second the wrist bend
I second the wrist bending.
Another option is to slide your hands on the shaft of the paddle until one hand is on a blade - with that you will know exactly where the paddle blades are faced. Sliding in one direction makes it more like an extended paddle roll, where the other direction reduces your extension, so requires more finesse with the hip snap and keeping your head down.
agree on practicing without the EP
Sounds to me like you should get rid of the Euro Paddle for you next practice session. My problem was that I could generate lots of force with the paddle, so I learned a really sloppy roll. It worked almost all the time, but if I was tired, or wasn’t paying attention it was less successful. I had to ditch that big euro blade to get my form right.
Just concentrate on the body motion. And not above the water. To me that’s a poor preparation for rolling. Practice in the water with progressively less buoyant objects. Like the bow of a boat, then a paddle float, then a small swim-float or kick board, something like that. This will force you to concentrate on the mechanics - keeping your body flat in the water, setting up with the boat already slightly sideways, leading with your butt, and keeping that head in the water. In no time you’ll be rolling up with just a small float in your hand.
Then putting a big paddle in your hand, you won’t believe how easy it is to roll with all that surface area.
And do this on both sides. I was amazed at how easily I developed an offside roll (which I’d always failed to teach myself using just a euro paddle.)
This is how my instructors taught me, and it’s made a world of difference. Once I got that that basic body mechanics, learning different types of rolls has become easy and fun.
+1
While I now mostly keep my hands in their paddling positions I learned with a semi-extended paddle. I would slide my back hand on the shaft so that it partly wrapped the start of the blade. As you said, it not only gave me more leverage but also the feel of the blade helped me better feel the angle.
One thing not mentioned yet
The sponge to keep you from punching out is great. That trick was the key to getting my friend rolling last summer. There is one other piece of this, which is the piece that got someone rolling a couple months ago in a pool session. The hand that is not sweeping needs to do a very simple progression through the roll to prevent a diving angle. If you’re doing a right hand roll, this would mean concentrating on the left hand, the one holding the sponge in the armpit that is not sweeping. In your setup position, both arms will be extended, holding the paddle at the surface of the water. The blade will be in position to plane across the surface. As you sweep away from the bow with your right hand, and as your body and the kayak simultaneously begin to tilt towards the surface (eventually until you’re all the way upright - that is where you’re intending to go), the left hand, while keeping the upper arm close to the torso (holding the sponge in your armpit) needs to do a smooth, constant transition from extended, to your hand being up next to your chin. Kind of like doing a curl with free weights. The reason: this controls the angle of the blade on the surface. Something to notice: Sitting upright in your kayak, turn to the finish position of the sweep roll. This would be with your torso twisted to the right, your head looking down at the right paddle blade with your chin on your right shoulder, and your left hand - yes, that seemingly uninvolved left hand, should be up next to your chin. Now, notice how your right blade is at a planing angle to the surface. Now, bring your left upper arm down (as if doing curls with free weights) to the kayak, and notice how the right blade is no longer at an angle to plane across the surface. What happens is, when your body and kayak rotate up 45 degrees, the angle of the blade that was planing at setup becomes a diving angle. The roll fails. Even if you cannot envision it, by simply slowly progressing your left lower arm (arm from elbow to hand) from extended at setup, to your hand next to your chin at finish, all the while keeping your upper left arm tucked against your body, you will be controlling the proper planing blade angle. This has been a key factor with several people I have helped out.
I’m assuming no layback. I’ve used the layback to do handrolls. I don’t us it for anything else. I’ve never had any reason to come up in that position with just a little extra support from a paddle in my hand. For me, just laying on the back deck looking at the sky in and of itself can feel a bit disorienting, although it can be fun. But I don’t want to be there after rough conditions rolled me and I’ve just come up from underwater. Since I personally have a choice, I choose a layback to be a last resort, as I presently can’t imagine it ever offering me an advantage with a paddle in hand.
I used a straight shaft for rolling
On Sunday I was in a whitewater boat using a feathered, straight-shafted paddle. I was borrowing all of this equipment from PCC (Phila. Canoe Club) since I do not own my own ww boat. I do have a ww paddle and ww helmet but only use them the few times that I go kayak surfing down the shore. This ww paddle has a 30 degree feather to it. The paddle I borrowed on Sunday, was very similar to my own.
However, I normally paddle a sea kayak with an UN-feathered Euro paddle. More than 80% of my paddling is fitness paddling in my sea kayak.
Wrist bend
I repeatedly noticed that when I was under the water and setting up for the roll, the instructor would grab the blade to initially position it for me. He would flatten the blade at the very beginning of the setup before I started to sweep the paddle. This felt very un-natural to me. It felt like I had to bend my wrist as far as it would go to achieve this flattening of the blade in the setup position. I would then go from bending my wrist forward in the initial setup, to then, while sweeping the shaft, subsequently bending my wrist in the other direction (as if you were on a motorcycle and twisting the throttle to give it gas to accelerate the motorcycle).
I will be the first to acknowledge that I get horribly dis-oriented when I am upside down. I am relaxed but can’t visualize what the boat and paddle and my body are doing as I roll. I am relying mostly on muscle memory from having just practiced the movements while sitting on the water in the boat just prior to attempting the roll.
The encouraging thing came from learning that the instructor went from originally guiding the paddle almost the entire time to eventually just standing at the bow using two and then eventually just the one hand on the bow.
