Conner's style

[hbsteve]

We all see what he is doing.  But, how does it effect his board?
I'm beginning to think at certain times or conditions, it increases his balance by reducing the motion/swing of his upper body.  So while it is harder to control the paddle, the effort produces greater forward movement.

[JillRide45]

I have tried the Conner style and like you said it was hard to control the paddle.  Really felt weird and no power what so ever. 

However, last weekend I watched Annabelle (a top woman paddler from New Zealand) showing a young racer how to do the stroke, and was able to watch Annabelle paddle up close.  The stroke is not what you think it is.  It is not the normal stroke with your hand down on the shaft.  It is much more like a shovel stroke where you use your legs instead of your core.  When you get the stroke you will know.  I find it really gives your upper body a break and lets you engage your legs.  It is really a stroke that required thinking outside the box, which from what I can tell is outrigger canoe. 

Now I am no expert at all on this type of stroke, but from what I can tell, it really helps in rough choppy water - like at the start of a race or if you moving out of a draft situation.  The pumping of the board is a result of the stroke and helps move you over rough water. 

If you see me out in Newport or Dana Point just give a shout and I will show you the stroke. 

Have fun out there, Jill

[johnrg]

I have integrated it's use and most of all it helps when legs are bent and you want to make some fast strokes to catch a wave or to accellerate. With your hand at the top of the paddle your arm can only move so far and it's extended. "Choking up" allows you to lift the paddle easier and faster without fully extending your upper arm/hand. I also find the hand hold is more natural and this allows a more forceful stab of the paddle in the water. Instead of the lower hand doing the paddle placement the upper hand does. I also note that shoulders and arms are compacted and more integrated and offer better platform for abdominal twist, all at a fast pace. As far as paddle huinting/instability... A bit of time seems to solve this. For me burying the paddle in the water more fully and realizing how it's rotated on entry and then adjusting will in time perfect your stroke.

Just yesterday in surf I found, since I was bent down more than usual, it was much easier to choke down and get a few fast strokes compared to reaching much higher than I wanted to use the handle. Practice with it. Just like stroking when kneeling makes it hard to use the entire paddle so does a crouched standing position. When crouched your body is well braced, so a tight shoulder and arm translates to a stronger core twist for us not so big and strong individuals.

John

[headmount]

It's October and I guess it's time for all of us to choke up.  Go Phillies.

[river]

Its not your top people is the lower hand.  Connor is grabbing his paddle this way to also lower his bottom to get hand closer to the blade for more leverage.  Try it next time and move your bottom hand much closer to the blade and you will see what I mean. It works really well when paddling out over whitewash or when its really shallow too. 

[Kaihoe]

I have tried the Conner style and like you said it was hard to control the paddle.  Really felt weird and no power what so ever. 

However, last weekend I watched Annabelle (a top woman paddler from New Zealand) showing a young racer how to do the stroke, and was able to watch Annabelle paddle up close.  The stroke is not what you think it is.  It is not the normal stroke with your hand down on the shaft.  It is much more like a shovel stroke where you use your legs instead of your core.  When you get the stroke you will know.  I find it really gives your upper body a break and lets you engage your legs.  It is really a stroke that required thinking outside the box, which from what I can tell is outrigger canoe. 

Now I am no expert at all on this type of stroke, but from what I can tell, it really helps in rough choppy water - like at the start of a race or if you moving out of a draft situation.  The pumping of the board is a result of the stroke and helps move you over rough water. 

If you see me out in Newport or Dana Point just give a shout and I will show you the stroke. 

Have fun out there, Jill

Hi Jill

 That's Annabelles style, she gets a lot of her power out of using her hips. I can't make it work, it throws of my balance and the rest of my stroke goes out the window.

  She came out and trained with us today. It was really rough 5 foot plus short period wind swells with 15-20 knot head winds.  I notice Annabelle was choking the paddle a lot but (when I was close enough to see) it seem that she was very stable on her legs and didn't seem to be using her hips much. I think she uses  the two as individual parts of her stroke.

