[Blaze]

I'll begin with the "stroke" and then I'll follow with the information on "feathering"

Like most everthing, proper paddling is about good posture & form...

Sit up straight- with your feet firmly on the foot braces and the foot braces adjusted to where the knees are bent up with about 6" of clearence under the back of the knee. Push your buttocks firmly back into the seat. The preasure from you legs to your butt "connects" you to the boat. With your back straight, bend slightly forward from the waist.


Grip you paddle's shaft even with your shoulders- holding the shaft in front of you- even with your chest. You elbows should be at a right angle(90°)
*Important to Remember- Never let you elbows bend less than 90°. Imagine that you have a beach ball pinned between the paddle's shaft and your chest- keeping you from ever bringing the shaft closer to your chest. Keep those elbows at 90° or greater all the time. This space between your chest and the shaft is also refered to as the "Paddler's Box"
(NEVER "PUMP" THE ARMS/ELBOWS! called the Arm Stroke- BAD)

The stroke begins by rotating at the WAIST with the arms in the Paddler'sBox position. Lean forward and "Catch" the water by your toe. Imagine that you have just stuck the paddle in the ground and you are going to pull the boat up to the paddle's position by rotating at the waist using the muscles in your lower back and waist- NOT YOUR ARMS!
You are not pulling the paddle back through the water...
You are pulling the boat up to the paddle...

The stroke ends when the paddle's blade is even with your hip NEVER BEHIND YOUR HIP!
*Important to Remember- If you end the stroke behind the hip and recover the blade behind the hip- when you lift the blade, you catch water against the face of the blade- thus pulling the boat down to the paddle and slowing the boat from the forward momentum that you just gained in the power faze of the stroke.

Now you repeat the "Catch" by the opposite toe and "Recover" by the opposite hip- all by maintaining the "Paddler'sBox" and rotating at the waist using your lower back and abdomen muscles.

This is called the "Body Stroke".


"FEATHERING" the paddle

Feathering is where we adjust the paddle's blades to where they are at angles to each other- usually it's 60° On two piece paddles, the shaft will usually have two holes where the two pieces come together at the ferrule. If you put the spring button in one hole the blades will be even/straight with each other and if you put the button in the other hole the blades will be at an angle to each other.

Most paddles that are set up for feathering are set up for right-handed people and the normal angle is 60° You can get paddles setup for left-handed people and at different angles like 45° or 90°

The purpose for feathering the blades is so the blade that is out of the water in the "Recovery" position is "slicing" through the wind instead of pushing the flat side of the back of the blade into/through the wind.
Out on the open water this makes a huge difference when paddling around in the wind.

To feather the paddle in the stroke,(right-hand version) the right hand grips the shaft. The right blade should be in the correct position to "catch". The right hand stays in this position on the shaft all the time. The right side makes a catch, then stroke and then on the recovery, the right hand will drop slightly by rotating the wrist slightly down, rotating the shaft to turn the left blade to the correct catch position for the left side.
The left hand never grips the shaft. The right hand rotates the shaft in the left hand from right catch position to left catch position.

The better your body stroke becomes, the more you rotate at the waist, the less you will notice dropping the right wrist in the catch for the left side.

I don't even notice a rotation in the shaft now because of the natural rhythm that I've developed from many years of paddling.

Practice makes perfect!