The twist blade probably changes that angle slightly for the slide. Identify the slide angle and adjust your feather to counter it and you wont need to change anything to stay square.

@@K2NOPS Good stuff, Robert! Thanks!

The video focus was primarily on blades and not on the shafts. But that is a great point on disliking the oval shaft (me too.) I just had a conversation on a paddler disliking round shafts so much they only use the Epic, so that preference spectrum is always funny. Blade flutter is from inadequate top hand pressure/downward force on the paddle-that is the stabilizer. The Angla has slightly more parallel edges longer, and the Epic is more tear dropped near the tip of the blade. This makes the Epic grab more water(through leverage) in the mid stroke which is causing that blade flutter. If you're using a very low angle stroke that Angla will feel more accommodating based on the shape too!

I appreciate it! If you ever have questions feel free to reach out anytime.

I'm with you on not liking oval shafts. My first paddle was an epic mid wing with an oval shaft. I could never index properly on it. Using a stellar round shaft now and I love it. I'm told it's basically a copy of the jantex

That's interesting. I think that's another one where you have to match the length to what you want to do with it. I'm not a k1 gal but I know Tommy Yonley goes "short" (200-205) for marathon k1. I also know for Chattajack I used my blade at 200 cm because that was the shortest I could make it. My "test run" paddle I did the month beforehand, I started at 205 and after 2 hours it felt like too much load so shortening it helped.

Thanks for checking out the video! The video is on Blades more than anything else and using your preferences to match the boat/situation. I was hesitant on publishing a video 20 minutes long when most videos retain attention for 2-3 minutes... adding more content could of easily made this an hour long! I'll add paddle lengths to match seat height in a future video.

@@K2NOPS I think it would be worth it. If you look at the surfski forum 'what paddle' is an oft-asked question.

The epic small mid/braca 4 are good entry models. The ones on Amazon as a first one isn't so bad either.

Kialoa used to make a curved shaft to keep the wrist neutral at the catch. The model is the Lolo but I've never used it myself only seen it.

That's a tough one since everyone is different with their preference and changes it depending on distance. When the paddle gets longer the distance from the pinky to the blade tip increases so the blade will go deeper. More leverage is more speed but on the diminishing returns scale can be bad for the wrong distance. 3-6 inches from the throat probably a decent general guide.

@@K2NOPS So 3-6” of paddle out of the water, or 3-6” of paddle under water? I’m interested because I see some people bury their paddle and some people with part of the actual paddle blade out of the water, which seems inefficient. Are you looking to just put the very top of the blade into the water on each stroke? There’s obviously a lot to keep track of with a 3-D movement like this, but blade depth is one you can readily see. For example, I see very inexperienced paddlers burying only like half the blade in shallow angle strokes; they are moving but hardly efficiently. My guess would be that you want zero inches of blade depth (meaning the very upper aspect of the blade) on each stroke. This gets to optimal paddle length and stroke angles, etc. If given a longer paddle, for example, would you keep the same angles and just bury the blade deeper? Or would you modify the catch and pull angle to get that blade just barely buried? I hope this isn’t too geeky but as I learn a more sophisticated kayak stroke I won’t always have the right paddle length and want to know the tradeoffs. 🙏 Thank you!

I've only heard of it referred to as "ka" at the end. Just watched a half dozen videos on KZfaq where all the users say the same... can you find one where it's pronounced right and send it to me?

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h5ODdpl8mbnMnWQ.htmlsi=f5tBO-zcduAu8swf