You know what’s really funny? Another one of those great Discovery Channel “Titanic” specials sponsored by. . Carnival Cruise Lines. So while the animation of the Titanic’s tail lifting and snapping off is still fresh your mind, you cut to to an offer to take a cruise on Carnival. I’m sure there was some logic to the decision, but something tells me their marketing professionals should be looking into other careers. What’s Next? “10 Deadliest Plane Crashes”. . . brought to you by Virgin Atlantic!??

Logic would suggest that you should always give yourself every opportunity to succeed. And that’s probably true for awhile. But my impression is that in order to move from “learning” to “inculcating” you have first give yourself the best opportunity, then once you’ve learned something start taking away those same things that made success possible. It’s hard enough to to build a house of cards, but try taking it back down again card by card. A 3 year old would find setting up a Jenga game to be a challenge, but the adults find the challenge in taking it back down in all sorts of weird ways. This is why when our rolling skill is assessed in the ACA we have to roll “out of position”. You can’t really be sure of your roll until you can do it out of position and in conditions.

Nigel Foster has developed a great way to become more skilled as a paddler by doing everything you’ve learned upside down and backwards. By practicing his utterly strange skills you find that your boat control goes way up. What could be more fun than getting up steam paddling backwards and reaching behind you to perform a reverse, cross-deck, stern (bow?) rudder?

In rolling I’ve found a great way to keep learning is to ask myself “What if” questions and then seek out a solution. “What if I’ve only got one hand on my paddle?, What if I drop it and it’s floating 4 feet away? What if I broke the paddle? What if I lose it all together? What if, what if, what if. . .??

In the last couple months I’ve become pretty confident with my Norsaq or Stick roll. I can now pull it off fairly easily in a variety of boats. I admittedly was becoming a bit over confident. So yesterday when I thought I’d just do a quick one out on Lake Columbia I was surprised that I blew it. I just dropped over and was totally stuck upside down. Well, that was strange! After a few moments of frustration I pulled the kayak up on a little beach and re-thought things a bit. I had to think about why I was succeeding in the past and what was different. I realized I had been using a bunch of “tools” to succeed. By just dumping the kayak over randomly I had none of these tools at my disposal and could not pull off the roll. I needed to reverse engineer my roll. Ok so what do I do to succeed?

Well, I was in my Acuta. For me that means I use different style of stick roll than what I would do in my white water boat. In the Acuta I basically do a sweep roll by extending my right arm out with the stick, sweeping back and then using my left hand to pop myself back up onto the deck. But that’s not the whole story. I’ve also been using a Masik, or big bit of mini-cell foam stuffed between my lap and the top deck to make a nice snug connection to the boat. I’ve also been working without a PFD. In addition I found that If I’m a bit forward on my seat the roll is much easier. I already knew that in my normal paddling position on the high Acuta seat, My success rate was more like 2 out of 3. Lastly I’d always been in calm water. Not light chop. So in retrospect, I had effectively taken away every thing that made it possible for me to succeed, and blew the roll.

I had to go back to what I knew. First in a calm bit of water out of the wind and right by a pretty little beach, I rolled just like being in the pool. I took off the PFD and slid forward on the seat. I didn’t have the Masik with me, so that was a good place to start. Ok, no problem. I had to splay my lower body out just a bit to get a better connection with the hull, but otherwise the stick roll was easy again. Next I put my PFD back on. Ok, so this took a couple attempts. I couldn’t quite slide on the deck in the same way. I found that with just a bit more arch in my back right before I rolled up was a good fix. It got my pfd over the deck. I also found I should bring my head across the deck a bit more as well. Ok, so then I slid back up on the seat. Alright now I’m sitting high on the seat, PFD on, with no Masik. All my cheats were gone. I blew it and blew it and blew it. I couldn’t figure it out for some time. I took a break. I worked on standing in my boat. It’s no easier in the Acuta by the way. Thanks for sticking this concept in my head Nigel!!!! I’ll get there. Then I swam, then I did some re-entry rolls. Then probably for the first time ever, it struck me that maybe I was “UNDER POWERING” my roll.

You see I tend to always over power everything and then have to learn to slow it down and smooth it out. I remember Sam Crowley pointing this out early. “You’re a strong guy, you tend to muscle it too much”. Yeah, it’s some throw back to the stone age. When a human male can find no other solution they fall back on physical power & violence. Boneheads! Over time I’ve learned to make this an issue. I’ve worked to be graceful, slow and precise. When I first learned to stick roll the kayak I was really smacking my left hand on the water. These days the “smack” is almost gone. Now I was giving it a ceremonial tap. But fully loaded as it were, this was not working. Alright then, I drained the water out of the boat and put on my 85lbs of expedition gear and went back out to try it again. Only this time with a big Neanderthal GRUNT. Bang! I was back up. And again. And again. So In this one strange instance I could overpower the high seat, the loose fit, and the gear filled pfd with raw power. Well, that’s probably overkill. With a little time I found that the power thing was somewhere in the middle. Like tuning a guitar, you first over tune then bring the pitch down to the correct note. I really didn’t need to “crush” the water under me in some Schwarzenegger-ish way, but I did need a much stronger hip-snap and a bit of a “smack”. With that bit of knowledge my norsaq roll improved. It’s certainly better when I have all my “cheats” in place but success now won’t depend on them.