History of Stand Up Paddling

Hi, I'm Jimmy Blakeney with paddling.com Standup, here to talk to you about the great sport of stand up paddleboarding. In this video, we're going to talk about the history of the sport as well as the diversity that stand up paddleboarding has to offer.

People have been standing up and paddling forever. But as a recreational activity, most people credit the Polynesians in Hawaii with being the first ones to stand up, paddle, and surf a wave just for fun. More recently, a couple big wave surfers in Hawaii were looking for a great way to work out when the waves were small. They grabbed their long board surfboards, that were a little bit wider and fatter and thicker, and they grabbed a paddle and they went out on the water. What they discovered was this was a great activity in and of itself and also a great full body workout.

From there, that's really where it started to be a popularized activity and that's what's brought it to where it is today. Today, as far as the diversity of the sport, we have the surfing roots and we have the high performance surf aspect, which is a really great discipline. However, it's also evolved into racing, fitness paddling, yoga, people running white water rapids on their boards, and most importantly it's just a great recreational activity, a way to get out on the water with your family and friends and enjoy your local lake or river or getting out in the ocean.

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