Paddle Articles

If you paddle, you might have heard about The Paddle Dojo. A personalized stroke technique analysis lab featuring hi-tech and low-tech tools and a coach giving you his undivided attention. We wanted to see what all the excitement was about, and decided to send one of our Team Paddlers, Tony Fajardo there to get the full scoop. Enjoy this great recap of what you can expect should you have the chance to visit.

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We here at Cali Paddler are always striving to be better, and have more fun, on the water. Whether it is related to fitness, technique or attitude, there are many well documented ways to becoming a better paddler. However, some ways to improve your SUP, Prone, Outrigger Surf-Ski or Dragonboat performance are not as commonly known as others. We wanted to share the following top 10 tips to help you paddle better, and open up our Cali Paddler Treasure Chest of Secrets....to YOU! Enjoy

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A parent paddler, sharing his letter to his kids before his adventure...

"You have seen me going training countless hours in the past 6 months, you have seen me lost in dreams and thoughts and questions over this race, you have heard me tirelessly speaking about it, and you have seen me prepare my luggage today.

With this letter, maybe in a few years once you will have grown a bit more, you will be able to read the main reasons why I decided to do this challenge, what it means to me, and what in the process I’d like you to humbly learn from me..."

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Cali Paddlers are known for their passion of exploration. A desire to paddle our waters, and pay respects to the amazing wildlife and nature that lives in our waterways. Please enjoy this series of articles and broaden your paddling horizons. ~C.P.

Lake Elsinore is the largest natural freshwater body in Southern California.  It is not a reservoir nor is it created by engineering.  Since it is owned by the city of Lake Elsinore, it’s main purpose is recreation.

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A review of the SUPerior motion sensor by Motionize. You might have heard about this product with their recent collaboration behind the innovative force at QuickBlade who will be embedding this sensor in QB paddles. Pretty cool! In our case, the stand-alone product is what we have our hands on and we are excited to see how the product not only helps us analyze our stroke and paddling effort when paddling SUP, but improve it! Does it get in my way when I switch sides? Was the weight noticeable? Was it easy to setup before, and use during a paddle? I was excited to get on the water and see how it stacked up against other products.

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Cali Paddler is thrilled to share some great exercise tips from a paddling friend we have shared the water with. Sporting a great background in fitness training, and a resume  every paddler will be stoked to get tips from, we welcome Shannon Harnett of Shanimal Fitness on board in this new series of tips to help enhance your paddle fitness training.

In the short amount of time I have been paddling, I have noticed many paddlers especially OC1 paddlers having pain in their lower back, knees and hips. This can be attributed to doing a sport that tends to be dominate on one side. Paddlers many times will pull different on the Ama side with more twist, more hip involvement and explosion. When your spine is subjected to asymmetrical forces or torsion (twisting) applied by torque, such as paddling on one side of the boat, the discs of your lumbar spine get loaded and lock up. This increases the rigidity along the spine and cause muscles to go into spasm and even turn off.

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A RinseKit Review for Paddlers! We admit, we have been wondering why these were so popular for awhile now. I mean, bringing a jug of water and maybe a little water bucket to dip my feet into has served us just fine. But we also know that there are days when its the whole family, and we have multiple craft and feet to clean off before getting in the car. And pouring the water just right to maximize was an acrobatic art form that looked pretty ridiculous and usually led to me falling over (#ifyoupaddleyougetit). So, Cali Paddler reached out to their friends at Better Surf than Sorry to borrow one of the RinseKits they sell, and test it out.

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“Who would want to paddle in a swamp?” was apparently a common jeer sent in his direction. Now it’s almost impossible to drive that section of Highway 1 and not see numerous paddlers heading in and out of the slough. Having paddled there many times both on my own and leading tours I don’t know how anyone could not be entranced by it.  It is miles of flat, and depending on the wind, calm water, abundant seals and sea otters, hundreds of species of birds, and that serenity you get when you venture out on glassy water far enough away from roads and people that the loudest sound is your paddle in the water.

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If you have ever thought about trying prone, and wondered what the draw is. Or been intimidated from horror stories about how it is cold and hardcore...then this article is for you. Join us as we share our impression of prone paddleboarding as a total newbie that has paddled other craft. How is it compared to SUP and Outrigger? Why is it growing in popularity now, after being around so long before SUP was trendy? And most importantly, did we enjoy it? Find out here...

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