He was very candid with all of his feedback and said that I am 90% there. He said that rarely, if ever, am I ‘punching out’ with my left arm. I have been very cognizant of keeping my left elbow tight to my torso. In the past years, I had injured my left shoulder by NOT keeping my elbow tight to my torso and so am very concerned about protecting it.
The “Tuck”
– Last Updated: Mar-17-09 2:04 PM EST –
If you set up (upright) leaning forward and go in, your diving paddle problem would be almost non-existent. The problem is that new rollers go upside down and relax their body so it is now hanging there vertical up side down and then they try to reach up and sweep. They end up pulling on the paddle. In the book "The bombproof roll and beyond" they illustrate this well. When you're upside down, ideally you want to do a tuck - a sit-up and bring your torso up towards the surface before you sweep. That's why you are able to sweep well when you practice and don't go under deep. No doubt, blade angle and trying to pull yourself up with the paddle all contribute but give this a try. Try to do a crunch upward with your body before you sweep. Actually you are just trying to hold that crunch forward that you are in when you set up and enter the water rather than letting yourself hang straight down.
You can roll without a tuck but it's a contributing factor to the diving paddle. Once you get used to doing that your can use your torso rotation (hip snap) fully. It's very hard to get a real hip snap with your body hanging straight down under the boat. You end up doing a lot of leveraging with the paddle. Are you trying to do a lay back style or a screw hip snap type of roll?
I would try
a crankshaft.
The indexing is more natural.
You’re hands are naturally oriented to have the paddle flush to the surface. With a straight shaft, it allows you to have your hands anywhere, which is great for paddling and rolling when you’re experienced. When you’re learning take a leg up.
The bend in the shaft puts your hand in the right plane to keep the blade from diving. You will feel it dive more easily and therefore correct it more naturally.
My 2 cents.
I added an index to my straight shaft
I taped a thin strip of balsa wood (from hobby shop) so that it lines up under my knuckles. I like this especially for surf where lack of sight and much confusion makes me want to feel very surely I’m holding the paddle correctly. Love Gorilla Tape for this as it hold up for months of heavy use in water.
Uhhhh
– Last Updated: Mar-17-09 6:39 PM EST –
If it was me I'd take my own paddle. Learning to roll with someone else's paddle that's feathered when you're accustomed to unfeathered... uhhhh... not so good.
If you decide to go with the Greenland paddle I think it's best to start extended. As you get more comfortable you can go non-extended. Think of extended as training wheels.
what if…
you had tried your GP progression and instruction/learning techniques with your EP? Do you think the it was the tool or the instruction? Remember, rolling is not about the paddle, it about the body.
Euro or GP
If you insist on using a Euro-blade, I would suggest you not feather it. Then learn the C to C roll. I agree with most of the others, get a GP. I have taught several people to roll and they usually get it with the GP in one session.
I don’t think so.
I wasn’t using a GP paddle until after I’d gotten the motion down, working for about 2 hours only with various floats. Floats allow you to move very slowly through the mechanics. Using a EP, you don’t have much flotation, so the motion has to be faster for a beginner to succeed. The point of using no paddle in the begining, in my mind, is that it forces you to get up with technique, because you can’t rush it with a float.
With an EP I could get up by yanking on my paddle. Using a float I could only get up if I kept my weight low and rotated the boat first.
Certainly you can learn using an EP from the start (that’s how I learned the first time). But I’ve gained much better technique working without the paddle. Now rolling with a paddle (EP or GP feels easy).
Cheating, or not
My instructor (a P.net poster and all-round good guy) gave me one lesson. We used a GP, my primary Euro blade, a wing, and a whitewater canoe paddle. The only one of the four I couldn’t at least do a single roll with in that session was my Euro.
After that lesson, I used a GP for nearly all my solo pool practice–maybe five or six sessions–until I got to the point at which I felt like it was becoming second nature and that I could “feel” what I was doing right or wrong.
I then moved primarily to the Euro blade, and all was well. So, that progression worked for me. I think the GP is just more forgiving.
paddle float
If you’ve not yet tried, a paddle float (w/ little air) tied to your sweeping end will not allow you do anything else but keep that blade at the surface. Also lets you to go nice & slow, comfortably. Good way (I think) to get a feel for the actual ‘full’ extension you need for the sweep.
Just a thought,
Todd
Agree about the layback
A traditional sweep roll is a very strong roll. There is no need to do a lay back. I say that even though in whitewater I do the roll that EJ teaches (C to lay back). It is also not necessary to have a climbing angle to the outboard paddle blade. The so called “slash roll” works just fine with a downward paddle angle at the start. Maybe Schizopak can weigh in here as he is the expert at teaching the slash/sweep roll.
what I gather is that…
you had poor technique to begin with, but settled for the poor technique. Then you learned better technique, through various means, and can now roll better.
I am not sure how you used the flotation, but I imagine you used it in an avataq fashion. Since, I don’t really know how the flotation was used I can only speculate.
Wouldn’t it have been better to have an instructor ‘make you’ get up with good technique the first time around? And, wouldn’t it be possible to improve your technique (improve your success rate) using any paddle.
just telling you how it worked for me.
Sounds like you’re not going to quit until I agree with you. 
I’m just telling you how it worked for me. I was taught with an EP, and my roll worked. Even worked for combat rolls in tide races 9 out of 10 times. But I knew my technique was rough, so I found a great instructor and got more lessons. That instructor took a totally different approach, and FOR ME it worked really well.
Take it or leave it. That was my experience. The EP was getting in the way of my acquiring better technique. Using something I couldn’t push off of made me roll the boat with my body technique instead of the paddle.