Scotty Mac said...

Blane's words in regards to the SUP world tour;

Nothing is harder to watch than a stand up surfer dipping his or her paddle every turn when they are killing their power and glide by being more focused on touching the water with their paddle. Barf. Good surfing is a blend of using the paddle when it = a heavy leverage turn on rail.

Spot on....

i've never been able to understand why paddle use is part of the scoring, if you a doing the big moves that should be all that matters. personally i like seeing someone doing a big hack without the paddle- tells me they are on their game
cheers

DavidJohn said...

I agree Scotty.. but I also think they should loose points for just holding the paddle in one hand and surfing the wave like a normal long boarder.

DJ

you know it DJ

What about when you bitchslap the wave to counter that momentary loss of balance. Loss of points or just ignore it. I know I do it, and you know you do it!
Jack

Dogman bitchslappin NO WAY

I did a one-handed paddle move a few sessions ago... I was riding backhand on a nice sucky beachbreak wave, I got a good tight bottom turn in, as I went into the reo from that bottom turn I felt I wouldnt get enough upper body rotation to snap it back around - so I took my front hand off and cranked my arm out & around the same way I would've if I was surfing on my 6'2". It worked and it felt sweet. It was a subconcious thing to let go with the front hand, muscle-memory kicked in - if I'd kept holding the paddle I think I would've just kicked out of the wave. Does any one else feel that you cant get as much upper-body rotation as you can when you prone-surf because of holding the paddle? That reo wouldnt have scored much in a SUP comp I guess but it felt like one of the best backhand reos I've done on a SUP.

Man did I ever get a caning from a poster here for even suggesting that you can, or should turn your board without using the paddle. LOL. How times change.

Rod

This is an interesting thread-topic for me - I'm at a stage ( 1.5yrs SUPping ) where bad habits have a way of creeping up. I'm learing more every session & adjusting to my little 8'6" Surfshapes ripper.

Part of having a responsive little board is that my paddle skills are playing catch-up to my surfing skills.

By describing whats going on for me in my previous post it got me thinking & visualising about what I need to work on & I can see the need to grip the paddle differently ( hands further apart ) and swing around the upper body with that spread-out grip to allow more opened-out shoulder movements.

In the last 6 months I developed a bad habit of too much paddle-use on my forehand bottom turns - e.g. paddle-turns instead of rail-turns ( pretty bad for stressing out the shoulder too ) which would explain why I feel I've been progressing more on my backhand with the paddle out of the way of the wave.