What a crazy week it’s been. Yep, I know it’s only Monday but the days have been blending together like chocolate syrup in ice cream. The result being a nice tasty goo. Especially if you leave it sit out for about an hour.

I’ve spent much of the last week repeating my mantra about sculling. Blade control is at the heart of sculling and sculling is at the heart of all the fun things you want to do with your kayak. So I find myself spending a bunch of time working with folks on this skill. Lord knows I’m no expert. But I’ve sort of figured out what works for me and maybe you can get something from this little rampage. . .

Think about this for a moment. Sculling can pull your boat sideways silently. Sculling can keep your boat upright. It can also allow you to lay your boat over on the side and look cool. Skulling can roll your boat. Really? But then, what is a sweep but an upside down scull? Hmmm, one skill, draw, brace, roll. . Man we want to work on this one!

One of the first things I do with a new student who wants to learn to scull is walk them out into the lake. Only in water just above the knees. We hold our paddle in the proper “paddlers box” position and then turn the blade vertically just like we would do when we perform a draw. Then we sink the blade into the water and using our torsos (NO ARM MOVEMENT) we bring the blade from one hip to the other in a nice wide arching “C”. We’ll keep this up for awhile until our blade is moving back and forth nice and smooth without any flutter. We want the blade to move silently through the water. We are kayak Ninjia, Silent in the water.

Next we will add pressure with our lower arm and continue this sculling motion. Back and forth, back and forth. Hip to Hip. Then we increase the speed. About now if all is going well, we notice all sorts of pressure on the blade. Good. That’s our first look at the power of a sculling blade. You will learn to trust this power. Hopefully we’ve also started to understand the concept of using the dreaded “TORSO ROTATION” to move the blade and not our week puny (insert Gov. schwarzenegger’s quote here) arms.

Next we can get in our boats and start working on a sculling draw. Again we turn our bodies to “face” our work. We sink the blade into the water, then we perform the same wide arching “C” that we were using just minutes before along the beach. There are some important points here. First, slow down. Too many people are trying to use speed to overcome technique issues. If you keep a constant pressure on your blade AND perform a wide arching “C” from back to front you will have a bunch of power pulling you sideways.

Another common mistake is keeping the blade out of the water. This comes up often when we are first learning our strokes. Remember to sink the blade into the water. I often tell students to think about pushing water UNDER the boat when they practice draws. You have to get that blade down. Personally I have my upper fist in front of my nose and not resting on my forehead. That again just helps me to keep my blade down. It’s worth noting that this is a personal thing. Placing your hand against your forehead is just peachy. Just get the blade under the water in any case.

Next we will bring our upper hand down so the blade is horizontal accross our deck. Now we can work on our sculling brace. Warning Will Robinson!! Warning!! Do’nt let your inner arm sneak up on you. You need the blade as flat on the water as possible. Don’t rest the paddle on the boat, but keep it low and horizontal. Keep your elbows in along your sides.

Many times people describe the sculling motion at spreading peanut butter on toast. I hate peanut butter!! Yuk! Actually that “figure eight” metaphor confused me to no end. As you know we all learn in different ways. I just think about being a kid sailing my hand out the car window like the wing of an airplane. Lifting the leading edge of the blade as I sweep it across the water. Not too much mind you. Just enough to allow the blade to slide across the surface and not dive under the water. I concentrate on creating long wide archs with the blade. Using my torso to move the blade. I think about keeping the motion slow, relaxed and consistent. I remember to keep my paddle horizontal accross my deck. I let my subconscious mind concentrate on the pressure holding the blade. What happens when I speed up? When I slow down? With subtle twists of the blade I can make it dive to the bottom and just as easily rise to the surface. I think about blade control and how my movements effect the blade. All this time, I’m just sitting upright. I’m not “bracing” at all. Just becoming one with the blade. It’s a Zen thing!

