@Overstreet said:
Which all comes around to the word “flip”. Isn’t that a very action word. How many of y’all “flip” when you capsize instead of just rolling over? Even in surf kayaking you don’t see that much “flipping”. Sure some you tubes show it but how many of us actually flip?I think the most common before you “flip” is an expletive that basically translated means, “OH No!”.
In kinder, gentler days.
I don’t know why it took me so long, probably because I didn’t consider it worth much thought at first, but on seeing this topic again it suddenly occurred to me why the original premise of executing a hip snap for flip prevention simply cannot work. A hip snap can’t be done without first putting your body into position to execute the motion. That is, it can’t be done from your normal paddling position, because first, you have to flex your lower body into such a position that it’s possible to sharply bend your lower body in the opposite direction, and far enough to have the desired effect. Normally this pre-positioning is done WHILE under the kind of paddle control that gets you and your boat into the roll, but to do so suddenly without preparation or paddle input, but while simply falling to the side, would immediately tilt your boat in the wrong direction. Assuming you weren’t actually falling over but only leaning (and now leaning even farther due to your preparatory move), executing the hip snap would then return you to your original position. So, of course if you WERE falling over, this would not be sufficient to accomplish your goal.
This is very much like the principle I saw described in a motorcycle magazine years ago, where they explained the physics behind the reason that you can’t suddenly turn the front wheel of a motorcycle to adjust your vertical alignment, that to do so pushes the bike in the direction opposite that which most riders assume. To lean into a turn, one has to countersteer first to move the front wheel to one side from where it initially was located, thus being able to support your weight from a new angle to work in cunjunction with the degree of intended lean. The change of wheel steering that people associate with inducing lean is actually the second step of a two-step process, not the first, and this is quite analogous to working oneself into position to execute the hip snap before executing it. In the motorcycle-physics article, the author pointed out that this two-step process is so intuitive to riders that most completely fail to understand that it is actually happening, and that the author’s own research showed that most riders would refuse to believe that this was the case when it was explained to them (yet obviously, he hoped the article would get through to some portion of the readership). Indeed, the principle applies to bicycles too and I posed the situation to a mountain-bike-riding buddy who had fantastic skills, and he didn’t get it either. I think the same thing is happening in this case with the OP and his thoughts about the hip snap.
The term “hip snap” is a misnomer because the righting movement requires more than just motion of the hips but the entire torso and neck as well. But whatever we want to call it, a “head dink” and “hip snap” can definitely prevent a capsize that has been initiated by an unanticipated force on the hull.
Here is a video of a low brace done in a canoe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i36ROvRhLig
Low braces practiced or demonstrated on flat water always look at least a trifle artificial. Low braces done in actual whitewater conditions are often much more dramatic, with the paddler’s entire head and upper body hitting the water. I have certainly saved myself from an otherwise certain capsize in this way that had one gunwale of the boat well beneath the surface of the water and my head well down in it. And there is really no reason to believe that this type of motion cannot restore an upright position since the open boat canoe roll (the way most people do it) is nothing more than a set up and a low brace that turns the boat from completely capsized to upright.
There is really no need to “get your body” in position for this type of a low brace because when you need it, your body is already in the correct position. A core tenet of whitewater open boating is to keep the upper body upright with the head centered between the gunwales and allow independent movement of the upper and lower body to maintain this J lean as the hull is heeled, or rocks beneath the upper body in response to hitting rocks, entering currents, or whatever. But there is a limit obviously to how far the hull can heel and still allow the paddler to keep his or her head centered between the gunwales. When the canoe has rolled a full 90 degrees and the gunwales are vertically aligned, no paddler will be able to keep their head vertically aligned between the gunwales.
And this is where the low brace comes in. The paddler has already J leaned to keep their head centered between the gunwales as the canoe heels to the on-side. This paddler already has their on-side knee weighted, the on-side half of their torso and neck stretched, the off-side knee unweighted, and the off-side half of their torso and neck muscles contracted. If at this point, the canoe hull encounters some force that causes some additional degree of heel beyond the point of no return, if the paddler at this moment immediately reverses everything, strongly weighting the off-side knee, unweighting the on-side knee, relaxing all of the muscles on the off-side of the torso and neck, extending both hands and arms and the paddle out over the water so that both hands, the paddle shaft and blade all hit the water simultaneously, and throwing the upper body and head down towards the water and paddle shaft and sometimes even into the water while driving the hips to the off-side, the canoe can be brought back up to an upright position even if the on-side gunwale has dipped beneath the surface.
