Do it until it’s boring
(Sorry, another long one)
Do it until it’s boring.
Do it until it’s automatic.
Do it until it’s less challenging than taking off your pants.
Do it until it’s as comforting as pulling up the covers on a cool night.
Do it until you find yourself using the time doing it to assess that last roll attempt, or think about the next, or what you’re going to have for dinner, or whatever. ust like you would while riding a bike or going for a walk. When you catch yourself daydreaming like this, while still performing the task at hand, you’re calm enough.
Most of all:
Exit SLOWLY! Calm and orderly, in full control of boat, blade, and body. Going slow and easy is what keeps the panic away and convinces your monkey brain things are OK. Slow and smooth movements also conserve oxygen and keep you from getting banged up and tired too quickly. Be equally calm and measured in your reentries, for the same reasons (plus it’s just easier to do them this way).
Some people are naturally calm like this. Some are after just a couple exits (helps if someone tells you to GO SLOW! from the beginning). Others take a lot of practice to get to where it’s a non-issue. Perfectly normal.
This is where you also need to practice delaying the exit. Build up how long you can wait inverted before exiting. You will be able to make good use of the “hang time” you develop once you get back to working on the roll. Hang time can also be used to tuck up into setup and back a few times (and lean forward, or back onto rear deck, etc.). This not only helps with getting a good feel for the setup position and your buoyancy in setup - it teaches you to go to setup from any position after you find yourself inverted. You can also play around with the paddle while down there, moving it out of and back into proper setup - stowing or abandoning it and getting your spare.
Start slow and simple (just watch the fish) and get more creative as you work up to having more time. The more you do this sort of slow underwater orientation play now, the less of an issue it will be when you move on.
Wet exits are not separate from rolling practice. They are not taking time away from rolling practice. Any and all playing around with your kayak directly helps your rolling. It reinforces that capsizes are not really accidents/emergencies in themselves, and that nothing is “wrong” if your kayak is not upright. Kayaks are made to be enjoyed at all angles.
Remember to practice getting the skirt off without the grab loop too. You want 100% calm confidence that you can do a leisurely and controlled exit every time - no matter what may be going on.
If you want to mix in some hip flick and sweep practice - I’d again suggest Jay Babina’s methods in his “1st Roll” video. This way you can work on these without wet exits, and without direct assistance, but still using relatively correct form and no props.
Sorry if I misread your comments
Keep up the effort.
It can be hard to stress the importance and still get accross these are fairly basic and easy skills. The more you press them the more their fears creep in and the more resistant they get. People are funny that way.
If so easy why 85% lose it?
Perhaps from lack of practice, but it suggests that really learning it, that is beyond the mechanical basics and getting out of the water is not nearly sufficient to be able to employ it in real conditions. Many sources, i.e., Sea Kayaker, etc. have cited statistics that show a very small number of kayakers who profess to be able to roll can do so when in real life circumstances.
As in many areas of life, those of us who take somewhat longer to learn it may actually have an advantage as they really break it down into componnents and really get it integrated.
Having repractice hand rolling lately I find once again flaws in my different rolling styles. Any complex skill is something that needs to be learned really well and then maintained and improved upon. It is what makes it all stay fresh and fun.
I can think of two reasons…
.. people lose it:
1. Winter (for those that don't paddle year 'round) and other long breaks.
2. They learned it the hard way, struggling all the way, and learned a tentative and shaky roll requiring a lot of attention to all the details and everything being just so to pull it off. The roll was working but shaky and rushed to begin with vs. being relaxed, letting the water do most of the work, and having roll power to spare.
There are probably other reasons. New gear, health issues, etc.
The bonus reason: 85% learn the C to C!!!
I always have the standard Greenland roll to fall back on, and it's so reliable and easy I have a hard time imagining losing it. Would be like forgetting how to ride a bike. I don't doubt it could happen someday though.
Missing rolls is not the same as losing your roll. Flat water play vs. rolling in conditions is a separate but related issue. Once things are good on flat it's time to take it to more textured water. This is where I'm at now.
My Instructor Disagrees With #2
She says that the people who learn quickly generally have poorer technique (muscle it more) that those who have to work harder at it (she claims to be one of the later).
Lou
disagree from my personal perspective
I learned to roll fairly quickly (one class session) but then I followed that up with many hours of practice and thousands of rolls. I have good rolling form (effortless) but it was because I was form focused from the very beginning and really worked on practicing the right way. Even these days when I know I can roll well, I still study the tip section from the Kayak Roll and EJ’s video to ensure I can spot deficiencies in other people but also myself. If people learned to roll and then proceeded to do what I did (at least 100 rolls every time out on any water), they all would have a bombproof roll with good form. It’s more of a matter of practice than initial time it took to roll.
