Gotta love YouTube…
sing
Just to note, you can easily think of a roll as coming up fully in a single sculling stroke. Sculling not really separate from a roll, just that you are taking time to pause in the in-between.
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Actually I pretty much just use my body to get back up since I seem somehow not to be able to get the correct sweep stroke when I’m trying to come up, even though I can skull successfully when my back is on the water. I can do a balance brace, and in fact sometimes re-orient there before coming up on the back deck for my butterfly roll.
I’ve been watching the videos – helpful!
Back to the original question, just one reliable one that you can do on both sides. An instructor told me that if you can also do the reverse version on both sides, you have an advantage in surf capsizes.
I learned sweep and C-to-C and ended up mainly using sweep. If you learn one you can quickly learn the other anyway. To me, getting reliable on both sides was more important than which kind of roll. That, AND being able to switch sides underwater while capsized. This also makes you get used to being underwater a bit longer, without worrying about running out of air.
Practice doing more than one roll in a row. At some point, you’ll fail a first attempt—or you’ll roll up so forcefully that you go right over again! If you’re used to doing a few in quick succession, this too prevents panic in those “over-roll” situations.
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I bought the DeReimer/Ford " The Kayak Roll" production that is 25 yo? I think now.
About 20 years ago cuz it’s vhs. I watched it over and over of course. I wanted to learn to roll bad.
I would lay in bed falling asleep going through the motions. I got both sides by the end of the summer. Lot of wet exits.
When I got into greenland style there was this cat Alex P that was really into greenland rolling that I hooked up with a lot in Mpls. He didn’t need a paddle ever to roll and half the time no arms.
We were both students of DeReimer/Ford technique done properly. It is effortless and with a greenland paddle NOT extended you can roto roll ‘fast’. Turbo roll and come up still going forward.
We would get together and roll our guts out any way shape and form. Backdeck roll GP (not extended) like the squirt w/w guys do, was a good one to learn and try to smooth out. He would
do MN NS WW. I was never in his league.
My experience. Mileage mileage
Peace J
p.s. I have not rolled a qajaq for 6 years come August. Fall 2021 I did a brace that had my back in the water for about a second. Completely without pause. Body just did it. Mileage.
This summer i have tapped danced a few times on some of those high amplitude wakes everyone
is fond of.
That is seriously one from the past. Kent Ford was mostly known in the WW venue:
Like you, I wanted to roll bad in my first year. However, because I started as a longboater (and then became more a ww and surf kayaker), I look for resources in the seakayak realm. I almost embarassed to say, I taught myself to roll using Derek Hutchinson’s book, “Eskimo Rolling.” I was doing a sweep to C-C’ hybrid but was not totally reliable with it. My back up was what Derek Hutchinson noted as the “Pawlatta” roll - an extended Euro paddle roll. Again, it provided a lot of lift and I could “cheat” when my body mechanics were less than perfect:
Not only do you not have to have great body mechanics, even if you paddle angle is off, i.e. somewhat diving, as long as you commit to the Pawlatta sweep all the way through, you will still come back up because of the extra lift and leverage of the extended paddle. The downside a diving Pawlatta roll is that if you flip in shallower water, as can happen in surf, your paddle hits the bottom and stops before you can back up. Then you are left with trying to “pole” off the bottom, risking a paddle break. Ask how I know… 
As Paatit and Peter-Ca noted, the more you can roll and play in rough water, the less you are likely are to need it over time. You are more relaxed and you will increasingly and reflexively perform micro braces that will keep you upright.
sing
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I went thru a long time of screwing up because turns out that l had some claustrophobia that was specific to having my legs in the boat upside down. Swimming no issue. So l got really good at wet exits…
But once l got over that, and now that l am rusty again, l hit an issue with the blasted paddle. I remember to sweep it right and lose the hips or vice versa. If I did not have a paddle to sweep, just something buoyant that l could hold in a static position, l could come up all day long.
So if you are like me, it just may take you some extra time to dial in moving both hips and paddle in a coordinated fashion and keeping your head down for the whole thing. But if you practice ever more refined sculling, say resolve to come up in 5 strokes, or 3 etc, at some point it’ll be one.
Thanks, Celia, that sounds like what I’m going through, the trouble coordinating what I’ve learned to do with my lower body and what I’m doing with the paddle. Good suggestion to keep doing skulling brace and practice coming up at certain moments.
A few years ago, when I got over my rabid fear and loathing of rolling, I learned and practiced three rolls that seemed to fit my body type, age, and ad nauseam.
When I needed to roll in bigger water I ended up with something that wasn’t quite any of those I learned, it was something that fit well with my boat and body.
Don’t focus on just one technique in the pool.
Makes sense, thanks. (But it’s the river 
)
I still have that video and, like you, also studied it heavily when learning. I later tried GP and preferred rolling with it in normal grip, not extended. Never became enamored of the GP, but some practices associated with it were standard in my practices—using my Euro paddles. Sculling, balance brace, butterfly roll, the mindset that there are infinite shades between fully upright and fully capsized and there is no need to fear all but uprightness.
It’s been a few years since I sold my last SK and went to surf skis. But I both endured and enjoyed many thousands of rolls during the years of paddling SINKs. Though the learning was not intuitive or easy, after getting a reliable roll, there was and still is no doubt that it is THE fastest way to recover from a capsize.
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This is definitely something I’m starting to experience… and it’s great.
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To me, you need one maybe two rolls (left or right and maybe the other). The reason to learn more rolls (i.e. butterfly, crook of the elbow, hand, etc) is to make your body positioning better and therefore your paddle rolls bomproof. Ok maybe the first one fails due to conditions, but you can try again and come up without wet exiting. Get used to making a few attempts if needed and tyou won’t use the grab loop before you need to.
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Yeah, we’ve been trying re-set up after failing and attempt again. And I agree, the understanding and trying to learn new ways to do it is already really helping me with body and positional awareness, which I started out with none of, and now have a tiny inkling of. 
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