disagree.
My primary contact with the boat is in the knee/thigh. The hip translates the upper body motion into the lower body motion that rotates the boat. That isn’t true of a pure C-to-C but I believe it is for the Kent Ford sweep.
I think one of the real keys in this video is the finish position of the offside non-sweeping arm. If you can get that hand to finish in close to the shoulder without punching out or up, it will be huge in bomb-proofing your roll and protecting your shoulders. The same is true of Greenland standard layback roll.
Ok, I know Salty is going to say to stop thinking so much and just roll up, but this has worked for me and others.
How do you disagree?
If you start the rotation with the knee/thigh you get less power. If you start the rotation with the hips, as you describe, you get more power and the knees/thighs follow and contribute. The same is true of the C2C, btw, which is where we probably disagree.
Dogma Fans
– Last Updated: Jul-01-09 11:06 PM EST –
Go find your self an Austrailian high performance waveski. Try getting both hands out of the water to set up, Start rolling the boat the instant you begin to sweep, try keeping the paddle sweeping on the surface with no resistance. No fair if you are taller than 5'8" and weigh less than 200 lbs.
Let me know how you do.
the suspense is killing me
what will happen???
♫ Knee bone’s connected to the …
… thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the hip bone… ♫
For most the thigh makes contact and power comes from leg and back muscles working together. Knee and hip are just linkages/support structure - so you’re both wrong! Ha!
Seriously though, you’re just describing / reading same stuff differently as far as I can tell. These descriptive limitations can be harmless, or can screw a lot of people up when learning. “Hip flick” in particular (and that is I think what Ford was getting away from for descriptive reasons and to further differentiate from C to C).
thanks Wetz but . . .
I will not be rolling this weekend or ever again in local murky waters per my post in the other forum.
Three days after extensive rolling practice in Round Lake (right after all that rain), I have a painful infection in my nose and sinuses that antibiotics thus far are not working well on. Sent to ER last nightafter 1 week. I am not suceptable to these infections, it may be coincidence, but who knows. Not to overreact but for rolling going forward- no more Mohawk River, Round Lake, etc. I will be a water snob and only roll in waters that people swim in-Lake George, Moreau Lake, Adirondack lakes, pools, ocean. I will probably not be rolling for a while until this infection is gone.
I’d like to know more
As I think I have some height/weight related disadvantages as you desctribe - over 5’8" and under 200lb (6’4" and 185+) and that seems to give me extra flotation from the extra large boats I must use that makes it more difficult for me to come up in the WW boats (no such problem in the Sea kayak as mine is “low volume” for me and sinks low during the roll, where the WW one stays up a lot higher).
Or did you have something else in mind.
Thanks!
The tuck
To answer your question directly, yes, 3 feet below the surface would be what you are trying to avoid. The higher the better. I haven’t seen the video but perhaps the person they used did a crummy roll and they left it on the video??
When you enter the water and come around to the other side, ideally you want to pull your body up to the surface and begin the sweep. It’s call a tuck. Not hang upside down under water and just reach your arms up. You will gain tremendous power with very little work rolling from this tucked position. Whereas if you just hang upside down and reach up, it leads to the diving paddle and more leveraging with the paddle and less body involvement.
If you get the chance, check out the book, “The bombproof roll and beyond”. It can be a bit over-analytical but a lot of good illustrations and advice. The best roll is the one that works. Try to get your sweep high towards the surface and use more and more of your body and less paddle and you will be on the right track. The blade angle should be in a climbing angle but not so angled where it is plowing.
It’s often said that if babies could understand language when they are very young, they would never walk with all the instructions. You need to just relax and practice and give things time.
Ditto Jay
"The Bombproof Roll and Beyond" by Paul Dutky (Menasha Ridge Press). Excellent resource with good illustrations and explanations.
colorful descriptions
Sometimes descriptions of this type help a person visualize the mechanics of what they need to be doing.
Getting up to the surface from the tuck position, and staying there during the sweep are critical. It is important to think about relaxing your onside trunk to allow it to stretch during this phase and to contract the muscles of the opposite side of your trunk as if you were trying to touch your offside ear to your knee.
Paddlers sometimes have difficulty figuring out what to do with the non-rolling blade. A great kayak instructor (whose name I will protect) liked to tell students to position their non-sweeping hand as if they were going to stick their thumb up their rear end.
Something that helped me develop a better snap was the suggestion that I pretend as if I am trying to touch my onside ear to my onside hip.
Keeping the head down as the roll finishes is also critical. Ken Kastorf suggested that I pretend that I was holding my wallet on my onside shoulder with the side of my head.
