Catch Drills from Jason

Jason guest coached our afternoon DB session today and here are a few quick notes.

-- He really encouraged us to slow down the pace and to add a small pause at the front of the stroke, to help our mash-up team (new to paddling together) stay together on our catch. We have slightly different styles and different exits, and the strokes initiating a small pause helps the crew stay together in these circumstances.

-- We worked on two drills on three drills on the water:

1. An exaggerated pause drill, pausing at the front of the stroke, to get the boat catching together.
2. A drill where we did two very short catch-only strokes (get the blade buried to vertical, then exit immediately and do again), followed by a full/long stroke. Here again, adding a slight pause between the short strokes and a slight pause before the full stroke helped the boat do it better together.
3. A 1 minute executed with a slight pause at the front of the stroke. 20 strokes focused on body position at 70%, 20 strokes focused on the setup for a great catch at 80%, 20 strokes focused on a great, powerful catch and glide, at 90%.

-- Jason also worked with us on the land to work on really feeling the idea of putting our weight on the paddle and "growing on top of the blade" at the catch. We sat on top of a low wall with a partner to brace our feet against. We put our blade to the side. Jason created a huge amount of resistance against the blade and challenged us to pull, while really putting our weight "on top of" the paddle. He said that if he weren't there, we should feel like we would completely topple over and he wanted a lot of commitment. After a couple tries, this really felt incredible. I can see how much extra power you can get if you can get "on" the blade. I felt the strain in my upper abs, in particular.

-- One other note that I heard at Jason at one point, which might be helpful for my exit/recovery challenges... He said to imagine that the back of your stroke is like having your hand on a wall behind you, and you use that wall to push yourself forward to set up for the next stroke. Practice this with your hand on a real wall, then go find that wall of water in your stroke and use it to spring fluidly forward in your recovery.