Obviously, to call this entire symphony of motions a “head dink and hip snap” is simplistic but economical.
Yes, what you describe is indeed “a symphony of motions”, and is not what I envisioned the OP talking about as he imagined what to do to halt a roll-over once it was underway. Your description contains the elements needed for doing the preparatory phase without imparting the “wrong” correcting action first, and paddle input is crucial, just as it is when putting yourself in position to finish a roll (even though body motion is a critical part of what you describe, without input from the paddle, no body-only motion will save you once you are already on your way past the point of no return, and that’s at the root of what I described above).
To put it another way, if you envision having the boat tilt beneath you as far as possible while your body remains upright, and then you snap it back with body-imparted motion, you were not falling over in the first place. Once you are on your way over because your point of support has gotten off-center, an external force is required to get you centered again, and that force is provided by the paddle.
Well, actually good whitewater paddlers can hands roll (even I used to be able to) and the best can do a “straight jacket” roll with no hands at all, only torso and lower body motions, so paddle input is not required to right a boat even when completely capsized. I have watched Nolan Whitesell hands roll a big canoe on multiple occasions, and I have seen him and others side surf in holes without a paddle, righting the boat with torso, arm, and hip motions, even when it was well on the way to capsizing.
Pete, I think you realize that finding an exception to the need for a paddle is not the same as finding an exception to providing the external force that ordinarily would be provided by the paddle. That will be true until we invent anti-gravity.
That kid in the video is good!
By the way, the comment about getting back from the brink of a capsize while side-surfing but without support against the water must in some way be a case of taking some advantage of the dynamic situation of water passing across the base of the hull, perhaps with the amount of “catch” being reduced just in time to prevent a full rollover (a variation on a force of external origin). I’m not going to push this discussion into being a virtual physics class, but this claim body motion alone being able to accomplish the entire task of popping back up is getting very similar to the kinds of assumptions that lead to things like considering the possibility of perpetual-motion machines, or much more relevant to modern life, to making it possible to believe that the kinds of acrobatics depicted in computer-generated graphics of action movies, could actually be done by a person who has no contact with something other than the air.
@pblanc said:
The term “hip snap” is a misnomer because the righting movement requires more than just motion of the hips but the entire torso and neck as well. But whatever we want to call it, a “head dink” and “hip snap” can definitely prevent a capsize that has been initiated by an unanticipated force on the hull.
Thanks for posting the video. That is what I was taught. I think perhaps the OP might have been alluding to this. We all get our start somewhere on the beginning of the learning curve. It’s smart to use this place as a resource.
Actually, this would not be what the OP was referring to because there is no reversal in the direction of rotation, and any reference to a complete rotation to support the OP’s premise is looking at the wrong issue (the video is still interesting even if irrelevant to the actual topic). I’ll try to make a simple point about this, knowing fully well that people who do not see the world through the laws of physics won’t get it. Rolling all the way around in one direction when relatively well anchored in space can be done entirely by controlling rotational speed by balancing body movements against external forces which drive that rotation in the first place (gravity and buoyancy in this case) with proper timing. Gymnasts on the high bar do this all the time (here, the only external force is gravity), positioning themselves vertically above the bar, rotating all the way around, and stopping to be perfectly balanced above the bar again. The day that a gymnast who’s balanced above the bar can tip off-center and begin to rotate (fall over) and then reverse his rotational direction to return to vertical through simple body movements, that’s when head dinks and hip snaps will do the same, all by themselves and without outside help. The fact is, in a boat may be far more forgiving than a high bar because the balance point is huge in comparison, but the principle remains the same, so that reversing rotational movement once it has passed beyond the balance point can only be accomplished with the help of external forces, which either push the paddler back toward center, or move his boat toward a position where support is again centered, or both.
Here is a video of a high brace and head dink in a kayak. It is not the greatest video, but it clearly shows that the reversal of the direction of rotation of the boat can be easily accomplished, even when the hull has rotated 90 degrees toward capsizing (or a little more, as shown at minute 1:12 in the video) . I have videos that show head dinks and high and low braces that are much more dramatic than this one, showing the boat rotation reversed after it has rotated well past 90 degrees, but I cannot easily show them on-line.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yM2GzBB4QY
The only external force being applied here is the buoyancy provided by the paddler’s head, upper body, bracing arm and hand, and a portion of the paddle. The bracing blade of the paddle provides some transient support so that a bit of rotational force can be applied by pushing down on the paddle, but the main rotational force is applied to the hull through motions of the paddlers trunk, bracing knee, and hips.
