I have a terrible roll. Very unreliable. Once I have a boat better suited to me, I will be forced to work on it harder because I won’t be able to blame the boat. I always did the C to C roll. I want to learn differently.
Sweep or layback. C to C is for younger people. It really only became so dominant because older WW boat designs were not friendly to other options. But it is too fraught with needless tension for me.
A lot of sculling will set you up for a change in approach.
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Yep, all my learning started in WW. I love the grace of layback rolls. Never tried one, but look forward to it.
Pru, Once the pandemic cancellations ease (we can hope, anyway) I highly recommend seeking out Greenland paddling skills seminars and training camps. No, they are not like military boot camp, in fact quite fun and sociable events. QajaqUSA.org lists them on their web site and Facebook page. You don’t have to have a low volume Greenland style boat and/or Greenland paddles to attend – the organizations that run them have loaners for the events and many folks are happy to share. One on one training with some excellent instructors. At the one I’ve attended in Michigan, the lessons take place in a warm sandy bottomed lake where your coaches can stand in waist to chest deep water beside your boat, or a class loaner, and support your kayak and you as they guide you through the steps to achieve a basic layback roll with ease. It starts on land with them having you practice the body positions for a balance brace in a kayak on the floor of a room or the ground, then you practice on the water laying out to float in a full floating brace and coming back up onto the boat stern deck while keeping your head back and your center of gravity controlled so you don’t roll past the tipping point. Also have you practice hanging under the boat (while they support it and wait for your hand signal to pull you back up) so you learn how to keep from having gravity make you fall out in a capsize and control panic response so you can execute the simple steps to lever yourself back to the surface efficiently. Photos below from training camp 2017:
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The last photo looks like me at the end of a long paddle! 
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Me too except no sandwich!
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It was actually very relaxing, even meditative, to practice that full floating side brace out on the water. Though with a buoyant cedar Greenland paddle extended with the right arm to keep from abruptly rotating beyond about 80 degrees to find myself gazing at fish instead of birds.
Since learning to do that, i’ve practiced it when I had a chance in fairly clean water near shore at the end of a day’s outing. Moving into that brace with the boat tipped almost on full edge and then practicing sliding back onto the stern deck while keeping your eyes on the sky is rehearsing the second half of a layback roll (without having to get pond water up your nose.)
I watch this over and over just to relax.
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Dubside is fun to watch whether in a Greenland boat or not 
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NtP and HD, thanks for posting those! Brian’s videos are always terrific. And Dubside’s skill and enthusiasm is inspiring. I hope some of the folks who are anxious about rolling get to watch them.
One of the highlights for me at Michigan Qajaq Training Camp was getting to meet Dubside, both as an instructor and an individual. Such a dedicated generous teacher, unassuming and even shy. I noticed the first morning at camp he was rather quiet and standing aside in the crowd around the dock after breakfast before the sessions began. Then he evidently overheard me talking to another student about my Feathercraft folding kayak and eagerly joined the conversation, sharing his fondness for his own Feathercrafts and how their portability helped him practice his kayak “vagabonding”, sometimes taking public transport with his boat and gear to places he launched.
I used to paddle WW kayak with a guy who would roll his SOT Torrent. It was a slow roll, but he had it down. If you can stay attached and have your technique, you can roll almost anything.
Yup, I’ve seen paddlers with good thigh straps roll a sit on top.
Celia, I understand your two posts. Rather than accepting my existing assumptions, I’m learning the value of validating them before proceeding. I have 15 years of self taught kayaking experience. The problem with that is we selectively retain information, which leads to bad habits and prematurely rejecting useful information. An example is learning to be skilled at hunt and peck typing. When encountering a 120 WPM typist, you know its possible, but seeing it is astonishing. Rather than abandon an inefficient technique, you conclude the person has magical skills - true, but it may be seen as an unreachable goal for yourself. The organism must maintain continuity and the organism must survive. We’re programs to filter information and retain the information that works. Lazy way out. Then it becomes hard to breakl. Point in fact, I read the posts on my phone and reply using a 2x2 inch screen above the two inch touch screen. My eyes get more tired than an 8 hour trip. I have a laptop with keyboard, buts it’s too much like work getting it out.
My problem with the forum is that I can’t keep up. The more I read, the bigger the mess I have to clean up. Your answers often make me understand something that isn’t related. I was on the Aqua/Werner thread, and awkwardly asked about a comparison between Euro and GP. A string of explanations, descriptions, historic details, videos on sizing and construction methods, and suggested books convinced me to build my own this winter, including a few practice wall hangers.
Fortunately, I was at work when you posted the WW, rec boat and sea kayak roll comparison, as well as Euro/GP differences, and rolls without a paddles. Then I realized it was about time I look at the one my friend left in the shop. My first reaction was, somebody stole it and replaced it with a replica of a different designed. The stubby two-bladed cricket paddle turned out to be 88 inches, 223 cm. From the floor to my crooked fingers. No wonder I thought it was a stub, I replaced my 240 cm Euro with a 250 (Wow! After using it for 7 years, I knew it as 250 cm, but not 98 inches, 3 inches past my extended fingers - comments welcomed). Regarding the GP, I learned that his loom may be too narrow; he’s the same build, maybe taller. I wish I knew more back then, because he was a walking encyclopedia and loved to experiment.
I have enough experience to know that perception colors reality, yet I fell victim. My opinion of GPs was from pictures of Eskimos paddling to escape angry whales, and that image persisted despite a physical example of one. I might be dumb, but I’m not smart. Many such examples of my epiphanies. Too many to cover.
My comments are to help you understand how you have connected in shaping my “awareness”. It doesn’t matter how many miles you’ve paddled, what you’ve read, or how many classes you’ve attended. You and many other have a knack for explaining an issue. And I don’t “recall” you, as well as several others, ever telling me what I have to do.
The most important point I want to make is for inexperienced new kayakers to understand that there’s a lot of information here, and if you don’t want to be preached to, figure out how to ask the right questions. One kayak does not fit all needs or every condition. If you buy a tubby boat and hug the shore, you may aggravate a lot of people trying to fish. You’ll also have to negotiate fields of pesky seaweed, or eventually be intrigued by a distant location. It’s when you feel confident and react to your impulses that you find yourself in a predicament that could keep you from ever applying the hard learned lesson.
Celia and willowleaf, the roll with/without skirt and efficiency of a style in rolling makes absolutely clear sense. Same clarity between sidewalk cruiser and a road bike, track bike, or mountain bike. Just as there is a specialized triathlon bike when a road bike is used in a similar environment. A cross bike is a cross, but master of none. Same as a kayak.
This place is like the restaurant no one goes to anymore because it is too busy. 
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There’s that crazy humor. At least the price is good. I’m on a post where the guy is giving away free information out of his book. I can’t remember everything. So now I got to buy his book.
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