How to do Pry Strokes in Canoeing

Video Transcript

"The Pry Stroke is a way to move your bow toward your paddle side but, the pry stroke slows the boat down a lot so we're going to use the pry traditionally and try to use a really efficient pry so we're not slowing down the boat any more than necessary. In order to do a Pry stroke the first principle is you want to turn your torso toward your work, so you want to face your stroke and when we do that you see the top hand comes out over the gunnel. So it puts the paddle shaft perfectly parallel to the keel of the boat and it also puts the blade right against the back of the boat and that's the best place to start from. So now, with the blade against the boat I am going to Pry off the gunnel a nice short pry these strokes are short and quick (demonstrates) so that nice short pry stroke with a lot them gets me around in a circle pretty quickly it's generally used as a correction stroke with a forward stroke. So, if your taking a regular forward stroke every forward stroke turns you away from your paddle the Pry Stroke is a way to bring your boat back toward the paddle but, in order to do that you want do very good prys and you want to do them quickly cause you want to do the pry as down as quickly as possible to get back to a forward propulsion stroke so, your not loosing all your energy to the correction stroke. So, here is what it looks like when you put the pry together (demonstrates) with a forward stroke."