Many folks have read my “Zen of sculling” post and I’ve got a lot of good feed back. Thank you for that. However, as we all know there are many much wiser folks than I out there. (many, many, many, many. . . .) So if I can share something from a Greenland style kayaking champion I’m going to shut up and let him do the talking.

Greg Stamer is from Orlando Florida and in 2000 and 2002 he participated in two Greenland National Kayaking Championships, winning two gold and two bronze medals. In fact in both events Greg earned the most points in the individual rolling event for his age group. One of the cool things about Greg is that his rolling skills are self-taught, having spent a good amount of time learning from books and videos. Keep this in mind when you’re feeling out of the loop because you can’t make all the symposiums or find good instructors in your area.

A few days ago at Pnet there was a discussion about rolling and Greg jumped in to talk about how the Greenland Inuit originally taught the side-scull before the roll as a natural progression to the roll. As I mentioned in my earlier post when you have a good scull down, rolling becomes a flexible and fluid motion. Not something that just happens in a “sweep and a yank”. (I’m sure there’s the set up for a good British joke in there somewhere. What do you get when you cross . . . ) But that got me thinking about how exactly did the Inuit teach side sculling? Did they just stand there and hold the paddle like we tend to do now? Did they have you “roll” into it? I wondered. So A quick email and a couple days later, now we know that learning the side scull is really just learning the balance brace. Well, almost! In time we come to see that everything, sculling, rolling, bracing etc., is not a bunch of strokes, but the blending of fluid motions.

With that in mind here’s some pointers from Greg Stamer. . . Thanks Greg!!

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The steps for side sculling are:

1) Rotate in the seat, so that you are sitting somewhat on the side of the seat.

2) Twist your torso strongly — you want your back to be flat on the water.

3) Capsize — as soon as your body hits the water, arch your back and put all pressure on the low leg (closest to the water). This leg will be straight and the other leg does nothing.

4) Keep your head immersed for buoyancy. You should be looking straight up with only your eyes, nose and mouth above the water.

5) This is all about finding a balance position. If you get it right you don’t even need to use the paddle. You do need to arch your back and/or push with your legs to keep the kayak as flat on the water as possible. If the kayak is sitting on its side or more, then it will simply push your body under the water as it falls on top of you.

-GS
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Here is another good thread from the Greenland Forum - http://www.qajaqusa.org/cgi-bin/GreenlandTechniqueForum_config.pl/noframes/read/833
For More info on Greg Stamer go to http://www.qajaqusa.org/QUSA/bio_greg.html
Also you can see him in Justine’s Video “This Is The Sea” at http://www.cackletv.com/
Send Them To Greenland - http://www.sendthemtogreenland.com/

Here is my ‘beginners’ post on sculling if you missed it - http://www.kayakwisconsin.net/2005/08/zen-of-sculling.html