Again this is another skill you can work on while standing in the lake. No boat needed. Just go out until the water is up past your hips. Turn your upper body to the left or right which ever works for you. Lay your outer paddle blade flat on the surface of the water and rotate your upper body to bring the blade from side to side. I put my lower hand over the top of the paddle shaft and keep it open as I apply pressure, using the other hand to lift the leading edge of the blade. Again like before I work on diving and lifting the blade just with subtle twists of the leading edge of the blade. I close my eyes and feel the movement. Feel my upper body rotate, feel the resistance of the blade on and in the water. I’ll scull the blade on the surface, and work on continuing to scull the blade about 6 inches under the surface. Careful not to dive the blade or to let it rise out of the water. I speed up and slow down and feel what the blade is doing. In choppy water I’ll scull the blade just below the chop. Seek out the calm water just under the waves.

Back in the boat as I become relaxed and I can feel the flow of the blade in the water I will ever-so-slowly begin to lean my boat over. Just a bit. Then I adjust the speed of the blade to compensate. You need to do this purely by feel. Resist your fear. It will cause you to speed up too much and shorten your arch in the water. Remember the power is in the long arching motion. Each time your blade stops to change directions you lose a little lift. A short stroke will mean lots of “stops”, and therefore less lift on the blade. Close your eyes. You have to really work at trusting your blade. It will easily hold you up if you let it. Calm down, slow down, use wide archs. Lean a bit more. . .

So what’s the deal with that cool move where you lie completely over? Well, you have to make a leap of faith. YIKES!! Yeah, there is a spot as you slowly lean over where you basically drop into the side sculling position. There’s a little timing thing. What I do is lay back on my deck and scull. Then when I’m ready to go all the way, I bring my paddle to the front of the boat and as I begin to scull back I slide my upper body into the water mid-scull. Then I just keep right on sculling. You see, If I slide into the water right as my blade begins to change direction I’ll have no pressure on the water and my blade will dive and take me with it. In mid-arch I have the most pressure on the blade and that will give me the sablizing lift I need the moment I need to slip down into the water. You will notice too that your arm position changes slightly to bring your blade over your shoulder since you are now lying in the water. Don’t let that throw you. Everything else remains the same. Slow wide archs. Let your mind reach out to the blade and adjust the angle and speed.

Remember before when I talked about trying to scull with your blade about 6 inches under the surface? Now is where all that Zen stuff kicks in. Let your eyes follow the blade as you lye in the water and continue your scull. Are you feeling the consistent pressure? Are you relaxed? Ok, let’s slow it down and let your body sink. Don’t quit sculling and go upside down. Just slow the scull down slightly and let your head go under the surface. Then speed up your scull just a bit and bring yourself back up. Take a breath. Slow it down and sink a bit, speed up and rise. If you keep working on this you can go almost completely upside down and just scull up. Now you’ve got half a roll!!!

So what is a sweep roll anyway? well, now that your sculling is kicking “a” you are probably already guessing that rolling must fit in here somewhere. Well, it does. But that’s another blog entry.

Come on baby… And we had no fear
And we ran to him… Then they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodbye
We had become like they are, We had taken his hand
We had become like they are. . . Roeser

Ok, so sitting down this morning thinking about writing another bit about rolling seems somehow over-cooked. It’s not like 10,000 people have not written everything there is to write about rolling a kayak. And it’s certainly true that there is no new methods to rolling. However, at least for me, there has been a bit of an epiphany in teaching a roll. As I mentioned in a previous post I had some time to watch a friend teach and I suddenly went "Whaaaa???". I felt like I was coming out of the stone age.