Sometimes rather hokey descriptions of this type “click” with a particular paddler better than more arcane descriptions of body ergonomics.
OK, time to figure this out …
Steve (flatpick) and Alex’s (schizopak) camp: neutral to slightly diving angle on the blade (plus body posture - I presume means ‘tuck’ (JayBabina) and hold that position while twisitng torso
vs.
Jay (JayBabina) camp: a slightly climbing paddle angle with the tuck
vs. Kent Ford ‘The Kayak Roll’ camp: neutral blade angle.
No wonder we confuse people!
I believe I use and teach a slightly climbing angle, but it’s probably closer to neutral than anything. Now I’ll have to go look at my own rolling videos!
The bottom line is: ‘The best roll is the one that works.’ as Jay states.
Climb, dive or neutral angle? They all work in moderation which indicates to me the relatively insignificant role of the paddle in a kayak roll.
Best,
~wetzool
Back in the day …
There was something called a “slash roll” and something called a “sweep roll”. Chris Spelius (in the video cited above) was a major proponent of the slash roll and traveled around the US teaching it. At that time the sweep roll called for a slightly climbing angle at or near the surface. The slash roll was different in that you could do it with a diving angle if your body motion was correct and there was little or no resistance to paddle movement. The emphasis was on body rather than paddle. Whereas the traditional sweep roll relied on the support of the moving paddle on the surface with a climbing angle. Spelius is recognized in the video “The Kayak Roll” and his own video of the “twist and slice” is very consistent with The Kayak Roll.
interesting… when I see people sweep
roll and struggle with it I suggest they ‘tweak’ things by ‘rolling’ their wrists back. This ‘sheds’ the resistance and allows the body action to flow easier.
It doesn’t matter if you start with a climbing blade angle, but it is important (IMO) to finish with a diving blade angle.
angles
– Last Updated: Jul-02-09 10:07 PM EST –
I usually have my blade at very slight climbing angle (or try to) whether I am doing a sweep roll or a C-to-C roll. In the C-to-C I attempt to keep the paddle blade out of the water during the sweep but realize I probably don't always.
The purpose of the climbing angle is merely to keep the paddle blade from inadvertantly diving during the sweep. Also when rolling in whitewater, one is sometimes sweeping the paddle through waves and a diving angle might cause the paddle to inadvertantly sink during the sweep, even if one has it clear of what would ordinarily be the surface level.
I doubt it makes a big difference whether the blade is neutral or at a slight climbing or diving angle. It's hard for me to imagine my sweep "stalling out" due to having a slight climbing angle due to resistance on the blade.
I agree that dorsiflexion of the onside wrist is an important element in the sweep roll so I probably do finish the sweep roll with a bit of diving angle.
The key thing …
… all those differences (being tiny differences between neutral, neutral +, or neutral -) should point out:
Don’t be focused on/obsessed with the paddle!!!
Slightly this way or slightly that way should be a matter of doing whatever doesn’t mess you up/get in your way as far as your body mechanics go.
This blade stuff is fun to focus on and play around with for refinement and exploration of various techniques AFTER getting something/anything working.
To get things working takes body focus first. Easiest way get that tuned up is to keep more of your focus on the kayak than the paddle.
When you can do these rolls you can do them with pretty much any paddle in any orientation (upside down/backward/whatever), a 2x4, broom, etc.
My Experience
My roll was lousy until someone told me to get the thigh / knee involved.
Exactly NM
slightly climbing
I was taught neutral. I’ve found any diving angle could quickly cause the blade to dive a lot. So I keep a slightly climbing angle more to avoid the risk of accidentally making it a diving angle (i.e. I’m not perfect so have a small margin for error).
However while recently working on my off side I noticed that if I keep a very loose grip the blade would stay neutral on its own. I have a foam core blade which might help this. So basically my blade knows how to sweep correctly and I just have to avoid getting in its way.
As far as the OP seeing most paddles in videos diving I think that’s pretty normal, but it’s generally either minor or not until the person was most of the way up anyway.
all styles are relaxed
these things are just SO SO SO SO COUNTER intuitive
all the folks who master the various zillion types of rolls have
completely relaxed hands, arms, and neck, they hardly grip the paddle, their focus is totally on rotating the boat.
if you notice sometime just let go of the paddle, it will float neutrally in the water!!!
What matters
1. Focus on your body rather than your arms or paddle.
2. What works for you to maximize the effect of your body
For most people, doing a “salsa” dance move with body rotation works fine. Using Greyak’s metaphor, the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone is connected to the knee bone. The sequence is important. The reverse is not as effective (the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone is connected to the hip bone). But probably what is most important is to ignore your paddle, hands, arms and focus on hips and rotation.