The extended arm exposes one of the weakest joints in the body to a lot of
risk and, worse, is a weaker position for controlling the boat. Yes, it will
work (until the forces on the lever exceed the abilty of the joint to bear
the stresses), but will it work better than a brace done with the elbow
tucked into the top of the hip and the power side of the blade on the wave?
The answer to that is absolutely not.

Once the wrists go above the head, the shoulder joint actually loses both
strength and flexibility. You can test this while sitting in your chair.
Extend your arms fully over your head and try to slide your wrists to either
side (without twisting the torso). It is almost impossible to move more that
a few inches in this position. Put the wrists at shoulder height and do the
same motion and, voila, your range of motion has increased considerably,
from a few inches to a few feet. More importantly, the muscles have
considerably more mechanical advantage from this position, so not only is
the shoulder protected, you actually have more available power to apply to
the paddle. Note that most of the side-to-side motion available to the
shoulder joint disappears when the elbows go above the shoulder. Both
flexibility and power are lost as the elbows move closer to a locked
position above the shoulders.

The only difference between performing a high and low brace should be the
following:

In a low brace, the elbows are above the paddle, and in a high brace, the
elbows are below the paddle.

Whether the power face of the blade is on the wave or not is more a function
of the logistics of placing the paddle above or below the elbows, rather
than any real change in mechanical advantage. For this reason, you could
perform a high brace with the back face of the paddle, but you'd have to
flip the paddle over to do it. Because it is a very visual cue, many
instructors use "power face of the blade on the wave" phrasing (mine did,
for example) to suggest this as the difference between a high and low brace.
While it is a reasonable description of what happens visually, it is
technically inaccurate and misleads the student into thinking that extending
the arms is one of the goals of the high brace.

I think the terms "high" and "low" are unfortunate for this reason.

Rick

"Courtney" wrote in message
. ..
It's interesting that I'm seeing people not knowing that the ACA doesn't
encourage a high braces with the elbow up (or arm extended) anymore. When
I
started teaching whitewater and took the class about 10 years ago they
told
us it then. I haven't checked their web site out lately but I wonder why
they're not making it known. I do recall that my instructor trainer still
called the low elbow a high brace but we were also using the backside of
the
blade as well. It's easy once a person is used to doing it and can be
used
without a problem in big water. I happened to notice (because of this
thread) that I used it three times the other afternoon in class III / IV
with side kicking waves and holes.

Courtney

wrote in message
ups.com...
I must have missed the memo from ACA,or perhaps their web site is out
of date, but several places there is mention of using both high and low
braces, for example in the Level 3 and Level 4 Assessments. Only low
brace appears in the Level 1 skill set, though, so Brian may be right
WRT beginning paddlers.

The elbow tucked down position is the one I teach, after a long lecture
about dislocations.

Steve

John Fereira wrote:
Brian Nystrom wrote in :

Davej wrote:
I have seen this discussed in the past with a high degree of
uncertainty and confusion. Have basic hand position guidelines now
been
settled upon? Thanks.

What has happened is that the ACA and BCU are no longer teaching or
recommending high bracing.

When did that happen? As of a couple of years ago a high brace for
support
(both from a stationary position and on the move) were required for the
BCU
3 star assessment.