There are situations where you want both hands on the paddle shaft, e.g. when kneeling, or during fast transitions, when you don't even have time to reach for a proper grip. Coming from kayaking, I instinctively always use a kayak paddling grip, i.e. with both hand palms facing down, as I feel this gives me much better control and makes it easy to transfer the power to the blade.

Yet I see many people, not only beginners, who have the palm of their top hand facing up. This is probably a natural thing to do when climbing a pole, but I doubt if this makes sense with a SUP paddle. I find it really hard to control the paddle this way, and it feels weird on the upper wrist when trying to put power on the blade. The only reason I can think of is that a SUP paddle is typically more vertical (sometimes even past vertical) than a kayak paddle, although that doesn't really make a difference when kneeling.

What do you think? Are their other reasons to use that pole climbing grip that I didn't think of? Are these just my old kayaking habits, which don't make any sense on a SUP?

Well I think it does make sense when kneeling. Then again, real men don't kneel I guess

So Corran, suppose you WERE kneeling or DID want to have both hands on the shaft for any other reason - how would you hold it?

Look at the photos in this article:
supconnect.mylocallineup.com/SUP-Races/c...itles-in-europe.html
Both guys leading the race are not your average Joe the SUPpers, and they both hold the paddle guitar style, during the race...
I don't get it.