Snappy Exit

I recently was asked a question about foot position in Dragon Boat.  SHould you be foot forward like a C-1, and if so, whcih foot?  Maybe both feet back, or both forward?  This was one of the first things I worried about when I got into a Dragon Boat.  I assumed that the best way would be to try and emulate the C-1 position as much as possible by sticking my outside leg under my seat and putting my inside leg forward.  But I found this to be VERY uncomfortable and made me feel like I was falling off of my seat.

I quickly settled into  a both-feet-forward position where I put my outside foot on top of my inside foot and lock both feet as much as possible against the side of the boat so they don’t move around.  It works well for me because:

1.  I am able to keep my hip close to the side of the boat.
2.  I am able to still get my weight on the catch.
3.  I am comfortable enough in the boat to paddle for long periods.

I think that the relatively low position in the boat makes the stroke somewhere between a kayak and a canoe stroke and so you have to make compromises.  My basic advice is - get comfortable, keep the weight moving forward, put your feet wherever you want.

The purpose of canoe racing is to make the boat move forward as quickly as possible. There are two basic parts to this:

1. Get as much force as possible on the paddle in a way that puts the majority of the force helps your forward motion.
2. Don’t let the boat slow down during the recovery.

The way you finish off your canoe stroke has a huge effect on keeping the boat running between strokes. This is equally true in any canoe, C-1, C-2, C-4, War Canoe, Dragon Boat, OC-6 or Coleman Canoe. I want to look at the exit today in terms of momentum and the action-reaction forces.

Imagine that at the end of the stroke you are sitting still in the boat. You need to move forward to get into position for the next stroke. Going from sitting still to moving forward requires an acceleration. Acceleration requires force, and physics says that for every force applied there must be an equal and opposite reaction force. From a practical perspective, this means that if you want to push something forward you have to have something to push against.

When you are in the boat the only thing you have to push against is the boat. Whether its your knee or your bum, the point that connects you to the boat is what you are pushing against to move your body forward. Now obviously the boat is not fixed, so what happens when you push against the boat to move yourself forward? The boat wants to move backwards.

We all know this. We can see it especially on the startline - the paddle goes up, the boat moves back. It is even more pronounced in boats like the Dragon Boat with more people all moving at once. When the boat is moving your body cannot cause it to start moving backwards but it will certainly slow down. The best way to minimize this effect is to get as far forward as possible while the paddle is still in the water.

Think back to the rocket ship effect. Making sure that the body is leaning forward before the paddle comes out is actually ensuring that your boat maintains its momentum in between strokes. Try thinking about that when you are learning about the exit.

I received this comment today and it has spurred me on to write this post.

Steve, can you comment a bit on the exit of the stroke? I understand how pulling hard while the blade becomes negative pulls the boat down and into the water but from photos/videos of sprint races I’ve seen, including the olympic finals, I notice that a lot of sprint canoe paddlers become neutral while the paddle is still fairly “in front” of them and carry though the stroke a bit with it negative before they exit.

I’ve also heard a bit about applying some extra force during the exit of the stroke but still do not really understand it. I was hoping you could comment a bit on that too.

Basically what the commenter is saying and what I sort of ignored (actually I completely ignored it because it was an introductory post) is that most successful canoe athletes actually spend a fair amount of time with their paddles at a negative angle. The most famous Negative Angle Paddler (NAPer) is also one of the most succesful canoe athletes in the history of the sport - Gyorgy Kolonics.

I always thought it was an ugly stroke, even when he was kicking my but up and down the lake. So what is going on that allows him to do this and still go fast? There is no great secret here, once again it all comes down to physics - although it is slightly more complicated than what we looked at before.

Remember this image where I asserted that at this point in your stroke you have started to push the boat down and not forward? Well the assumption that I didn’t state is that all of the power is being applied by the bottom hand (i.e. along a line from the bottom hand to the bottom shoulder). Obviously there is (at least) one other force at play and that is of course (remember the jam jar?) the downward force of the top arm.

Take a look at this digram.

Now,  as long as the force is in-line with the shaft you can simply transpose to onto the blade.  What you should note is that:

• It looks as though a force directed along the shaft of the paddle will counteract the force that is sinking your boat. That is - by pressing down you keep the paddle from moving up thus keeping the boat from moving down.  I think this is not really true and that if I could get further into this I would see that the movement of the paddle, and the ability of the blade to hold the water come into play.  So - ignore that for now.
• But what id definitely real is - the downward force of your top arm can actually contribute to your forward motion!

The reason that (I think) coaches don’t generally talk about this is that everything goes to pot if the force is not applied straight along the shaft. Take a look at this diagram.

What I am trying to show here is what happens when you drive the top arm forward. The bottom hand basically acts as a fulcrum.  What this means is that the force is no longer translated directly down the shaft, but is changed as shown above.  It’s not reall detrimental to the stroke, but you can see that instead of lifting the boat and driving it forward you are mostly just sinking the boat. And the harder you push forward with the top arm, the harder you push the boat down.  Now the reason Kolonics can spend so much time in this position and still go fast is because he can feel when he is applying force in the proper direction.

I think that this may be one of the most important differences between good paddlers and great paddlers. In fact this may be what people mean when they say that someone has a good feel for the water. They can feel that they are applying a force that is making the boat move faster regardless of what position they are in, how choppy the water is or even what boat they are in. It doesn’t always have to be pretty.

Now for extra credit - there is something else that changes when you increase the negative angle of your paddle that will negatively affect your boat speed. Anyone know what I am thinking of?