Aloha, this is Robert Stehlik with Blue Planet Surf in Hawaii.
Today, I'm going to talk a little bit about how to make the board go in a straight line,
a lot of times beginners struggle with that and basically every couple strokes they have to switch sides
because the board's turning left and right so they can only get like one or two strokes and then have to switch.
So, I'll give you a couple tips on how to make the board go in a straight line
so you can get more strokes per side, because basically every time you have to switch the paddle from one side to the other side
It slows you down a little bit. So, the more you can make the board go straight, the better.
So one important tip is the blade angle. So, if you angle your blade out this way
then that's going to make the board turn more. If you angle the blade a little bit towards you
it's going to make the board go more straight, like, basically you could paddle indefinitely on one side by kind of
stroking a little bit with the paddle towards you, starting it away from the board pulling it towards you and
angling the blade a little bit towards you will pull me a little bit over to the right
So to
make the board go in a straight line you want to start the blade a little bit away from the board and pull a little
bit towards you so that way I can actually make my board go straight indefinitely
By pulling the blade a little bit towards me
And holding the paddle upright
So, if I angle the blade outward
Push it away from the board, it's going to make the board turn more. If I pull it angle it towards me
I can make the board actually turn towards the paddle like this.
And if you hold it straight back, it'll make the board go straight forward. Okay, so the two most common things that people-
That make people go sideways instead of going straight are not holding the paddle straight up and down, basically holding it diagonally
Hold it, the more you hold it diagonally, the more it's going to turn the board away from the side you're paddling on. Also,
the further away you have the blade from the board, the more it's going to turn and
the angle of the paddle, if you're angling the paddle outward away from you,
that's also going to make the board turn, so if you want to get make the board turn to use a steering stroke. you get
the paddle low to the water,
Angle the blade away from you, push it out, way out to the side and you can see how that makes my board turn
really well.
Now, if you want to make the board go straight, you got to do basically the opposite, which is hold the paddle
straight up and down, so it's,
you know,
perpendicular to the water, hold the blade
so you're pulling it straight back or even a little bit towards you, and
pull the paddle back in a straight line. If you notice that the board has a little bit of a curve to it,
So if you just follow the outline of your board, you're actually making a slight curve with the paddle.
So what you want to do is- really is
start the blade a
little bit away from the board, and then pull it kind of towards the board.
So, one way to check if you're holding the paddle straight up
and down is, if you're looking over the paddle like this, that means you're holding it too diagonally
You should be looking between the paddle and your arms,
So that's like a window you're looking through when you're paddling and the paddle should be straight up and down, and then
At the end of your stroke, you should get the paddle as close to your board as possible, the closer
you keep the paddle to the board, the more it's going to drive you forward instead of sideways,
So keep the paddle, start a little bit away from the rail and then end it up right next to your feet
So, like, for example, if you're starting in a race, you
want to be able to get a bunch of strokes on one side to accelerate
Before you have to switch, because every time you switch, you lose a little bit of momentum
so
Yeah, so then that's where it's important to have that good technique
You pull the blade a little bit towards you and make it go straight for a longer time.
Alright, so those are just a few ways you can use to make your board go more straight. Hope you enjoyed it,
see you again soon. Please subscribe and give us a thumbs up, appreciate it, aloha. See you on the water.
Alright, thanks for watching, give us a thumbs up please, hope you enjoyed the show. Aloha!