 From what Annabelles told me Rivers comment is very much part of the thinking. The parallel was using the way you hold the paddle is like using a gear box.  Lower bottom hand = lower gear

[river]

Yes exactly the lower the hand the lower the gear.  great analogy
This also allows you to use a long paddle which can be a benefit in some situations also...  like going downwind and reaching into "holes" in the water I suppose

[Strand Leper]

I was messing around today in the water... lots of time... some soreness at about hour 2.5... my stroke was getting sloppy, so I shortened it quite a bit... as I was thinking of how to get a really quick and short stroke, I switched over to what I understood (or perceived) to be Conner Baxter's style. 

I am going to watch some video of Conner... but my version of the stroke is really fast... with tons of strokes per minute... and it seems that the Pono paddle is tailored to integrating this stroke into your arsenal due to its lack of flutter. 

I was really pleased with both the manner in which using the stroke gave my other muscles a rest... and with what I perceived to be a quicker pace. 

I will put the computer on it and see... and look at some Conner Baxter video to see if I am somewhere close to that stroke.

 

[PonoBill]

I've looked at Connor's "choke" stroke a lot. To the point of telling Connor in Hood River last year that his stroke sucked and he needed to work on it. Needless to say he didn't listen to me. I've revised my opinion of his stroke, or at least decided it's kind of like Aaron Napolean's stroke. Works for them. Anyone that wants to emulate Aarons stroke had better have a reservation at the Chiropractor. 

What he's doing is pulling hard with his lower hand with the paddle vertical. Choking down gets the blade vertical and gives a lot of leverage to the lower hand. He pulls hard at the same time he is unweighting and moving his hips forward. Not sure what that does to the board but it give the paddle a good catch as long as the stroke is short. It might actually work better with other paddles since the offset will let you get the paddle out of the water if you lengthen the stroke. With a Ke Nalu paddle and that stroke you'd still want to get the paddle out early since the low offset of the tip would huck some water.

All that said I've tried the stroke a bit. Not for me. Gasping and wheezing after a hundred yards. These damned kids.

[JonathanC]

I was lucky enough to spend a week or so paddling with Annabel and have to say that she has completely changed my stroke. I've had some sub scapular over-use issues and the new technique is really helping me get 'out of' my shoulders.

Annabel's stroke is fundamentally different to what I used to do regardless of whether she is chocking the paddle or paddling with her hand on the handle. She says that SUP is a lower body sport!

She kept telling me to bend at the hips and 'fall' forward when I planted the paddle into the water, of course its not only hip, also knees. She said that you need to aim the paddle far forward and fall right out there, if you miss the catch you fall over, her aim is to get her upper body parallel with the water. 

 So there is real knee and hip flex as the paddle enters the water, the paddle blade goes very deep into the water, towards the end of the stroke there is an explosive straightening which provides heaps of forward momentum as the hips move forward.

At first I found it very awkward and couldn't get the rhythm right, felt like a complete klutz, one of the little training gems was the comment that you can tell who are the good skiers in the lift line - they are leaning forward in their boots and have sore shins. Well this technique requires flexing your shins forward just like skiing, paddling now I get sore calves!

The other real change was paddle length, I've gone from 13" overhead to 9", when I straighten and get that momentum from my hips moving forward I don't actually need to swing the paddle out to the side, it clears the water moving straight forward past my feet.

Sure its tiring, its really like starting again, but what I'm finding is that I'm naturally letting the board glide between strokes, that explosive straighten and hip forward motion rockets the board forward. Its as if the paddle moving through the water is simply the phase of the stroke when the spring is compressed, towards the end of the stroke is when the trigger is pulled. I'm actually finding that I'm pulling past my feet more often than I used to but with the straight lift at the end of the stroke (instead of swinging out to the side) it doesn't seem to be a problem, not ideal of course but I can only concentrate on so many things at one time!

It's really taken the load off my shoulders and its very fast, I am feeling some lower back ache but that usually because I get tired and sloppy and using my back instead of my glutes and quads and calves.  

The KeNalu has helped in this stroke too, that deep strong paddle entry remains straight and I find I'm able to grip the paddle very lightly and concentrate on what my body is doing rather than worrying about what the paddle is doing.

