Dave Kalama Paddling Article

[PonoBill]

Yup. You can see it in some parts of the video, especially towards the end. He drops his inner shoulder and rotates the outer above it. It's a little subtle, sometimes he does it a lot more than other times. When he's going for a bit of speed you see it more, along with more torso rotation.

If you're looking for it you can also see the lower wrist break inward on the Tahitian stroke (second half) and you can see that the upper arm isn't pulling the paddle out of the water, the lower arm is pushing it up. You can also see the little flick of the "punch" shooting the paddle out to the catch. If he were any more relaxed he'd be snoozing.

Last, but not least, you can see that when he's doing the Hawaiian stroke the tail of his board goes down at the end of each stroke. With the Tahitian stroke he's going very fast and the tail of his board is never pulled down, the nose is always surging up and forward with each stroke with no "planting" of the board.

Every time I watch I'm amazed at how subtle all these bits are. I was talking to a couple of canoe guys about this yesterday. They said Dave modified the stroke a lot to make it work on Stand Up Boards.

[alap]

Bill, Randy,

is it possible u will post a shorter version, but slow it down like 8x.

10 seconds before 1:40, 10 seconds after 1:40 at 8 times slower speed.

This will be very helpful. 

I am trying to do this myself (download from vimeo mp4, import to IMovie, and I can't import it into iMovie)

[greatdane]

Bill... any idea how long Dave's paddles are in relation to his hight?  I'm starting to wonder if my paddles are an inch or two too long?  They are 84" which is 11" taller than I am (6'1" or 73")

[juandoe]

Quoted from the other thread:

"I asked, and Dave is 71 inches tall, his wave paddle is 84 and his race paddle is 86.  He wanted to point out that this is longer than typical and might not work for others."

The blade is 10 in wide.

[greatdane]

Thanks for the info Juandoe!

[diesel]

Ponobill,  everytime I watch your video of Dave, I can't help thinking how totally different it is than the Todd Bradley stroke.  He doesn't punch forward at all with the top hand and his paddle is so long.  I feel like Dave's stroke might be better for downwind but not surfing, but I don't really know. 
I have been doing the Todd Bradley punch/lever stroke and it seems to work.  It is way easier to push the paddle thru the water when you use the paddle as a lever instead of the pull and twist.  Have you tried the punch/lever technique of Todd's?  Just curious from a physics viewpoint because it feels like it works when you are doing it and my elbow joint doesn't hurt anymore.

[PauHanaTX]

The Tahitian works for some but not all.  I kind of liken the lower arm movement of the Tahitian stroke to filcking a frisbee, the wrist snaps inward then flicks back out, a little more horizontal movement with the lower arm than other strokes.  My problem with it is that I don't get much drive down into the stroke from the upper hand as in the Hawaiin stroke and all that extra tweaking of the lower elbow in the Tahitian stroke brings on the tennis elbow.  I've found the the only cure for my tendinitis is to limit the elbow bend and go with the Hawaiin stroke focusing on keeping the lower arm as straight as possible.

Oh well...Tahitian, Hawaiian, maybe we need an "old fart" stroke. 

 

[PonoBill]

I've tried about every stroke I can think of. I use Todd's approach when I need a break, but I don't think it delivers much power the way he describes it. the muscles in your arm are little buggers. The push seems to engage mostly the triceps. Not the strongest muscle in my body. Obviously he knows what he's doing, but it seems kind of odd. Then again, watch Aaron Napolean paddle sometime. If I did ten minutes the way he paddles all day I'd need to go straight to a hospital.

With my touchy shoulders Dave's modified Tahitian stroke has been a challenge, but I use it more and more. For me the trick has been to pay attention to what I can relax. The upper arm does very little work, and for me that's good news. Pushing the paddle up with the lower arm is very important. I did a long slog of a "downwinder" today--minus the wind, with swells in both directions about equal size. Not fun. The Tahitian stroke was a godsend, allowing me to maintain a pretty high speed with low effort.

What I need is a video from the board, taken at high speed, that deconstructs the stroke. I'll work on that. Dave's been busy and off-island a lot. I'm trying to get together with him for a session, but it could be a while if the big swells keep coming as they have.

I think the trick to avoiding tennis elbow is to limit the flick to avoid hyperextension. It's a soft punch, and you need to get the timing of the paddle entering the water just right, so you get the benefit of the flick without having to hold the extension. The paddle needs to cut the water just as the momentum ends. today I got about fifty or so strokes where that worked really well out of probably a few thousand. When I watch Dave do it they all work. Practice, practice.

