Got it but I don't- forward stroke

After watching countless videos and reading some great articles on the forward stroke I think finally understand what I need to do. I go out and practice thinking I might finally be making progress only to get home and see my gopro video shows I still dont have it right. I now have the paddle stroke down fairly well when i practice it on one side. But, when i try to put the full sequence together it immediately falls apart. Instead of planting the blade with good rotation, I'm already facing forward. Has anyone else experienced this? Any tips?

Maybe post a video so people can see what you're talking about? For starters make sure you're in a nice stable boat. Could also try shorten the paddle and widening your grip so your hands are close to the blades, this forces you to rotate out on the catch.

As a first-season beginner I can only offer an obvious advice. Keep at it. Maybe review your videos often as you practice and correct right away.

A thing that helped me is on-land work. I had the boat set on chairs and did regular mock paddles sometimes with a camera recording just to get the body where it needs to be. It's not the same as being on water but better than nothing. You can internalize the rotation and leg drive to a certain extent like that.

Also make sure your paddle is sized right. I started with 210-220 which is too long for me. Now I have 205-215 and use it at 205-207. These few cm make a difference.

Thanks for the tips! Last night I had >.5 mph average speed increase over my previous average. I'm sure it wasn't based on effort so I'm pretty excited about that.

Awesome! Now I need to do that as well