The Draw stroke moves the board in a lateral direction. It is performed alongside the paddler drawing the water straight into the rail of the board.
This stroke is beneficial when a paddler is wanting to pull up beside an object. Let’s say you want to Raft up with friends, or pull up to the side of the dock. This is the SUP skill for it.
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Let’s break down this basic paddle stroke to help you get a better understanding.
SUP Draw Stroke for Lateral Movement
The Torso Twist
Start in a neutral foot position on the paddleboard. Turn your shoulders in the direction of travel that you want to go. This is done to prevent injuries, it prevents the paddlers shoulders from being over extended and in a better ergonomic position.
Planting the Blade
Reaching out using the the arm’s “a-frame” ( if you haven’t seen this please reference the forward stroke blog)
Plant the blade completely in the water with the powerface facing the rail of the board. The location to plant the blade is behind the feet. Planting the blade slightly behind the feet accommodates for the fin that is creating drag on the bottom of the board.
PRO TIP
You can slightly stagger your stance open to the paddling side to make planting the blade behind your feet easier.
Power
Keeping the paddle as perpendicular to the water surface as possible, pull the blade straight in towards the rail. This motion should move the board in a lateral direction.
Release
Just before the blade impacts the rail, release the blade from the water. The release is done by either lifting the blade straight up and out of the water, this can be fairly awkward for the paddler.
A second choice would be to adjust the direction of the powerface towards the nose and slice the blade back through the water to the catch position. To adjust the powerface direction turn your top hand thumb that is on the T-grip, towards yourself. This should change the direction of the powerface.
SUP Lateral Draw Common mistakes
1.During the power step people will lose their stacked hands and their draw stroke will react more like a sweep stroke turning the board.
2.Not planting the blade far enough back to compensate for the fin. The green arrow shows a corrected draw location, this will aid in correcting for the fin resistantence in the water.
SUP Draw for Lateral Movement Conclusion
The draw stroke is another SUP skill to add to the many techniques and strokes to master paddling a stand up paddleboard. This stroke adds ease to access docks, allows paddlers to pull up beside friends, and adjust the position of the board. Fine tuning this skill is helpful to have an experienced eye give feedback. Taking a lesson can give a paddler the opportunity to fine tune this skill by having helpful experienced instructor give feedback.
“Dreams don’t work unless you do”
Kimberley Kenyon
Badfish Team Athlete
AQ Outdoors Whitewater SUP and Splitboard Ambassador
Advanced and River 1 SUP Instructor Paddle Canada
@borntoboard.ca
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Edmonton: (p) 780 463-4892 (e) info@aquabaticsedmonton.com
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