A row of piles leads up "long pond"Last Saturday Richard did a forward stroke clinic at the pool. Today Dean and I went to Long Pond to start working on it. Its considerably different from the touring and racing (power) strokes, at least used around here. Here's a link to a video clip Neil shot of Richard.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS-pGIcz5WY
After a number of years doing one stroke the muscles have it memorized and its going to take time to build muscle memory for a new forward stroke. I'm going to break it down into bite sized pieces that I can work on separately and hopefully put it all together at some point. To try to execute all of it at once is just too much for me to concentrate on.
Today went OK but if Richard was there he'd be yelling "more torso rotation", "take the paddle out at the hips", "keep your hand at eye level". That reminds me of a saying: "If you know it, it's awfully simple; if you don't, its simply awful".
Dean charges through some ice It wasn't all work. Near the upper part of the "pond" the water was frozen over and passable with a bit of effort. A lot more liberties can be taken with a plastic boat but I wasn't going to try it with my glass Nordkapp.
Ice cap After a couple of hours of "practice" we had enough and called it a day. On the way back I thought this buoy with the ice cap would make a quirky photo.
I had the same experience trying out a new paddle and getting some coaching on my forward stroke last Thurs. "Left wrist is too high" and yes, "more rotation" were the commands I heard. (:
ReplyDeletecowboygrrl, I'm beginning to think I'll just develop my forward stroke so that it feels comfortable to me and if I can keep up with the pack then what's the big deal if my form isn't perfect. I want to get out and enjoy and not worry about all these form things.
ReplyDeleteTony :-)