Paddle longer and stronger by creating momentum with your hips
Reach and “fall” your weight into the paddle blade
Move your hips back and down like you are sitting (with only a slight bend in the knees)
Launch your hips foreword on the recovery phase creating momentum
With hips all the way forward you have plenty of room to drive them back again
In the beginning
there was
rhythm
As a beginner it’s normal to think of pulling the paddle through the water to move forward. You feel resistance in your arms. You move the paddle. And the board moves through the water.
But that’s not really how to move a paddle board through the water.
Instead we learn to create momentum with our bodies.
Cover more distance engaging the hips
The correct paddle board stroke is a hip movement. The arms are just along for the ride. The arms connect your paddle to your hips but don’t do the heavy lifting.
We rotate and bend forward at the hips. Moving the hips back and down. Almost like we are sitting but with only a slight bend in the knees. Our weight goes down into the paddle blade as we twist our core. We drive the blade with the power of our hips, legs and torso.
The we release the blade and pull it out of the water. Our hips thrust foreword creating momentum as we straighten our bodies to begin another reach. And another power stroke.
Paddling is creating momentum
not pulling the paddle
We create power driving the hips back. We create momentum thrusting the hips foreword.
We are not pulling the paddle with our arms. We are creating a rhythm of momentum with our hips that propels us forward with every stroke.
Think of your arms as rubber or wet noodles. Think of your arms simply as connectors transferring the power of your hips to the paddle blade. Relax your grip on the paddle.
Engage the hips and think of moving your feet past the paddle. Like a skier who plants his ski poles and then using his hips moves his feet up to them.
As you straighten up and pull the paddle out of the water think of how launching your hips forward creates forward momentum. Shooting your hips forward all the way creates more space to drive your hips back again for power.
Shooting your hips
forward
creates forward momentum,
and it creates more space
to drive your hips
back again for power.
