Quote:
Originally Posted by Zenturtle
As far as I understand it, does Stuart relate the height of the elbow in reference to the bodyrotation, like the elbow becomes high easier when you delay the catch relative to the bodyroll. (start pulling when your pulling arm has rotated upward, so its easier shoulderwise to form a vertical forearn position).
Thats independant of the angle of the forearm itself (vertical or not) relative to the water.
So you can get the arm vertical early in the for aft direction, but at different bodyrotation angles.
In the catch delayed relative to bodyroll its easier to get a vertical arm shape way upfront. Thats your new style as I understand it right.
3D total movement can/must be described by:
- angle of the forearm-hand relative to the watersurface
- postion of the start of the stroke in this position in the fore-aft direction.
- postion of the start of the stroke in this position relative to the bodyroll angle.
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Speaking strictly about my problem (not the possible different meanings that various individuals may ascribe to "EVF" and "catch"), it's not so much that it it was easier to get a vertical arm shape up front by delaying the catch, as that my previous situation of an ugly awkward catch had less to do with inability to do an elegant and economical catch initiation and more to do with an (unrecognised) inadequate body rotation, and as a result of incomplete rotational force deriving from the core, the lead hand was unconsciously trying to augment this rotation, rather than purely going from the lead hand anchor straight into the catch position.
I had previously alluded a lot to various little trick movements at the moment of transition of lead hand into catch. I had trouble suppressing these movements when advised that I should not be doing them. The reason for this difficulty, I see now, was not realising that they were unconscious movements made in an attempt to compensate for the lack of adequate core-driven rotation, but being unconscious, the rotation movements were hard to eliminate.
So the conscious delaying of the catch, for me, was an effort to make obvious the lack of rotation, so that I would not be tricked into using my lead hand into do any rotation dynamics. I had to wait until rotation was demonstrated to have occurred before making the catch. It sure felt weird, and it took some time before I started getting it right (as I had to experiment a bit with different ways to get my core to snap the rotation around more strongly than I had been doing before). But once I was rotated, it became much more obvious that the lead hand no longer needed to persist in making any of those extraneous "trick" movements. consequently, it didn't take much mental effort for the lead hand to move directly from anchoring in a stable position up front smoothly and directly into catch.
Now, in trying to describe this process, I realise another aspect of "Early" in "Early Vertical Forearm". I had always assumed that "Early" meant "early in the pull", i.e. not occurring halfway through the pull, or worse, not ever at all. I realise now that "Early" might be taken to mean so early that it is before rotation has taken place and the lead hand is still on the low side. If this is the implication of "Early" in "Early Vertical Forearm", then I see that it might be meaning something different from "catch" which might happen at different places before or after the rotation has completed.