I've gone into this in such detail to explain why I think the 'choking' technique works, its most certainly not just a matter of holding the paddle further down the shaft and doing a normal stroke, seems that when they are choking the paddle the trigger goes off even earlier, before the end of the stroke. I get a bit blurry on the exact timing here....and it might be as Kaihoe said that Annabel doesn't use her hips as much in the 'choke' stroke, I suspect its just more subtle and harder to see.

Dave Kalama wrote about using your hips for that forward momentum as well, I think its absolutely key to a powerful stroke.

[Strand Leper]

Bill,

I can't keep it up for long... but short bursts in that style do two things... they relieve my other muscles without making me take a rest or slow down... and seem to add a bit of punch...  THe heart rate goes up, but the major paddle muscles get to relax for a few minutes.  This stroke seems to MAKE me pop the paddle out at my feet and you know how that paddle POPS when you just twist your top hand.

Jonathan,

Exactly!  The lack of flutter with the Pono Paddle makes this stroke seem natural... Obviously, I am not doing it correctly... but I am trying to put the pieces together.  Do use your lower hand as a bit of a lever or do you keep the paddle vertical for the entire stroke... at what point in the stroke are you doing the hip thrust?

You know, I am pretty much an expert in all this now... because today was my third distance paddle in a week... 

Yes, I am totally clueless... but beyond stoked!

Thanks,

Tim

[Strand Leper]

Oh, and I actually did fell in when I missed the plant... well, I made the plant but in the super crazy rain, my paddle was really slippery... and it just slipped through my hands and I fell in... face first... IN THE HARBOR!

Super smooth!

Tim

[headmount]

Is your harbor as gross as ours?  My HR is too high as is for me to step up cadence like CB does.  I can do that for about ten secs ... then pau.

[Strand Leper]

Head,

Not muddy... but usually the most polluted place in Orange County because it was designed without any way for the harbor to flush... One way in... and no river going out... so the pollution pretty much sits at the end... where all the paddlers launch.

Tim

[JonathanC]

Jonathan,

Exactly!  The lack of flutter with the Pono Paddle makes this stroke seem natural... Obviously, I am not doing it correctly... but I am trying to put the pieces together.  Do use your lower hand as a bit of a lever or do you keep the paddle vertical for the entire stroke... at what point in the stroke are you doing the hip thrust?

Oh bugger I knew someone was going to ask me some questions and all my supposed online expertise would just evaporate into the ether....

I don't keep the paddle vertical for the entire stroke, when I'm getting close to the end of the stroke the paddle is a probably at 45 degrees, that's probably why it's going past my feet.

The hip thrust really happens as part of the recovery at the end of the stroke, but I like to think of the whole recovery phase as starting at the hips as a fluid 'opening' of my body.

In some ways I think hip thrust is misleading, I like to think that I'm actually leading with my sternum, (hips follow) really powerfully projecting it forward, my arms are probably just finishing the stroke but get swept forward as I straighten my ankles, knees and hips and open up my spine into slight extension. I try to keep the whole stroke really fluid but powerful, stabilising muscles in the back engaged, keeping your scapula pulling down to the base of your spine and your neck free and not scrunched up somewhere between your shoulders.

The extension of the spine is very controlled, its not just a matter of letting everything go and chucking yourself forward. Anyone do yoga, think of the transition from downward dog to cobra, it's a powerful movement all the way through, of course you don't follow all the way through like you do in cobra. I don't actually extend my lower back much at all, just get that really nice release in the upper back which I can only do if I visualise someone grabbing a piece of string attached to my sternum and pulling it forward.

Look at Connor in both the photos, his shoulders are quite dropped, powerfully engaged, compare that to the right hand shoulder of the guy in the second photo, it just looks super unstable and vulnerable. Both photos Connor is 'bending zee knees' leaning really hard into the front of his ski boots, his lower back is also well protected because of the knee bend. My back gets twingy just looking at that poor guy with the hyperextended shoulder!

Pity I couldn't find a photo of Connor 'releasing the spring' that is his body in that almost squatting position, you can imagine the power and momentum he can generate though.