At first glance it’s so stupid. Teach someone an extended paddle roll first. How tough is that? Ah, But wait. We don’t do that! We teach a proper C to C or Sweep. Right? Ok. Maybe, but. . hmm. . . The thing about learning the extended roll first is that all that extra leverage makes up for a whole bunch of errors. Weak hip-snaps and no head-dink will generally not stop the extended roll. Heck even a diving blade angle will often result in a successful roll. Yes, you do go through the fundementals first. You take time working on hip snaps off your hands, you talk about keeping the head down etc., but within a short time you move right into the complete rolling process itself. Guiding the blade, coaching on the fundements and so forth. The result is that you can potentially give your student a victory in a very short time. As little as 10 minutes I’ve been told. My first try at this had my student rolling in about an hour. No doubt this is a sloppy roll. But still, a successful roll that can be repeated without help from the coach. From these humble beginnings we can start hammering away at those touchstones as it were. Focusing on the fundements to tighten up the roll and smooth it out. Then move on to the sweep or C to C from there. Now that the student has a roll they become confident enough to go practice. Something that I found very hard to do solo. But I’ll get back to that.

Now my first argument against teaching the extended paddle roll first was that we were de-emphasizing the important skills. Hey, they need to learn a good hipsnap, head dink, etc., Otherwise they are never going to have a real "bombproof" roll right? That’s when I started thinking about how I learned to roll.

I was taught the C to C. Heck it was the only option provided by the shop. Most of us know by now that the C to C is considered a strong roll and easy to teach because of it’s very rigid steps. I still consider this my "when-the-*#&$-hits-the-fan" roll. Set Up, Sweep, Hip-Snap. . . Wham!! But "easy to teach" does not mean easy to learn. I spent a full season working on that one. I used a paddle-float attached to the paddle. I took off the skirt so I could easily get back in after each couple failed attempts. I hammered away at blade angles, strong hip-snaps, keeping my head down and all the rest. I was extremely discouraged. I’m sure if it were not for my somewhat dogged nature, I would have just quit. What I did in fact was took another class and 2 private lessons. Finally I got the roll.

So if I teach someone a sloppy extended paddle roll first. . . They . . . have to go home and practice the same exact stuff as I did. The only difference is that they can roll up. They can focus on the skills and not worry so much about the water. I bet the person with that sloppy roll is going to feel much less like a loser than I did for the first few months I spent fruitlessly working on my C to C. They are also going to be building on a foundation as opposed to building "the" foundation. Seems good, but I do have some other concerns as well.

It had been mentioned in our discussions that the paddle could break if torqued wrong. That does seem like a fair concern. I’m sure it could happen. Hopefully as a coach I work with the student on blade angle, etc., I could avoid this issue. But it certainly is a valid argument. But on the other hand I’m probably taking the same risk teaching a student the paddle-float rescue. Especially if I taught the "under the bungies" method. (Which I don’t by the way).

Would a student get too cocky or complacent and think they suddenly have a primary roll? Would they stop learing and just compound bad habits? Would they take unnecessary risks? Well, some would I’m sure. But all you need to do is give some people a paddle and they are already taking stupid risks. I’m not sure that giving someone a quick roll is going to make any difference there.

I am almost willing to go out on a limb and say that an extended paddle roll is not in anyway a primary roll. On the other hand I did see a discussion once where a couple people did have reasonable arguments to support this as a primary roll. I’m not so sure. I can imagine all sorts of situations where the EP roll would not be a good option. But is that a good argument not to start out with it?

It’s the light that makes me queasy. Do I deny someone a roll because I feel they need to learn each step in the chain correctly? That does’nt seem right somehow. But then again. . .

Hmmm, somewhere I hear Yoda saying "do not take the easy path, it leads to the dark side. ."

What do you think?

See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin’ arms across the land – Helen Reddy

Part I – I Am Woman, I am Invincible!

