this is probably old news to many, but:

my favorite old wetsuit john is now has many areas of congealed glue repairs that aren’t so flexible anymore. Went to a local divesuit shop to buy some pcs to repair the cutout repair areas. In the course of conversation he mentioned that a new way more flexible neoprene has been in his shop for abt a yr or so.

About 40% more expensive mat’l wise, but the stuff is magic in comparison to regular. I bought some for the crotch area repair which repeatedly fails on my john.

Now , I may even buy a wetsuit jacket as the flexibility is so high. Wheras my other is close to useless for paddling.

(As an aside
The poor guy (same as another shop I visited a few days ago) was saying that they hardly sell any wetsuits any more as the big box stores bring them in for dirt dirt cheap. He said that a distributor from china came into his store w/ some huge boxes of suits etc that could be turned over for $5 each canadian(there’d bound to be other charges too of course). So he sold 2 wetsuits last yr and all his business now is repair and neoprene diving drysuits.sweating big time)

But the difference betw 7mm regular neoprene and this flex 7mm is like night and day. Probably as much or more than 3mm flex

So, worth looking at
-mick