Once a sufficient rotational force has been applied to the boat to get the hull rolling back upwards, it will continue to do so as long as the paddler does not do anything to screw it up. This is where keeping the head, upper body, and bracing paddle blade in the water as long as possible comes in.
A head dink and high brace done in a kayak this way is virtually identical to the “hip snap” of a C-to-C kayak roll.
Here is another high brace/head dink video. Take a look at the 28 second mark:
You guys do realize that you likely completely lost the OPer a lot of sentences ago…
So?
I think the discussion from May 21 forward has been great. Thanks, guys!
When all is said and done, the solution is still either take lessons, or spend a lot more time on the water in a decent boat, or both. I remember a long time ago when I first started getting interested in kayaking, I asked a very experienced paddler how often he actually gets upside down when he doesn’t want to. He said, never. Obviously, that has a bit to do with the boat and where one paddles and under what conditions. I can remember tipping over three times when I didn’t expect to. There were a lot more times when I fully expected to be swimming and nothing happened. Either the boat kept me upright, or a combination of the boat and reflexes kicked in. In no case was a hip snap employed.
pblanc etal
My comment was about audience. If folks have decided to use the OP to talk amongst themselves it is fine. I lost track.
@Celia said:
You guys do realize that you likely completely lost the OPer a lot of sentences ago…
You say that like it’s a bad thing. 
I sincerely hope the OP took some of the great advice people gave before disappearing to go paddle some class IV.
Sometimes one gets lucky, meaning the novice can ask a pretty good question. As somebody who lives by a brace, rather than a roll, I can definately say yes, you can snap your hips, basically repeating the finish of roll to prevent from completely capsizing… Honestly, that’s about all I can do to right myself currently. When rolling “The tuck forward and reaching around the boat” have been problematic for me. While “:head dinking” you’ll notice that the head is back toward the stern- much like in the finished postion of a sweep roll. It does not require bending forward, rather to the side and toward the back. So head dinking is something I can do with my limited range of motion.
In general, people think of paddling (right side up) and rolling, (upside down) but there’s a whole gray area in between. Learning to paddle and roll are great places to start. As you progress, you may want to practice braces with your weight centered over the midline of the boat, in a normal paddling position (awkward, but can be effective) or with a head dink (with your weight toward the stern (head closer to the waterline). Things don’t have to be mutually exclusive. .In general, the more your boat rotates over, the more the head will have to drop down to the water before being able to rotate the boat in an upright position. Another great way to practice braces is to carve inside or outside turns with the boat up on edge (your head wil be up, with the weight centered on the edge). Another is to slap brace on each side of the boat, using side to side momentum until your head and shoulders are immersed.
You’ll notice to carve circles you’ll have keep your weight and head forward and up and that it is quite a bit harder. You may find yourself rolling or wet exiting… With slap bracing, (partially capsizing on each side) you’ll gravitate toward the stern of the boat with the head in or near the water… Neither is right or wrong, just different things to work on.
A combat roll is any roll that works in an actual situation when you need it.
All of this “:expert advice” is from somebody who can’t currently roll, who likes to paddle ww, and prefers dry hair. Yet I encourage everyone to learn to roll. I am limited in my own paddling. Having to rely on bracing and swimming as my sole means of self rescue is less than ideal.
Years ago I had a kayaking friend who really couldn’t roll but progressed pretty quickly to mastering some fairly challenging Class IV water. But he sure could brace.
hey, if I ever regain a good combat roll, I could be dangerous again! I do think its time for me to pay for some professional help just to see how much I can do when it comes to rolling.
I’m more inclined now that I’ve had my hips redone. Currently just focus on boating in new places, helping others, and generally just trying to be thankful for each day on the water; Definately not climbing the ladder.
When I was young I relied on my physicality, rolling ability, durability, and self reliance…
As I’ve gotten older its more about judgement, group dynamics, and bracing I’ve definately got some holes in my own game but I’ve learned to compensate.
Shallow rocky creeks are the equalizer. Nobody wants to be upside down in that situation at all, me included. Meanwhile big water is now something I avoid. The rollers are at a huge advantage in that situation. Bring on the E.L.F. runs. I like just a little bit of water to go with my rocks.
I’v had several head dinks when my tall head didn’t see the obstacle. Got the scars to prove it.