This year at Kayak Weekend in Two Rivers, Wisconsin when you looked out on the water to watch the kayaks rolling around you were just as likely to see one of the women of the group as the men. That was certainly a dynamic change from past events. Robin & Julie are really coming up fast! Sea kayaking often tends to take on this “men in beards” look as Justine C. pointed out in her DVD but thanks to women like her, Fiona Whitehead, Shawna Franklin, Ginnie Callahan, Cherry Perry and others this is beginning to change. Hey, and as much as I like hanging with the guys, it is nice to see some faces with a little less razor stubble! In fact even the Greenland guys are just as likely to refer to Cherry Perry as Greg Stammer or Maligiaq Padilla when talking about their kayak heroes. (Sorry Greg!) One thing is for sure, Kayak Weekend would not be the same if it were not for Nanette seeming to always be quietly seeing to the comfort of everyone. She’s just like a Ninga Martha Stewart without the ankle bracelet! Even Mary did her part in lifting spirits. Although next time she may actually lock the door!!!

Part II – Kayak University – Great Lakes Division

Alex, (aka “schizopak” to the Pnet Crowd) spent a good amount of time this weekend working with Mary on her first roll with some pretty good results. He is teaching the extended paddle roll as the “first roll” which looks to be a very successful method for some students. In fact, I watched him have one person rolling in less than an hour! Mary came very close after we found that a Greenland paddle seemed to work for her better. After the paddle change the only thing that seemed to stop two very good attempts was a shallow lake and total exhaustion. But her confidence is certainly as high as it could be. So guess what we’ll be doing tonight! Thanks Alex!

On that note Alex has to get the award for “most improved” kayaker in the region this year. Be sure to check out our little “hot doggin” clip of him on the videos page. (EJ Roll) I should mention too that Alex was looking pretty hip in the borrowed tuliq! Next thing you know he’ll be sitting in his office carving a harpoon~

Thanx too, to Paul for spending time working with me on my balance or static brace. No, I’ve not got it yet, but I have some tricks to use to get there. Oh, and I have a nice big bruise where my combing was digging into my back all weekend. I know, I know, I need to arch more. Well, Arch This!!!

Paul is from Racine, Wisconsin and is renowned for crawling down so deeply in his hand-made boat that only his head and arms are sticking out. From there hand-rolls and balance braces become a cake walk.

For myself I was happy to see a little impromptu work with one attendee introduce him to his first successful extended paddle roll as well as almost pulling off an angel. I think I saw him chasing down the Superior Kayaks guy for a Greenland Paddle after that!

The Two Rivers events truly do bring out what’s best about kayaker gatherings. It’s the nature of the sport that everyone gathers together to share what they have learned from one event to the next. People at all levels are happy to get out in the water with another kayaker and pass along what they have learned. I can’t think of anything that will bring people closer together than working hard, laughing & learning together. Time is a fantastic gift!

Event Gallery To Come. . .

Part III – If The Paper Said It. . . .

On Friday we all paddled down the river to the Roger’s Street days festival where some of the less spotlight shy kayakers demonstrated a variety of rolls and rescues to the partying crowd. We arrived just as everyone was launching. Never have I went so fast from steering wheel to paddle. On the water I was still looking for my cruise control. We also paddled out to Lake Michigan but the dredging project seemed to have created some very interesting smells which sent us right back up the river to our camping area. Saturday saw us repeat this little parade since the local paper printed that we would again be rolling by the festival. If the local paper says it’s going to happen then who are we not to make it so?

The city of Two Rivers was very kind to donate the use of the parking lot to the group which not only gave us a place for the Sunday swap, but also allowed Mary and I to camp right on the water. You can’t complain about that other than for the one reggae-death-metal speed boat roaring by late Saturday night. Good Music, Bad Timing. . .

Part IV – Build Me A Statue

Phil Rohr is a tireless kayaking promoter and is never afraid to twist some arms to get us every little ounce of cooperation from the community. He certainly deservers a lot of credit for building up these events. In fact I’m sure we had nearly 70 kayakers total show up for at least one day of the 3 day event. Now if we could just get the city to grant Phil Rohr’s wish to rename the bridge in his honor all would be right with the world! (Even if he did suggest rewards for shooting an exceptionally verbal K9. . . )

Part V – Nigel Where Are You??