Lots of opinion there…
I’ve heard both opinions on whether those who take longer have better technique, erto lasting benefits from their learning process. Not sure what any universal answer is myself, but I have a seen couple of behaviors in people that probably affect peoples’ perception on this one.
(1) People who have fabulous kinesthetic response and memory, who are able to be introduced to a roll without any prior study or preparation work and almost immediately start knocking them off. I have encountered two paddlers like this, and neither of them were able to repeat it on their own after that session. (The one I still encounter hasn’t gone back for lessons to resolve this.)
When I started asking the paddler that I have more contact with about where things were going wrong, it was clear that he had never really grasped how a roll worked and why his body had to do certain things.
Bottom line is, these paddlers hit their rolls so quickly that they had neither the understanding nor the tools to go out and do what was necessary to keep it aferwards. Some of the lack of follow thru was normal human behavior (I got it so why do I still have to practice it) but much of the issue was understanding the process.
(2) Paddlers who learn to muscle up and get away with this for a long time before they get “caught” and find themselves in situations where it causes failure. This is usually reserved to guys - frankly it is hard for most women to fully muscle up a roll because the butt in the boat we are lifting is proportionately heavier than that of guys. But there is more than one paddler who has had to go back and correct their roll entirely to handle things like a loaded boat, where the slower pace of the roll can really penalize bad technique.
Again, I am not sure whether there is a universal right or wrong about the effect of time to learn vs. long term benefits. But I have certainly encountered individual situations that suggest a little more time taken in learning a roll and handling problems that crop up can be a good thing.
. . agree with schizopak
I agree with schizopak, it’s about practice and form, not about the length of time it takes to find your first roll.
There’s a difference between learning to roll and learning to right oneself after a capsize. And there’s an infinite continuum of variations between the two. Getting upright after a capsize starts the learning process, it is not the whole shooting match.
People lose their rolls because they get lazy about proper technique and rely too heavily on their arms, lay-back prematurely to save a weak hip rotation, neglect to pull their bodies into a wind-up position at the start or (add your favorite rolling fault here). This isn’t rocket science, and it’s only discussion fodder for so many because the rolling population is heavily weighted towards people still developing their technique.
Rolling isn’t like riding a bicycle, it’s not a “do it once and have it forever” type of thing. For me it’s like riding a motorcycle or playing the guitar. I can do either with reasonable success after a long stretch of inactivity but doing either well takes regular practice and constant level of familiarity.
We all get lazy / complacent with time. We are all between swims. Don’t lament over “losing your roll”, rejoice at having the opportunity to learn what rolling is really about. Take the opportunity to “fix” your weaknesses and become an even better roller than you were before. We are all learning, all the time, it’s a lifelong process and there is always room for improvement.
Once you “find” your roll, do everything you can to find the limits of your skill. Practice with a half-paddle, learn to hand roll, practice any stupid thing you can to disadvantage your current roll and encourage you to learn new and better technique.
Cheers,
Jed
100 rolls per paddle?
I would agree that doing that has to give you a heck of a good roll. But do you actually do 100 rolls every time you go out to paddle, or was that a typo? If you do, I am feeling pretty inadequate with my few to several.
The things people tell their students!
That a nice thing for an instructor to say, as it can be encouraging to a slow learner, but there’s a flaw in that logic:
Those who learn quickly do not stop learning. They continue to practice and refine their technique. Meanwhile the pluggers are still just trying to get things working at all.
Maybe after a while things equal out. Either type could eventually end up with better technique than the other. It depends on WHAT they learn, not HOW they learn.
Refining the technique
Even with a very reliable roll it’s also good to keep refining the technique and getting some good coaching helps. It’s easy to develop some bad habits while still rolling reliably. I’ve had a very reliable sweep roll for several years. This season I had the chance to work with some of the local Greenland guys, and once they corrected errors/sloppiness, I’ve developed a pretty solid norsaq roll and my hand rolls are steadily improving.
I’m impressed with anyone who was able to teach himself/herself to roll, but getting a little COMPETENT coaching can go a long way in improving your skills.
Ralph
If I roll at all…
… I’ll usually do at least dozen or more. Some on each side, maybe trying something new. That’s stopping somewhere mid paddle to play a few minutes.
If I got out to mainly work on these skills, 100 is not really all that much (many of them will be standard rolls after trying something else that didn’t quite make it).
