On Skills, and the Obtaining Thereof.

I ache all over.

Despite having at least two days rest between sessions the repeated trips along the river together with loading and unloading the boat onto the car’s roof-rack is taking its toll on what little muscle I have. Every rest day finds a new point in the body to jib and ache. At one point having to take a daily pain killer.

At the end of August I was clearing up after a bout of gardening and I pushed down with my hand on a bunch of clippings in a disposal bag to make a bit more room... Fool!  One of the stalks was a bit firmer and sharper than it might of been and it pierced through my palm between the first and second fingers. After a 'lot' of cursing I got the offending twig withdrawn from my hand and proceeded to bleed a lot. Unfortunately the point of entry is fore-square between the knuckles, and right on the point which takes most of the pressure when pulling the paddle through its stroke. So there is an almost permanent ache between those fingers and each session I seem to have managed to open up the puncture again despite thick plasters and a glove on that hand.

Kayaking has its own skill set, which I don't yet possess. Up to now I've been concentrating on staying afloat in a rather 'tippy' boat and I've been happy to finish the course I've planned, but that doesn't leave much time to concentrate on improving technique and ironing out faults. My progress along the water is a bit haphazard to say the least and takes on the appearance of a demented dragonfly. Today I encountered a house-boat coming in my direction and one of the passengers in the prow was moved to start up his camcorder to record our convergence and passing, a feat which I now can carry out with aplomb. If he was hoping for a £250 moment he would have been disappointed, as it is I shall now feature in his holiday movie for evermore.

On the plus side I've now gained a modicum of confidence that permits a certain amount of experimentation. What is supposed to happen is that when the paddle enters the water it is supposed to be used as a ‘lever’ against the water to move the boat forward. In other words the paddle is not supposed to move backwards, it should stay in the same position and the boat moves forward. Any backward movement of the paddle is just wasting the effort being put into it.

I have a couple of things to concentrate on simultaneously. Getting body movement correct, and getting the paddle stroke tied in with it and even side to side.

Body movement

The arms alone cannot store sufficient energy to complete a 125 mile race. In fact they're limited to only a couple of miles duration, which is why it's important to bring the upper body, torso and legs into play during the power stroke. This is effected by swivelling the whole body from the hips upwards to drive the paddle through the stroke. This is also abetted by bracing the leg on the side of the stroke and extending the leg to push the hips through the start of that rotation. Once the stroke is completed it's then repeated on the other side of the body and ad infinitum thereafter. It's rather like doing the 'Twist' in a sitting position.

Stroke

At the same time the correct use of the paddle is crucial to the stroke’s efficiency. The body rotation not only brings most of torso’s muscles into play but it increases the length of the stroke quite effectively. The arms should barely be used to drive the paddle at all, but mainly to position and guide it through the cycle. The paddle is supposed to enter the water as near to your feet as possible, with a ‘spearing’ downward action. This is referred to as the ‘Catch‘. The whole blade of the paddle has to enter the water and is then drawn in as straight a line as possible down the side of the boat. It exits the water when it’s level with your waist.

Clearly it doesn't take a lot of imagination that all this vertical oscillation doesn't do much for the feeling of security in the boat. In fact it’s downright scary as when it goes wrong or out of sync, it introduces a wobble that’s hard to control. Couple that with the fact that if you make the stroke too long the paddle catches against the water’s flow and tries to duck in to the underside of the boat while trying to pull itself out of your hands and throwing you into a magnificent wobble for good measure...

My action as such, bears little relationship to the ideal. I have practically no torso rotation as up till now I’ve been much more concerned with staying in the boat. I don’t hold the paddle high enough which causes the Catch to be haphazard and it forces the power stroke to be more of an arc sweeping outwards which is playing havoc with the directional stability of the boat.

So that’s where I am at the moment. The last couple of sessions have been conducted with the intention of improving those elements. And it has paid off to some extent. Today’s excursion saw my knees contacting the coaming of the boat’s cockpit only occasionally, which also helped alleviate knee problems, and I described a fairly straight course in the couple of miles I completed, without any serious deviations.

As of mid August I've visited the Wey on six occasions. Each time I've been able to extend the duration of the trip and the last couple of sessions have seen the distance covered to about two miles without stops. This probably doesn't seem a lot but it does feel like something concrete to start building on.