In Two Rivers and much of Wisconsin you are no doubt in “CD” country. There has not been an event this year where a Current Designs flag has not been literally flying over the event. Us Brit-boat paddlers had to be sure to watch our proximity to the flag lest our properly uptight kayaks burst into flame! It was suggested we may have to paint a maple leaf on our boats just to be allowed north of Madison. I wish Nigel Dennis would send me an NDK flag so I could make a good showing for the Brits as well!!

Part VI – The Kayak Roll – Tails You Win!

Insert classic radio advertising voice here – -> Hey there buddy, are you looking for a rolling tip? Do you think your doing everything right but you still just break the surface and fall over again? Is that your problem buddy? Well here’s a little tip. . . KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN!!! YIKES!!

Seriously though, this is often the answer. This one error in technique seems to stick out more than any other. Remember your brain wants out of the water. So before you can even think about good form your head is often reaching up for the surface. At that point your roll is pretty much cooked. That 8lb weight is just going to take you right back over. Regardless of what roll you’re learning you should think about bringing your head up last. First comes the boat (hipsnap or twist), then comes your torso, then your head. Boat, torso, head, boat, torso, head. If you can, get someone to video tape your attempts. It’s amazing how that will help you better understand what others have been telling you all along. Sometimes that stark image of your head rising straight up is just what your brain needs to face the fact and start over.

Give it a shot, and good luck!!

Feed your Head!” – g. slick

So. . . The rabbit comes out of the hole, goes ’round the tree. . But that’s another story. We’ll get to that later.

Part I. NAVIGATION BY EXPRESSIONIST PAINTING

When I navigate on water I use a chart. When I’m on the road I use a map. So what does FedEx & DHL use. I’m guessing some form of abstract art. Last week Mary ordered a new cell phone. Alltel, being as confused as any other modern big business sent us 2 phones. Let me make this point. Call centers do not work as a customer service tool. Period. However they are a great way for companies to keep customers out of their hair. FedEx managed to deliver neither of the two phones as you may guess. This resulted in some interesting phone calls considering no one involved knew there were two phones out there. Fedex did not put 2 & 2 together and Alltel’s right hand had no clue what it’s left was doing. Finally when an apologetic FedEx guy showed up I was happy to have it all over with. You can imagine my surprise a few hours later when the second apologetic FedEx guy showed up. If I was not able to see the first box on the table I would have swore I was lost over the edge. In the end it just goes to show you that American big business has become a blind octopus. Boneheads!

How long then will it take for John B to ship me a seat from Milwaukee?? Ask DHL. “When a package absolutely, positively, has to be there by Wednesday, we’ll sneak up and toss it in your yard next Monday. Good job guys! Hey, I’m not kidding! Their Ninja delivery guy managed to come into the yard without alerting the dog and leave again. I’ve never had that happen before. Maybe he was feeling a little guilty? Somehow I doubt it.

Part II. Seat & Backband Replacement

In case your just jumping in (or “hopping” to stay in theme), my seat finally broke beyond repair. To owners of Nigel Dennis kayaks this will come of no surprise. What is also not a surprise is that NDK owners will then happily turn around and buy another one. QC be damned!

Before I talk about taking on kayak seat replacement, I should warn you that I can’t be trusted to glue two boards together. I’m not, repeat not, patient enough to be a master-crafter kinda guy. But I also realize I can’t even begin to claim to be a “kayaker” if I can’t handle boat repairs. So to this end I’m happy to pick up the sandpaper and minicell. Luckily I had the help of some pictures on various sites such as Bryan Nystroms combined with some detailed suggestions from Jon Walpole. I then took everything I knew, heard, and saw, and mixed it up to come up with some kind of plan.

