Archive for the ‘Learn To Roll’ Category

And as the sparrow sings
Dawn chorus for
Someone else to hear
The thinker sits alone growing older
– d. bowie

So this is what it looks like at 5am, no, 6am here in Madison, Wisconsin.  You are looking across the street from our motel at the Alliant Energy Center where in just a few hours Canoecopia will be opening it’s doors for the last day of the 2010 show. Reports are that visitor numbers have nearly doubled this year over last which made for a lot of warm fuzzy feelings in among the regulars.

And this just in from the rumors department… It seems the owner of Boreal Shores Kayaks in Bayfield ran amok over the winter and bashed out a wall of his shop… (I’m sure Chris will like me describing it that way.   Now everywhere he goes people will be talking about him… “There goes Chris,” they’ll say, “Running Amok.”)   Of course the truth is that I just got all long winded in telling you he’s done some remodeling and you should check it out if you get up his way.

Last night Justine Curgenven introduced her new DVD with a 1 hour compilation that gave the audience a good feel for everything contained in the 3 hour full version of “This Is Canoeing”.  Of course as she said, you need to buy a copy to see it all.  From what I was able to see last night it looks great.  It’s certainly Justine giving canoeing the “This is the Sea” treatment with a lot of added refinement that comes from the experience of her years of experience filming in the wild and on the water.

And by the way who knew  ACA kayak coach extraordinaire, John Browning would dance all night long?

So for today I hit the show floor, then hit the water.  I’m going to run over to the P&H booth and see if I can get my fat behind into a Cetus low volume.  Remember folks, don’t let anyone tell you a kayak is wrong for you.  Try it, and figure it out yourself.  With that in mind, if I can get in the little thing I might spend some pool time with one and let you know how it rolls.

And speaking of rolls.. This afternoon I’ll be in the pool with Steve Scherrer.  I think there was some paperwork telling me all the technical details about how to get my boat in there, where to dress and all that but of course I didn’t read anything.. so I need to go figure all that out. Which means less time to actually worry that I’ll blow something.  I’m sure I will.

Before the day I met you, life was so unkind
But you’re the key to my peace of mind
– carol king

You know how it is of course.  Time keeps sliding past while your busy with other pursuits.  Well, sometimes you’ve got to focus. Canoecopia, the largest paddlesports show in the country kicks off in 9 days and I need to be there. In addition to my regular duties, I, along with Steve Scherrer am giving a rolling demo on Sunday afternoon.  Now, the thing is.. I always get pinned as the “Greenland” guy here in this part of the state.  That’s not really my thing though.  I love rolling. But I’m not all that talented.  I’ve spent years learning to roll primarily because I was never a good swimmer.  Read the rest of this entry »

It’s hard for me to practice anything.  On the other hand, if I can find a way to play.. then I’ll practice all day.  Take rolling for instance.  If you look at the picture above you’ll see me rolling my kayak at the local pool (btw they now charge me $5 additional dollars for my kayak claiming a sudden surge in the popularity of pool paddling!).  Now if you look a bit closer you’ll see that the blade is actually detached from the paddle shaft.  Rolling is OK, but rolling with a jumble of broken paddle bits is much more fun.

We’re about a week out from Canoecopia.. Maybe I’ll get a chance to talk to you a bit more about rolling soon…

The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
– paul simon

So continuing the conversation about rolling classes, David asked, “Is there a better way?”.  Well, he knows the answer to this of course, but it eggs on a good discussion.  From my perspective I’d bet there are a hundred other ways to teach the kayak roll. The trick is to find what works best for both the student and the instructor. I think as instructors we have to be pretty flexible and prepared to teach whatever way, or whatever roll is best for each student. Yup, that is a challenge for sure. However we do it, I’ll bet we could agree on some basic ideas. . .

Here’s my short list. . .

1. Students should enjoy themselves and not leave feeling helpless, hopeless and stupid.
2. Rolling does not hurt.  (unless the coach gets a paddle in the head or that other sensitive spot)
3. There’s lots of ways to roll. Most do not require “muscle”.
4. Boys are NOT better than girls. . . . in fact. . . .
5. Boat fit is more important than fitness. (unless it’s not!)
6. Teaching a roll is at least as important a challenge to the coach as learning the roll is to the student.
7. Fear of water is common. Fear of not breathing is universal!
8. No cookie cutters allowed in the water! Each student (and coach for that matter) is different.
9. Coaches should have better than 50% success rates with new students.

Obviously I’m no uber-coach and I’m just thinking aloud. . so if you like, jump in and share your thoughts!