[PonoBill]

Oh, and Diesel, the Tahitian stroke is great for surfing. I can catch waves so easily with it, it's just weird. You do little dabs and suddenly you're in the wave. Really, it's the most rewarding aspect of the stroke so far. On downwinders the big reward so far is better endurance, and I already have that. I'm the EverReady bunny for distance.

for surfing, I'm a "run up to the nose and paddle like hell" kind of guy, which is really stupid. I swear Rand is constantly screwing with me that way: "Bill, go for it, this completely hopeless wave is all yours"!!  You'd think he'd be a little kinder to a geezer, but he does it far too frequently and I fall for it every time. When I have the presence of mind to do a Tahitian stroke I generally get into the wave. When I don't, I just flail away for a few hundred yards.

[juandoe]

PonoBill,
One thing that is tough to gauge from the camera angle is the amount of reach across for the top hand.  Is the top hand clear across the paddle-side rail, just across midline, midline?  If you do shoot another video, a head on shot would be helpful and a moving video paralleling his progress would be great.  The parallax/ foreshortening of the current video enables me to imagine whatever I want.

[Admin]

One thing that is tough to gauge from the camera angle is the amount of reach across for the top hand.  Is the top hand clear across the paddle-side rail, just across midline, midline?

Hey Juan,

Have a look at the original post which had a bunch of photos http://www.standupzone.com/forum/index.php?topic=4766.0.  They give an OK idea of how far shifted his top hand is.  Here are a couple others that I had not originally included because the shots kind of suck and Dave's paddle is usually more vertical and the blade more under his board.  Even so...

[juandoe]

Thanks Admin, that upper pic helps a lot.  One of my problems was that I couldn't get my upper arm across far enough.  I figured out that my head was in the way.  Once I got my head over the paddle side leg, I was able to extend the upper arm and really get the major muscle groups going.  Now I see what the stacking the shoulders is referring to.  I had been keeping my head in the midline of the board and couldn't rotate enough to effectively stack.  By placing my head over the paddleside leg, I delineate a single axis around which to twist and extend. 

One of my observations is that I feel most efficient when my hands are on either side of the vertical planes defined by the sides of my head.   If my hands cross these planes, I lose stability and the ability to use the trunk muscles.  If I set my limits as keeping my hands on either side of my head, I can vary stroke length by changing my grip width and also by changing the paddle angle relative to the plane of the water (getting more and more vertical). 

Does any one else use this as a parameter (keep their hands on opposite sides of their head/center of gravity)?  One corollary of this axiom would be that you couldn't get the upper hand across the paddleside rail to get truly vertical with the paddle (as described in one of the standup mags).  In fact, your upper hand would probably never cross your nose.  Makes sense from a physics standpoint and the video appears to support it.  I also notice that my hands stay in that plane and move essentially up and down without a lot of lateral movement.

[jrobmaui]

Someone asked for a slow motion version.  Here is a cut-down slo-mo version of the original video.  Tahitian begins at 1:38.



I did some frame grabs at key points during both strokes.     I can post them if people want.  Unfortunately no head-on shots.

Jrob

[DavidJohn]

Thanks for the slow-mo vid.

DJ

[CMC]

Bill,

This vid you posted on your site was a godsend for me.

We had been training for Australian National OC6 Titles and after learning (from losing!) that the top teams had all converted to the Tahitian style out by mid thigh short power stroke I found this vid.  We were already training this style but this vid solidified it for me.  I paddle in seat #1 and lead the boats stroke.

I circulated this video to my team, it is rare to find a vid with the same paddler demoing both strokes.  It really helped us to nail the stroke.  Long story short, we took 12 seconds off a 250m sprint from paddling Tahitian style versus Hawaiian in the conversion.  We also made the finals at Nationals.

In the surf on SUP I have also now converted my stroke completely to Dave's style.  I have however combined the loose bottom hand around the shaft on recovery and twist with the top hand and allowing the shaft to slip inside my grip to further relax the bottom hand.  I find the rolled inwards bottom hand to be great at 100% effort paddling for waves, in high winds or heavy chop but otherwise not permitting as much relaxation on recovery for general paddling or on DW paddles.

This stroke gives you very quick acceleration off the line to catch waves without disturbance to your board and to increase speed when you need it.  It really comes into it's own paddling up wind or against current.  It's logical really, shorter, quicker, more rapid strokes that allow your board to slow less with friction between strokes.  Kind of like, push, push, push, push rather than PUSH, slow, PUSH, slow if you get my meaning.  It requires less effort as each stroke is more maintaining speed rather than requiring the energy to create it again after you let it dissapear.  Less effort and energy with more speed = paddling faster for much longer.

If you maintain the oval shape with the top hand in front of your face as a guide you automatically can not pull back too far, you are also minimizing unnecessary movement prolonging endurance.  Thanks Dave!