Yeah, yeah, yeah – up the hill backwards
It’ll be alright
– david bowie

In Greenland Rolling there are really 2 main rolls. Back recoveries & Forward recoveries. All the other funky stuff from there is just based on tuning up these two main rolls.

As I mentioned in the last post It’s not about the stuff in your hands. It’s all about body movement. My own learning curve has got me focused at the moment on forward recoveries. In a forward recovery you move a bit away from that full body “twist” I often refer to in layback rolls. To be sure, you still twist but you punctuate that twist a bit with a crunch at the end. It’s a crunch because while your lower body is twisting the boat up, your upper body is laying forward on the deck instead of backward. Oh yes, flexibility becomes a big factor. I’m not a thin guy, but neither were many of the Inuit hunters who came up with this stuff. They were however in good shape, well balanced and flexible.

The first introduction we usually get to the forward recovery is when we learn a reverse sweep roll (I have a video here). The momentum of the roll and the long extended paddle give us every opportunity to get it right. On the other hand, dependence on the paddle will usually mean we blow the roll and sometimes break the paddle! It’s probably a good idea to keep working on those layback rolls until we become really aware of our bodies and less dependent on our paddles and hands. The reverse sweep will quickly tell us where we are with that. Again, for the most part the paddle has to be made irrelevant. We concentrate on rolling the boat up with our body. Lifting our knee up while bringing our torso down to meet it in a classic abdominal crunch. At the very end of the roll we sort of drag the paddle at a right angle across the deck which does provide a bit of lift, just enough to stabilize ourselves back over the boat.

My personal work out at the moment is to slow it all down. I want to kill the momentum as much as possible as to keep the focus on good body control. I’ve also had to work pretty hard with Yoga, crunches & sit-ups to build that core strength and flexibility that will allow me to be successful. To practice the forward recovery without the help of the momentum I work from a chest scull. In a chest scull you place the extended paddle in front of your body as you go chest first into the water. You let your body go deep, then angle your blade up to the surface. You sweep your paddle back and forth or “scull” with a slight angle on the blade which will lift you to the surface of the water. In time you will get comfortable with this and can raise your head and shoulders right out of the water and breath. To recover, you again twist your lower body, snapping your knee up as your bring your torso to meet it in a crunch, sliding your paddle across your deck as you return to an upright position. The trick here is to slow this down as much as you can, keeping all your focus on the body and the boat. Again, the blade is an afterthought. Yeah, it’s easy to say!!

Remember, this is not an issue of how heavy or thin you are. It’s strength, balance and flexibility. Don’t let yourself believe you can’t do it. You can.

Related Posts:

1. Thin Ice & The Forward Stroke
2. Recoveries
3. Oh Sweep Jeebus!
4. How’s your Forward Stroke?
5. Like blowing off a bicycle