Things I’ve Learned; Posture is everything

20/01/2023

Today I Learned; posture is everything. During this mornings training session we were doing timed delivery, and I noticed that about half way through the session my arms were really starting to feel it. It had been a long week of hard work coming closer to an end and my arms were really feeling it on some efforts. What I was really focusing on today was not panicking in tight situations and no matter what, maintaining a disciplined and strong posture. From the start of the session I was feeling good and felt I was paddling well, I had the patience and the time to pull hard when I could but also delivery the more difficult moves with a strong and connected body posture. Where I noticed the biggest change however was when the available power in my arms dropped dramatically. Towards the end of some efforts I was putting all my available power in key strokes, such as the exit of upstream gates or jump strokes to get over a wave, this meant that as I was getting more tired and sore I had less available power for the other areas of the runs. As I was staying really strong and connected in my posture I noticed that my strong body position was holding me online and in the right places when my arms couldn’t. Just by being disciplined and holding that strong posture, my boat kept tracking forwards and on the right lines to get all the gate sequences, I was still about to get my boat into the perfect position for upstream gates. It was a nice balance between my arms doing the work for the key strokes and then my body and boat doing the work in the other areas when my arms couldn’t.
I find it always nice having physical realisations of such things during a training session. It reaffirms and builds more confidence and trust in the process that you are committing to, and it shows its working and going in the right direction. Even when its hurting just do the small 1% things right and you’ll notice a difference.

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Things I’ve Learned; Overthinking in the moment

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Things I’ve Learned; Compouding mistakes