Do you play around or just do “the” roll? Try different rolls/variations/paddles? Alternating sides? Changing what side you want to come up on mid roll? Changing paddles underwater? Doing as many as you can in say 20-30 seconds? In a good session of messing around like this 100 isn’t that much.
It’s all about a play/exploration mindset.
Number of times
I was trying to reply to schizopack about the 100 per paddle, but somehow I am just not succeeding at inserting posts correctly here.
As to how I practice, which I think was asked by Greyak because of the ordering problem… I’ve been mixing in a bunch of things since earlier this spring which either expand my options for staying sideways or under longer, or get me more acclimated to messing around past my stability point. I regard most of these things as being in a continuum with a roll, especially on my offside which is still only in prep. The stuff includes:
Extreme high braces
Petrussin thing (to breath)
Sculling fully over in the water, or trying anyway. Getting decent on one side, the other is coming along more slowly.
Hanging out sideways with the paddle float on, practice coming up on the back deck (as a backup for my offside).
Going over on the back deck or otherwise out of position and getting to a rolling setup.
Practicing partial and full hip snaps using the paddle float, to focus on just the lower body.
Static brace (finally appears to be there on both sides as of last time in the water).
Then there is doing a full from-setup roll a few times as well.
quick learners also loss it quick
There’s a little bit of truth in that. The quick learners found rolling so easy they don’t bother praticing it much. They can loss it. The slow pluggers never because it took so much work to learn. It just follows they’re motivated to spend more time pratice. The turtle vs. hare thing.
But not all rabits rest once ahead. Those who continue to work on it will be even better off.
Instructor are particularly valueable to those having difficulties learning. The self-learn ones either got so good they don’t need to return. Or some of them found it not challlenging enough to bother. They move on to other things (like rock climbing). I happened to know one of such folk.
“…don’t bother practicing it much”?
Now that is a HUGE piece of imagination! Why would that be?
As several have already said, finding it “harder” has nothing to do with how much people practice after they get a basic roll, or how good their technique may get.
You could just as easily say the slow learners face more frustration, find it less enjoyable, and have much less incentive to practice.
Maybe this has more to do with why people learn to roll, and how they look at rolling as it relates to their general paddling?
“Easy” rolling = fun rolling and is a welcome part of paddling. A basic gateway skill. “Hard” rolling is not fun and is more likely to be looked at as some sort of necessary evil that must be overcome if you want the best tool to deal with potential trouble on the water. An advanced skill. Naturally, “advanced” skills are harder to learn.
Getting those first rolls just opens the door. The ones who had to fight long and hard to wrench that door open may feel as if they’ve “arrived”, and are just as likely, if not more, to slow down or stop there. The ones who stroll through the door more easily have positive expectations and momentum to continue on and are usually looking toward what to do from there.
Don’t agree? Then ask how many hard learner have gone on to more than a basic roll? Offside? A variety of rolls? How many did this as soon as they started rolling?
You can twist this stuff around to suit whatever BS you’re trying to sell yourself. There is probably an example of someone that fits any variation. Bottom line (like it or not) is:
- It’s a fairly basic foundation skill. Promoting it as anything else is a disservice to the paddling community.
- Anyone with even a modicum of fitness (can walk without getting winded) and no serious impairments can learn it.
- Working “hard” can be as effective as spitting into the wind. Just as the elements of the roll can seem counterintuitive at first - so it is with the effort required. The effort must be efficiently applied, or more is not better - just wasted effort at best, frustration and reinforcing the wrong things at worst. Some days you’re better off just paddling. Learning to roll is a bit like being in quicksand: Struggling = sinking.
- “Easy” vs. “Hard” or “Fast vs. Slow” are completely the WRONG way to look at it. Efficient vs. Inefficient gets more to the point. Everyone is different, so learning styles and rate of progress will naturally vary, but no matter how what pace or style they learn, all can benefit from looking at what they are doing in terms of efficiency. If someones efforts are not resulting in positive changes to their performance they are not learning efficiently. Dilligence is good, stubborness is not.
Odds are, the “fast” learners were not all pysically gifted as some here would like to claim (I’m certainly no amazing physical specimen and have fairly poor flexibility and average balance at best) - rather, they were more efficient by being relaxed and open to the process. This in turn gave them better feedback - and faster results.
