Downwind - The water isn't moving

I'm writing this blog because this is one of the hardest point to get across to paddlers when coaching, but it can also be one of the biggest lightbulb moments and unlock another level of improvement in their downwind paddling.

Imagine you are sitting a kilometre out to sea in your ski, facing downwind. You would hear the wind rushing passed your ears and you could see the backs of all the runners moving away from you. They are coming from behind you, lifting you up as they move beneath you and dropping you back down as they pass out in front of you. Everything is moving away from you. The wind, the runners, but not the water. If the water was moving with those runners they wouldn't be moving away from you because you would getting pulled along by the bit of water you are floating in.

The best way I can describe what is actually happening is to use the example of shaking a rug. If you stood at one end of the rug and flicked it up and back down you would send a wave through the rug moving away from you and if you were strong enough it would go all the way to the other end of the rug. But the rug wouldn't have moved forward. The wave of energy moved through the rug but the rug actually just moved up and down.

So when you are sitting still in the ocean the rug isn't moving, it is just moving up and down.

The reason why this is so important to going downwind it two fold. One because if you realise things are moving up and down and not hurtling towards you as you paddle out everything seems a little more tame. But also, Two, because we have to remember that we are moving through the water. We are being pushed by that wave behind us through water that isn't moving.

If you were getting pushed from behind by something while you were running you know the ground isn't moving and you'd start moving your legs faster to keep getting them back out in front of you so you didn't fall over. If your legs weren't moving as fast as you were going the ground would be pulling you backwards every time you touched it.

And this is where most paddlers fall down (figuratively and literally) in downwind paddling. When a runner comes and pushes them their speed goes up but their rating often doesn't. Every time they put the paddle on the water (which isn't moving) the paddle gets "pulled backwards" because it's staying on that same piece of water and the paddler is getting pushed passed that piece of water by the runner.

Before they know it the paddle is behind them and pulling them in. If this still isn't making sense, imagine you are on a treadmill. As the treadmill goes faster you start running faster, but really you are only pulling your leg forward, once you put it down the treadmill moves it backwards and if you don't get the next foot out in front quick enough you're going to fall flat on your face.

So how to good paddlers rate fast enough to paddle when they're getting pushed by a runner at 20kmph? Same as the treadmill, they push their top hand forward really quickly to get the next stroke ready and don't try to move the bottom blade backwards. The water is moving it there anyway.

If you've ever got the speed wobbles on a downwind or feel like your paddle is trying to pull you into the water then I hope this made sense. If you drove along at 20kmph in your car, opened the door and put your foot down, your foot would get pulled backwards (relative to you) at 20kmph. In the ski its exactly the same.

The water is moving up and down, if it moved forwards, wherever you were finishing your downwind would be underwater.