Advance SUP Stroke Tips – from my session with Candice Appleby and Anthony Vela

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Danny DeMichele

The Perfect Paddle Stroke – By Candice Appleby and Anthony Vela

As I mentioned on our Facebook site, I was lucky enough to attend a Performance Paddling clinic lead by Candice Appleby and Anthony Vela. Both elite, champion paddle boarders. Candice has won battle of the paddle 4 times and Anthony has a string of wins under his belt. They are among the best and fastest in the world, and they are now offering an elite paddlers clinic.

Now, a lot of what they do really has to be seen in person, but I will do my best to try and break it down in text. Here is what I took from it. If you can, get to one of their events, you can sign up here: performancepaddling.com

Overall, a proper paddle is broken down into 4 stages (Catch, Power, Exit, Recovery) All of them are equally important to one another. Here is my description on how you do each:

1. Catch – you need to reach as far as you can without having to release fingers from your paddle, and grab as much water in front of you as you can. A proper catch puts the full blade into the water.

2. Power – Once you properly catch the water in the paddle, it is time for the power stroke. Here, you are not pulling the paddle to you. Your arms are to remain stiff. The top arm is doing all of the work and “pushing you down onto your paddle” Your bottom arm is only a guide (this is where I was really messing up!). Basically, you are falling and laying all of your weight onto your paddle. You are not pulling the paddle to you at all.

3. Exit – you should be thinking about your exit when the paddle is at your toes, the paddle should be out of the water by the time it is on the back of your foot. They do a little twist of the paddle (utilizing your top arm of course) so that the blade is parallel with your board.

4. Recovery – recovery from exit to your next “Catch” should be really quick. Most importantly, you should not go way out and around your board. Try to keep it as close to your body as possible.

A couple of other great tips:
1. They don’t use a whole lot of twist. Your body will naturally twist a little bit, but you don’t need to try to twist any more than that.
2. If you see any splash on the catch or exit, you are doing something wrong.
3. Make sure you paddle is straight up and down during your stroke. if it is at an angle in the water, you lose power and you will turn a lot more, which is not good.

I will have more tips from my session coming soon!

Speed SUP Paddle Stroke Tips from Robert Stehlik

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Danny DeMichele

I found this to be the best video online on how to perfect a paddle stroke. You are not going to be able to do this after watching the video. He breaks the most important 3 components down into 3 techniques, you will need to practice them until it is natural for your body to use all 3. The 3 techniques are:

1. Pushing – Pushing the top of the paddle with your top arm (involves lots of tricep work)
2. Twisting – Twisting your torso during the stoke (lots of core movement)
3. Leaning – leaning forward / Down into the water.

Of course, you need to keep your bottom arm straight. Do not pull, it is the least effective technique and you will tire out way to quickly.

Here is the video, he explains it in-depth and shows you how to do it:

(Robert is sort of an ambassador to the sport of SUP and a Boardworks distributor who lives in Hawaii. Basically, you should listen to his advice!)

SUP Selection and Volume …

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Danny DeMichele

Here’s an interesting post from WG on the Zone about using board volume and body weight to determine appropriate board size. For us SUP geeks, it’s pretty interesting stuff. To the rest of the world, probably not so much.

It is difficult to determine stability factors on SUP boards these days. Glassy vs Bumpy conditions is a huge factor.
In my opinion, width is one of the primary factors in stability. Length from 9-0 to 10-5 is much less significant. Bottom contour or flatness will stabilize a board, but you want it to perform in waves too.
The other super important factor for stability is VOLUME. I have been measuring volumes of many boards with my volume tank (check the boardworks site for my updated volumes). The width of the Naish 9-5 Mana at 31″ and volume at 190 liters, makes it a very stable board. The Naish 9-6 Hokua is 29.25″ and 135 liters, narrower and less float, so that board is harder to stand on, but will perform better on a good wave. The C4 Subvector 9-3 is also about 139 liters and 28.81″ wide. Actually the 9-6 Subvector is only 135 liters by 28.75″, making it a lower volume board.
Most beginners will want a 2 to 1 ratio of their body weight [in liters] to volume. An intermediate can go to 1.7 times their weight and an expert in smooth conditions will enjoy a 1.3 ratio. If you are 6’4″ x 240 lbs that is 109 liters x about 1.5 would suggest you ride a 163 liter board or a high performance board in glassy conditions at 141 liters. Just something to consider for you heavier guys……….WG

Need some help on Naish’s Hokua 9’6 and Mana 9’5

Bend It Like Bertish!

Posted on July 31, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

Check out this video. Check out how much Bertish bends his knees. I gotta do that more. Someone remind me in the line up, okay?

Paddling Over White Water

Posted on June 17, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

Here’s a nice little how-to video from the folks at C4, about paddling over white water while standing. He makes it look so easy!

Ivan’s Power Turn Cut Back!

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

From coreban.com and the great Ivan van Vuuren arrives this tip regarding the frontside power cut back. He’s a small guy on a big ten-foot board, so if he can rip his SUP around, so can you. Now if only I could, I’d be all set, ha ha ho.

Boards are available in a wide range of sizes, so whether you are on a 11’6 Cruiser type of board or an 8ft SUP Quad, you can apply the same principals to perfect the Power Turn. For this illustration I’ll use an in-between board size which is the Coreban 10ft Icon.