I might get labeled as a fast learner (doesn’t seem that way from my perspective). Celia says she had to work hard. The main difference I see is we approached it differently, and still do. I don’t know what her thoughts were on her first successful roll, but I’d guess it was one of success and joy. Mine were something a bit different:
My first thought was "Hmm…, that felt almost TOO easy. I must have been really off in what I’d been trying every time before. Maybe it was a fluke - better repeat it. OK, that’s two. Maybe it’s because I am in Kim’s kayak. Better switch back and try mine now. Hmm, that didn’t work, but I can feel why now. There! Got it. Felt the same. Easy. OK, do it again to be sure. Yup, works. OK, enough for now - end on a good note. Next time out I’m going to have to start drilling this in and working on the other side. Then I’ll…
You get the idea. I always knew I’d roll eventually (I just had no agenda for when and wasn’t worried about it) so it was almost a non-even. Felt good to get them, but “What’s next?” seemed more interesting (otherwise it would have beena real buzz kill!).
The eyes on the path, not the goal. People can share goals, but only cross paths. Were the paths cross we can assist each other toward our goals.
More obvious ramblings from a fledgling roller. Take it as nothing more.
yes, no typo.
That is what I used to do on a normal day. On a rolling practice day, I would do about 200 hundred or more. It goes pretty quickly if you do 10 onside sweeps, 10 offside sweeps, 10 onside c-to-c, 10 offside c-to-c, 10 onside butterfly rolls, 10 offside butterfly rolls, 10 onside sculling rolls, etc… With there being dozens of different rolls to work on (including hand rolls, sculling rolls, backdeck rolls, etc.), you can really end up doing quite a bit of rolling during the course of a couple hours. Now I typically do about 20 or so during a normal paddling day although if I’m doing whitewater or playboating, that number will be closer to 50-100 again. I still get out regularly for dedicated roll practice and I am a firm believer that this practice is what has made me a strong roller as opposed to any sort of “natural gift.”
Finally got it today
I pulled out the slab of foam I put under my masik and that let me twist around far enough to make the Petrussen Maneuver work at last. I couldn’t make it work with the foam in place.
Anyone having trouble with this technique may want to try it in a looser fitting boat and/or loose sprayskirt.
Ralph
Reaching…
I would love to see the method they used to get their statistics... Was it random survey of those who learn quickly and slowly, those who took lessons and those who did not. I would not draw any conclusion with out knowing the research method. Anything less on a true random survey is speculation and hearsay, based on our own internal filters.
Your conclusion is also a reach. Just because someone learns quicker, it doesn't necessarily mean they haven't integrated the "basics" or fundamentals. It may well mean they they are able to do it quicker.
LIfe's not fair in that sense. Some are just quicker in certain arenas than others. Why folks can't accept a basic truth and just move on is beyond me. What folks need to do is to take what they have and work it. As long as you do that, you'll get there. Generally, it's not a race.
sing
Yup - not a race
It’s not at all a race, but I think that is not always easy for people to see. Frankly, once I (early on) realized that I would eventually roll but for me it was going to take longer than for most of the “rollers” I knew right then, I still made myself safer in the water very quickly by figuring out what I could count on with the skills I did have. So I got down wet re-entries and up with paddle float on, picked up a Roll-Aid device, basically any technique that was reliable and took advantage of the hip snap I could count on. (Integrating the paddle was my technical bugaboo.) And that automatically handled the desensitization, so over the course of a year the high anxiety response lessened to a point where it wasn’t getting in the way.
But most formal rolling classes don’t really work that way. People come in, hear well-intentioned statements about how many classes the instructors have found it will take some number of them to hit their first roll, and decide that must be how it “should” work. Great for those who hit that number, not so encouraging for those who don’t.
The last year I have spoken with several people who have approached teaching rolling with a different emphasis than the usual classes I experienced, most of which boil down to being in a more individualed environment. A couple of folks in a weekly local skills group broke down the C2C into its last half and added an extended paddle, and are finding that to be a real effective “no fail” technique that is getting people initially up quite quickly. And those who have learned this approach are having a ball - I was with them last night and was seeing huge changes. A couple of instructors I’ve spoken with will only teach rolling with the understanding that the person they are teaching will go out and practice the foundations inbetween sessions.
It’s still practice to really have anything worthwhile, and I agree that is a much more important factor than how quickly someone initially gets a roll. Or gets better at kayak skills of any sort - getting really braces takes continuous work. But someone who has been willing to drag themselves out time after time in the early learning stages, to achieve what may be pretty small incremental improvements per session, has already proven they have that habit. I am quite sure that someone like Lou won’t ever lose the roll once he gets it to a repeatable stage.
Thanks For A Nice Thread
Before this thread finds it’s way to the second page, I want to thank those who responded. I know I’ve gotten some food for thought, and hopefully others have as well.
Lou