: Good point using core muscles. One technique I use is to keep you
: head pointed straight ahead in respect to your shoulders then
: when paddling aim to be able to view opposite shores (helps to
: have a fairly narrow body of water) while paddling. To do this
: you must rotate alot, probably too much but it's a good way for
: me to force me to rotate.

: Bill H.

Hi gents, thanks for all the replies. sounds like technique is the big issue , I have been surfing the web (YOU tube) and a few other places. I discovered that being a rookie my form is off for sure But I dicovered on the you tube videos that My paddle blade is not in the water deep enough (again part of the form thing)

having interpeted GP paddling as keeping hands low and paddling with torso (my abs were sore at the end of my 4 hour paddle sat) But looking at the few videos it appears Im only using the tips of the blades (30% perhaps) vs the videos where the paddler has much more blade in water (75% +- almost to loom ) the GP videos I just looked at although the elbows were not up in the sky like a euro paddler they were much higher angle than I was using (Im FOR THE MOST PART rowing).

this perhaps Could be a major Factor??? not using enough surface area per a given stroke???

"John"