing paddle technique came from athletes who were bucking the norm using a lateral stroke, often to the dismay of their coaches.
Change is often revolutionary rather than evolutionary.
IMO racers don’t switch to something new until people whom they used to regularly beat, start beating them using new technique or new equipment. That was the case with the wing paddle. Also, from time to time, someone new comes along who completely dominates the field, often with a radical new style, and coaches scramble to understand the key factors at play and other racers attempt to emulate.
Greg Stamer
The More Things Change
The more they remain the same. And today, we’ve come full circle, in that the “lateral” stroke is rather inefficient compared to the more “parallel” stoke.
Sure, I can paddle unfeathered with a wing like I did yesterday, but after giving it the good old college try, I went back to 80 deg. feather. Why? Because my transition and “set-up” were faster. My blade entered the water quicker at the best “angle of attack” for me. So my top hand was in a better position to apply force and my bottom hand was in good position to receive and transfer force from the water to the ski, which resulted in much faster speeds. You can’t beat an objective stop watch for providing feedback on this topic.
Yup, and still nothing beyond anecdotal
statements, i.e., “This works best for me and some other people.”
So do other ways, for other people.