Powering Up, using the paddle like the
third leg of a tripod, not only adds to
stability, but combines this with
speed and drive.
Hangetsu Dachi), that I use when boofing
drops and holes, without that momentary
instability that comes from stepping back
out of a sideways flat stance.
The closer your feet are to the centreline,
the less initial ‘planted’ stability you feel
like you have, but this translates to the
board having a hard time adversely moving
your body around and off the centreline.
Your feet do not lift (or drop) as far, and as
such your body shift off centre is reduced,
applying less force to the lower foot, and
this force having less power due to a smaller
moment arm.
The lower the volume of my board, and
narrower the board, so the closer my feet
get. On my tiny 25-inch wide, 88-litre surf
SUP, I stand almost on the centreline, toes
to heel, shifting the Sanchi Dachi (kung fu)
to a stance called Neko Ashi Dachi.
People can walk on slacklines because their
core rarely gets off centre (relative to their
feet or the line itself).
As soon as you master these stances, you
suddenly realize that excessive board width
is not only unnecessary, but a hindrance.
Stance stagger
Knees, ankle and waist bend
I call this the ‘Kung Fu’ stance (because it
sounds cool). I studied karate for years, and
quickly adopted three basic karate stances
into my SUP paddling.
A large part of stability comes from
absorbing the board’s movement. Think of a
motocross rider firing across a series of
Whoops (a series of smaller moguls or hills in
succession), standing on the pegs. The
wheels are hammering up and down, but the
riders upper body barely moves, absorbing
everything with the suspension and legs.
Skiers use the same technique in moguls.
Standing with your feet parallel makes it
near to impossible to regain balance if the
nose or tail of the board is suddenly lifted or
lowered (pitch), or you suddenly accelerate
or decelerate.
In an ideal world, no matter what the board
is doing underneath you, no matter how
much its bucking and weaving, everything
from the waist up should be completely still.
Shifting one foot back so the toes of the
back foot align with the heel of the front
foot, right at about shoulder width,
gives you the best ‘all around’ standing
position (in karate it’s called Sanchin Dachi).
This is accomplished by combining the
staggered stances, with a very liberal
amount of knee and ankle bending, each
leg moving independently, so that it’s
moving up and down just enough to absorb
the boards movement, while keeping your
upper body still.
The advantage of this is that it allows you to
shift your crotch forward or back, as needed,
to keep your centre of gravity over the
centreline, without bending at the waist (a big
no no). This stance is effectively the same as
a flat stance when it comes to comfort over
long periods of paddling, while giving you this
fine-tune stability adjustment.
What you don’t want to do is attempt to
absorb these board movements through
waist bending. First of all, it’s too slow. You
just cannot lower and raise your chest by
It also allows you to step back into a longer
more ‘defensive’ stance (in karate called
You cannot even begin to tackle
multiple drop rapids until you have
mastered stability. If you fall on the
first drop, you’re swimming the
second one and that’s no fun at all
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