STAND UP PADDLING with Mark Jackson

On Your Mark, Get Set…Hoe! (Hoe 1. Maori verb: To paddle)

Teaching is the profession that teaches all other professions. Coaching is 90% Attitude and 10% technique. Attitude is everything and imagination has a lot to do with winning.
As a water sports instructor and competitor for over 25 years, these words have helped me enjoy my job, do it well, and man I have done a lot of teaching and coaching. Students have included Lance Armstrong who believes winning is about the heart, saying “It’s got to be in the right place” and Reggie Crist who states: When it really boils down to it, it’s who wants it the most.
Hmmm, the heart and the Head. Psychosomatics. The body and the mind. Two essential ingredients that like empowerment, are muscles that need to be exercised.
In this article I thought I would share my ideas with those of you who share the addiction of Stand Up Paddling within that aquatic racing arena, and offer up these simple strategies, techniques, and ideas to help you “enjoy” and improve your stand up paddling.

Let’s start at the most appropriate place...
THE START LINE
There are really only 2 things you need to know here.
1. The course: Listen to the pre race instructions describing the course (really listen). Let me say that again. Really, listen. I have failed this simple requirement more times than I care to admit, and lets face it, ya don’t want to be asking directions when the starting gate is open!
2. The favoured end: Try and nab that spot. In most race cases it’s the windward end. So if the wind is blowing from the north east tuck yourself into the Takapuna Boat Ramp end.

THE START...
If you can chew gum and count at the same time you can also start on time. Just don’t choke on the gum.
After the horn for the Waka Ama’s goes off so should your 30-second count down in your head. Now that I’ve said that watch Scotty Rice chuck in a 60 second race instruction to really dumbfound those of us who are numerically challenged and did not listen to the pre race instructions. Trust your internal count down timer and give it the old “one/one thousand, two/one thousand etc.”. Do not wait and watch for someone else to go. Go!

THE COURSE LINE...
After you’ve untangled yourself from the bottle-neck jungle of a synchronized correctly calculated count down, and found a multitude of new malicious four letter verbs to describe your neighbouring paddlers – use that misguided adrenaline, and do your best Santa Claus impersonation and Hoe Hoe Hoe (i.e. paddle paddle paddle!).

A FEW TIPS...
Knowing how to attack the course and fend off counter attacks is often easier if your more in the front. Assuming your not a front runner yet; here’s a few tips:-
The first turning buoy “The Witches Hat”, is about 800 metres off the beach depending on the height of the tide. Going wide around that buoy in an east to north east wind allows for less of a radical 90 degree turn and positions you slightly more upwind. All that easterly wind is doing, remember, is nudging you back to the beach and away from the clockwise (seaward) rounding of the Cable Buoy.
Round the Cable Buoy by starting wide and finishing tight, so that your run northwards (back towards the Takapuna Boating Club) can be kept as close to a straight line as possible. With that easterly wind still sending you beachwards, don’t get your knickers granny knotted if you find you’re paddling most of your strokes on the right side going out and the left side coming back. There’s tricks for counteracting that like railing down and J-stroking but let’s look at swells.
If it swells…Ride it. Easier said than done. Basically catching swells or glides as we call them, involves some pretty hairy physics, a fair bit of luck and a serious bursts of energy combined with a plank walking exercise that surfers know better than anyone.
To “catch a glide” however small, try not looking at it like catching a swell but rather chasing it. As you see a swell pass by the nose of your board try and sort of piggy back onto it, then – if you get that “I caught it feeling” – step back on the tail of your board and quit paddling. Let physics take you for a ride and see how many times you can time it just right. The biggest “swell catching” time is obviously on the run to the beach (a long one on a high tide, a short one on a low tide). Practice!

Now to end at the most appropriate place...
THE FINISH LINE
There’s actually 2 of them. The beach and the timing chip top mat. For the transition from board to beach to timing mat, just jump and run like the wind. Make sure however that you designate someone to immediately pick up your board and get it out of the way of the other competitors.
Above all on race day, try to ‘chilax’. Try to enjoy, this sport to the ‘max’.
For I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead, some come from behind. But I’ve bought a big paddle. I’m all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me. Take another bit of Doctor Seuss empowerment by remembering:- “Today you are you, this is truer than true. There is no one alive who is ‘you’er
than you’.

If YOU would like some Stand Up Paddle lessons on racing technique etc, with our Les Mills two hour program, OR, just have a one hour fun paddle on the weekends and holidays, all equipment included with a free intro lesson, just look for our Stand Up South Pacific Flags right in front of the Takapuna Boating Club. Alternatively, call Mark Jackson on 0220 PADDLE 0220 72 33 53.