As with any water sport, be it Kite boarding, surfing or windsurfing, speed is the essence to making a move not only look good, but also effective. The Power Turn cutback is an important part of progressive SUP riding as it will allow you to maintain speed while riding a wave and setting up for your next manoeuvre. Being able to turn prevents you from travelling too far along the wave face and allows you to stay near the peak where the most power is.

So you’re up and riding, board flying across the wave face and feel it’s time to lay it all down for a Power Cutback. First and most important key is to

Continue reading “Ivan’s Power Turn Cut Back!” »

Paddle Length: the Ultimate Guide!

Posted on June 14, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

From Ponobill at www.kenalu.com, comes the ultimate guide to cutting your paddle to the right length. Among other things, he takes a look at all the other methods, then draws his own conclusions, and as usual with Ponobill, they seem right on the money. Check out his website, too; it’s incredibly useful!

For better or worse, we humans adapt to the equipment we use. In Stand Up Paddle Surfing and Racing, our stroke adapts to the paddle we have. If your paddle shaft is too short your blade will be hitting the board when you pull on it during the catch (the first part of the stroke, when the paddle blade is first stabbed into the water and you start to pull). If you do a full reach the blade will have to be off to the side to keep from scraping along the rail, and the board will turn away from the stroke. To compensate you might so something like a draw stroke–which weakens your stroke. Or you might lean way over and shorten up the reach to get the blade under the board–which weakens your stroke and makes it inefficient.

Whatever you do, your body and mind will optimize and tune that compensation until it’s pretty good, which translates into a bad habit that’s hard to fix. I’ve seen that firsthand in learning the Tahitian stroke. All those years of paddling with whatever stroke came to mind have deeply rooted a host of bad habits.

The bottom line of all of this is that the wrong length paddle can fill your paddling repertoire with bad habits that are tough to correct. Getting a paddle…

Continue reading “Paddle Length: the Ultimate Guide!” »

Cross Stepping 1 Mo’ Time

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

I can’t help myself: here’s another post on how to cross step. This time, though, it comes from the great Ivan van Vuuren, one of the true geniuses of the small-wave SUP world. Read it and do it!

In the early stages of surfing longer SUP boards, you’ll notice that many riders do what we label as the “shuffle”. This is where a rider will awkwardly reposition himself on the board by moving his feet without actually lifting them up. Although it looks relatively easy to perform a decent cross-step forward, and then back, requires some skill so let’s take a look at a few tips that will help speed up this process.

First thing, as you catch the wave is to do a very slight bottom turn to redirect your board along the wave face so as to maintain speed. It’s important from the start …

Continue reading “Cross Stepping 1 Mo’ Time” »

Getting Out!

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Danny DeMichele

From Seabreeze Forums :

1. Wait for a lull then paddles like flock to get out.
2. Go over the white water standing. Your feet and legs have much less drag than your body so you are much less likely to get pulled back.
3. If you think you’re going to get hit by the white water then turn and ride it back in and wait for a lull.
4. If you’re almost going to make it then dive over or under the wave on an angle away from your board. Actively kick the board sideways so it doesn’t flick up and get you.
5. If there’s nobody behind you then swim with the board behind you on the leash and duck dive under the wave. Don’t fight the pull as the board tugs you. Keeps your arms in, relax and go with it.
6. Swimming beside the board with your arm wrapped around the nose then duck diving can sometimes work fairly well.
7. Never ever grab the leash, rail saver or fin. It’s guaranteed to hurt and you can break your fingers.
8. Turning turtle can work but I’ve never had much luck with that.
9. Relax and learn to love getting worked. There is no way you can fight a wave and expect to win.
If you minimise damage to yourself and conserve your energy you will get out eventually. The worst thing you can do is stress out about being caught on the inside and waste energy paddling hard trying to get over waves that are going to clobber you.
Think like a seal lolling about in the white water and it can be kind of fun.

Any good links for paddling out in bigger surf? – Stand Up Paddle Surfing – Stand Up Paddle – Seabreeze Forums!

More cross stepping

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Danny DeMichele

Couple of tips. On smaller, peaky waves try, both on your forehand and backhand, paddling into the break, then rotate into a quick top turn from the back of the board. As the board comes around start walking immediately (no matter how poor your cross stepping is, you will find you can take at least two, maybe three steps) This will set you up in the high line (in the fast section) then step or shuffle up front using your knees to push the nose down and steer.
If the waves are faster, take off sideways, as deep as you can, away from the break, stay high and start running up front as soon as you stand up. The secret is the quick movement during or immediately after the turn.
On bigger waves let your board run all the way down the face, then using your head, shoulders and arms, rotate into a hard bottom turn generating thrust both out and up the face. As the board comes up the face, set the outside rail deep (and slightly down angle) into the shoulder by a hard downweight squat or do a ‘Stanley’ stomp. This will set you up for a quick cover up or a cheater five through the section.
When the wave mushes out on you, try cutting back while pushing down on the tail with your back foot, then lift your front foot off the board, forcing a quick stall. Keep the board hanging up there (you can even do the twist) until the wave picks up, then quickly run up front. Last trick, make a conscious effort to lift your feet when stepping.

Nose riding How To??? – Harbour Surf Talk – All – Harbour Surfboards – Message Board – Yuku