Pool Session

Practise session at the Pool. Most of the time spent sculling, high brace and sculling turns. At the end of the night I did half an hour of sprints and reverse sprints and reverse turns at speed. I'm finding more and more that I'm reaching for my shorty greenland paddle first. I spent some time sculling with my high angle 'euro' to keep my form. I find that while it's much more powerful than the 'gp', and definitely gives more immediate results, it can be a bear when trying sudden stops and reversals as well as when trying to make sudden and extreme direction changes. I'm still not convinced that either is ideal but the 'gp' feels more fluid and combined with a smooth sliding stroke gives a very nice feel.

Pushed my turns as hard as I could until I edged past my point of balance and started capsizing, I'm sure I could have braced up and out of it.

Worked on my cowboy re-entry, wobbly first few times as I haven't been OTW in a few weeks. After a few shaky starts they came easy. I'm learning to use my paddle for stability while sliding up and dropping into cockpit. I can get up and place me feet and lower legs in while leaning on the sculling for support. I can't figure out how to free-up a hand to ease myself down into the kayak though as I'm using both on the paddle. I'm now increasing the leverage on my support sculling by sitting on the rear deck with my feet in the kayak and leaning it over. This raises my center of gravity to the point of extreme tippiness, and forces me to use the paddle only (no cheating by using my thighs this way).

Upside down re-entry is smooth and comfortable but I can't get my paddle sweeping across the surface of the water to roll up yet. Being upside down with the surface above me is disorienting. Hard to train my muscles to move opposite to instinct.

Balance brace is really close, once I learned to push my bow facing shoulder to the surface I discovered my body floating up and my face coming out of the water. My arms keep wanting to sink and pull me back under though... not sure whether this is due to lack of flotation in my paddle/arms or not getting the kayak balanced properly on edge. I think that once I get my kayak properly fitted with closed-cell foam it'll be a night and day improvement as I won't be sliding around in the cockpit.

Sliding stroke is very comfortable and smooth now, and I'm finding I can do a fast sliding switch of sides for a quick instinctive brace as well. Very handy. Storm Stroke is excellent.

The following two videos demonstrate sculling and the sliding stroke. In the second notice how the paddler's hands move on the paddle.

http://www.qajaqusa.org/common_images/gp_roll_sidescull.mpg

http://www.qajaqusa.org/common_images/gp_slidestroke.mpg

Time on water - 2 hours