How come I end up where I started
How come I end up where I went wrong
Won’t take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out and you cut the string.
– radiohead

Here’s how it used to go. You took a rolling class in the winter. Coaches jumped in their whitewater boats and showed off whenever they had a free moment (and some times when they didn’t). Then they send you off to do hip snaps. You did hip snaps off the palm of the coaches hand, off another student’s boat, off the side of the pool. You put a paddle float on the end of your paddle. The coach spoke to you about this position and that, then dunked you. . . again, and again, and again. You would be underwater while arms from heaven pulled and twisted at your body making you feel like a drowning marionette. 2 hours later you left the pool tired, sore and disappointed trying to convince yourself you had learned something. It’s really amazing so many of us survived this circus to learn how to roll at all.

Yeah, that method sort of the standard. But it was up to you to go home and spend hours, weeks and months trying to comprehend and retain it all. “Fifteen steps, Then a sheer drop”. Think about it. If you just spend big bucks on a rolling class and you go home feeling like you still have to buy more books and videos to learn that first roll. . . something must be wrong.

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.

I’ll just erase you from my memory
Put it all behind me
Because you are erased
All erased…
– annie lennox

In Yoga’s Warrior Pose you balance your body between legs placed far apart. Your hips steady the framework as you do your best to distribute your weight evenly between your legs. When you roll a kayak and first come to the surface and for a moment there similar balance between the part of you in the boat, and the bits of you out of the boat. Then momentarily you bring all your energy to just one side (the bits in the boat) and roll up.

Some people are lucky. They can learn traditional rolling quite easily. They just “do”. Others (like me) have to break down and understand things over long periods of time, then have little epiphanies. It’s sort of a fits and starts way of learning but it works. So it’s natural that when I teach boat control and rolling I focus on the feel and not so much the rigid 1, 2, 3’s. I’ve come to believe that if the mind and body can connect sensually then the rest is cake. A good roller has to be well tuned with their body, even if they are unaware of it superficially.

I think we first truly begin to come to terms with this sensual understanding when we start learning our layback norsaq (or stick) rolls. At first we tend to learn reach out away from the boat and smack the Norsaq down onto the surface of the water. We use that tension to brace off of as we twist up. In time we may not “splash” but we still find ourselves pushing down on the stick. Then we learn to sweep the norsaq. Again though, we are focused heavily on what’s going on “out there” away from the boat. Well, we’re stick rolling right? Yes and no. Certainly there are rolls that depend on the stick, but to keep moving forward in our technique we have to understand that the stick just happens to be there. It’s irrelevant.

I came to understand this better a few weeks ago by watching Dan Segal roll in Michigan. For whatever reason Dan’s concepts of rolling spoke to my thought process and opened some blind spots. I just needed time to let it soak in. The little epiphany began with understanding the Norsaq in practical terms. A Norsaq is basically a spear chucker. Once the spear. . . (I should say “harpoon”) is tossed there are ropes to deal with. There isn’t time to fool around with the norsaq, so a hunter may just put it in his mouth while he gets on with the task. If he suddenly ends up upside-down he just grabs the Norsaq and rolls. Thing is, who knows where he’ll grab it from. Maybe an end, maybe the middle. Maybe he would end up holding it by the wrong end and it would be inverted so the length of the stick is toward the kayak instead of away from the boat. Chances are a sweep or “smack” might just be out of the question. There’s the epiphany. The goal is not to use the Norsaq to roll. The goal is to keep hold of it WHILE your roll so you don’t have to go home and make a new one. So I’m not rolling with the stick, I’m rolling with a stick in my hand. Make sense?

Well, that brings your focus right back to your body. Ok then, there is no stick. There is no “hand”.  Erase them from your mind. It’s just your body hanging out there and you need to recover. This is where the sensuality and vision come into play. The roll then feels like Yoga. Your mind tunes into your body and simply shifts energy from one point to another. As you come to the surface of the water you just relax. You’re upper body follows the roll but does not really participate. The energy is expended below your waist, not above. You lay your arm with the norsaq in hand out there and forget about it. Then beginning at your toes the energy of the recovery moves through your body. With a twisting motion your knee follows your toes and is followed by your hips which bring your lower torso, then upper, then neck, then head back onto the kayak. Your inward arm can be laid across the back deck which acts as a counter weight, however in time you won’t need it either.

The idea that we roll with our body and not the paddle is always true from the moment we learn to roll. However big fat paddles and buoyant Greenland sticks tend to hide that truth from our brains. We sense it, but only to a level. As we move to stick & hand rolls it becomes more important. To get rid of the “splash & sweeps” we have to sharpen our focus even more. Each step of the way tuning further and further into the inner sensuality of the kayak roll.