The big problem is that my seat ripped out above the hangers. In fact on one side the seat itself actually split. So I was left with some pretty serious choices about how to go about replacing the seat and especially the backband. In an email, Simon Osborne of NDK suggested actually bolting new supports for the back band though the hull. His guess (and a correct one at that) was that I was one of those people who just beat my boat. However drilling holes in the hull seemed a bit more invasive than I was up to. Even though I know some folks have done this with success. Next I read all sorts of bits about bolting and gluing plywood and D-rings which again seemed a bit much for my limited talents. Then a point made by Mr. W started to ring in my head.

In the midst of other things Jon pointed out that if I wanted to glue in a foam back rest that I would have to keep it under six inches wide in order to not interfere with torso rotation. Hmmmm, so I can infer then that any back band will to some extent interfere with torso rotation? (Lights Please!) Well then, why am I worried about replacing a back band. Heck, I should be glad to be rid of it right? Well, we’re going to find out. . .

Putting in the pre-formed Valley seat is child’s play. You just clean all your surfaces and glue it in. I had a mini-cell seat extension glued in already so I decided to just leave it in and use it to guide the placement of the new seat. The seat extension is there to prevent my legs from going numb which used to happen quite often. This is caused by the seat cutting off the circulation at the back of your legs. By extending the seat you eliminate this issue. After sitting in the boat with the new seat, I realized that I was now a bit lower. Great! (There is some benefit in lowering your center of gravity) But I did have to bring my foot pegs up 2 notches to compensate.

Next I got out my one 3 year old block of mini-cell foam from under the sink and began to hack away at it. I basically estimated the angle of the bulkhead, height of the deck, and all the little fiddly angles to “best guess” a backrest. Then I worked away at it for some time with a bit of rolled up cheese-grater called dragon skin. This is the stuff that lets you file down the foam to just the right shape. It took quite some time to get it where I wanted it. Remember you need to support your back, yet at the same time keep the rest low enough to not interfere with laying back on the deck. After what seemed like hours of of adjusting, filing, testing, etc., the darn thing was still pretty un-comfortable. It seemed to fit just right, but it just was not comfy-cozy. Then an idea jumped out at me. I realized that your back bone sticks out a bit. (Light on again, Please) Ok, so then I should file a bit of an indent or channel to cradle my backbone in the center of the rest. Hey, It worked!! (Insert Jimmy Stewart. . “Well, waddaya know about that!”) Now this was comfortable! After a bit more tweaking I had everything coming together pretty nicely.

Now is a good time to come back to that torso-rotation bit. With my new back rest being around 4 inches wide I can suddenly rotate my torso much more than ever before and with very little effort. In fact, I thought there was such a difference that I was probably just projecting what I was told. (Hey, we’re all open to suggestion) So I went and got Mary and had her sit in it as well. By looking at it she was pretty sure she would hate it. But suprisingly she also found the new rest very comfortable. In additon Mary could turn herself around just as easily as I could. Wow, what a great tip that was. Thanks Jon!

If you are going to try this you should also remember that you need to keep a good vertical posture when paddling. So the back rest has to help you sit comfortably, albeit in an upright position. So you can’t angle the back rest too far or you will find yourself in the famous “lounge chair” position.

Well, I got it done about 6 this morning. Then as an after thought I added some side braces to the back rest just to protect it from slipping side to side when I’m rolling or twisting. Tonight will be the big test. There are larger photos and a couple more from the replacement job here.

Part III – Learning The Ropes

So what’s the deal with the rabbit? Well, since I was working on my boat anyway I decided to finish working on tying up the hatch covers with the neat little clips John B gave me. In addition I attached a new bit of bungee to the front toggle to keep it from banging around in the water. This gave me plenty of shots at practicing the only knot I know, the bowline. This is the magic knot that almost works for everything. The Bowline is also known as a rabbit knot, eel knot and all sorts of other fun animals depending where you learn it. I prefer the rabbit. It reminds me of Watership Down. The rabbit comes out of the hole, gets eaten by a dog. . .

so cold, so cold. . . . .

* Painting “Sea Battle” by Russion Impressionist Wassily Kandisnsky. Oil on Canvas 1913