Working on my roll.
Ya! the Romany tends to roll by it’s self if I let it! We were out today in the Gulf off shore islands and were practicing rolling. Water is 78 and crystal clear. Next time I go out I am taking the GP. Still having trouble with the paddle diving on me, but still getting up.
hmmmm…
“So I did something people tell you never to do: I practiced with a paddle float on.”
(prolly going to get flak for this but hey)
i know a few good instructors that use a paddle flaot to help teach a roll…i know that i do…
rob
Style issue?
“Still having trouble with the paddle diving on me, but still getting up.”
If you come up it’s not the usual diving issue - or at least not extreme. You may just be using a bit of stroke component to paddle your self around, or finding a different spot/angle to get some purchase. Sometimes this is muscling (bad), sometimes just variation (good/useful).
If it’s working reliably for you and feels smooth/easy just call it a slash roll, and move on to other types.
The Inuit
– Last Updated: May-04-07 4:06 PM EST –
and other native kayakers probably learned when they were very young -- at the age when kids can be in the water until they turn blue, and still say "I'm n-n-n-not c-c-c-cold!" We soft American geezers take a while to adapt. I did a few rolls in a sub-40-degree pond the other day, but I wouldn't consider it an ideal learning enviornment for the kind of folks I usually see wanting to learn to roll.
from a total pool junkie…
But in general Aleuts, Greenlanders, and Inuits didn’t paddle for recreation like we do. During the winter, while I still try to sea kayak and run whitewater as much as I can, eventually things freeze over or get cold enough that rolling or playboating practice isn’t all that enjoyable. I probably do 2-3 pool sessions a week all through the winter and come out of the pool each year a better paddler than when I went in. It’s my time to work on the minute technical skills that I otherwise would neglect during the course of paddling during the warmer months.
For teaching, I like the pool because standing in cold water for hours at a time can get chilly even with a drysuit.
Pool
Why pool?
Well, my club meets to paddle after work once a week during the working days (every Wednesday or whatever). In the summer we always paddle the local canal with 2 or 3 waves; in the winter it’s pool time instead.
The pool is great fun - swimming, rolling, bracing, technique drills in general, but that usually stops when someone discovers the polo ball and we all go trashing each others. Usually turns out “swimmers against 'yakers”. And pizza afterwards.
So… do I need a pool? No. Do I want it? Yes. 
LOL
the Inuits would have rolled in pools if they had had them!
That’s ok,
Beale’s been throwing some pointers my way on hand rolls. He’s the head of instruction for OOPS (Oregon Ocean Paddling Society), so when I teach with OOPS, we so far end up teaching together. Often toward the end of the class when students are tuckered out, we’ll do some rolling too.
I learn a lot about teaching from watching Don, and from watching a couple other very good teachers with OOPS. I bet I would learn a lot from you, too. And from other experienced instructors who frequent this board.
Paul
(We need a teleportation technology to go with this internet technology.)
OK, OK…
I get it… Where I live the water stays above 40, which isn’t bad.
I hear people all the time where I live talk about waiting for the pool sessions to practice. I can’t relate and they tend to be the same folk who never really perform in the real stuff.
So, I can see a pool as a tool, especially in cold weather, but I firmly believe that unless folk practice in the cold dark real world regularly, they won’t have real world skills.
Just my thinking.
Dedication, or not
Yup, cold water is extremely distracting if you haven’t acclimated. I blew a roll completely the other night - royally, even forgot to just come up into a static brace to figure it out. Granted that I was tired and it was my first time upside down in the Vela since last November - I’ve been living in the WW boats since they are easier to carry in and out of pools - but the cold water on top of everything was definately a major factor. So I try to at least start being upside down in the 40’s.
But I don’t think that being able to apply skills in more challenge has much to do with pool or not.
I suspect that the people who don’t do the work to carry skills from the pool to outside are also unlikely to practice anything in cold water, period. Kayaking isn’t any different from other stuff - some people will do the minimal work needed and others will go beyond that.
We know someone who occassionally encounters WW paddlers who haven’t gotten a roll. They just go until they’ve capsized as much as they can stand and that’s the end of the trip. While I have huge respect for the difficulty of getting that roll - hopefully this season I can stay unflummoxed in strong current but haven’t managed it yet - I can’t imagine doing class 3 WW without overcoming that issue. Apparently these folks wouldn’t agree.
depends on the philosophy
I teach a sweeping roll that ends slight back and stressed shedding resistance on the blade. I don’t use a paddle float because it adds resistance. If I were going to teach I different way I might use a paddle float. But, I think I would just keep in contact with the paddle (as an instructor) so that I was the paddle float.
Pool vs WW
Yeah, we have enough folks who roll well enough in the pool but then get mental problems when they turn over in the “real world”.
For example, one of us is the perfect pool roller, but as soon as he capsizes in a river, he immediately pushes the spray shirt out with his legs, even before he sets up to roll. He’s working on removing that reflex, but it seems to be hard.
Uhhhh… That Was Me Last Weekend
– Last Updated: May-05-07 6:01 AM EST –
I got knocked over and swam last Saturday. Made me so damn mad. I did some thinking and realized it was most likely going from very warm air to fairly cold water that was the primary cause of the swim. The secondary was likely the gallon of water that filled the sinuses. When I swam up I was gasping for some time.
BUT... after I caught my breath I reentered; rolled up; pumped out, and paddled on.
Lessons learned: Be prepared. If I'm in conditions that will likely knock me over, I'll do some practice rolls and braces to acclimate to the cool water. Also I'll keep everything secured. I had to fetch my Chacos. Luckily they float!
Pools Are Great…
why not take full advantage of best conditions to learn to roll? Just remember once you rolled in a pool that it is a roll under ideal conditions. Now you have to go practice out there in colder, rougher conditions. It’s progression of mental conditioning and physical technique.
Mucho macho stuff going on in this thread.
sing
Yeah - it’s a progression
– Last Updated: May-05-07 9:15 AM EST –
And after each person gets that "first roll", which can happen any number of ways, that's when it becomes important to be attentive to what works for yourself. IMO anyway.
It is a great thing for those who can move from the pool to conditions seamlessly, and can as easily hold it together in surf and moving water. Once in a while I'd like to shoot those folks, but that's just envy. And I benefit - if these folks are around, they'll likely be able to rescue me if things start falling apart on the water.
But that's not me. I have had to steadily chew away at extreme anxiety down there so that I remember and act on the fact that that I am actually a pretty damnmed capable roller, sculler etc. By last season I had it set OK until it is strong current or significant surf, which is a huge improvement over a couple years ago. And I guess I have to work on that cold water/tired/switch boat thing a little more.
But that's just time and practice, and it'll happen as long as my health holds. As long as someone is paddling with appropriate safeties in place while these kinds of gaps exist, and they keep working at it, they shouldn't get overwrought about having a more lurching progression. I'd rather be paddling with someone who shares that kind of status than someone who goes out with false bravado.
You should practice …
in an unheated 45F pool. Oh yeah …
HAHAHA
Celia-
– Last Updated: May-05-07 10:17 AM EST –
I'm not bombproof yet(if ever), but one thing that has helped me in moving water is playing in safe places where I know I'll be flipped. Call it "unplanned but not unexpected". I'm not setting up and then flipping, but I'm trying to play on a wave or in a small hole knowing full well that I'll probably be leaving it inverted. The mental preparation is half the battle. Choose features that have a safe area downstream to eliminate another source of anxiety. Knowing that things will quiet down if you hold your tuck gives you incentive not to flail.
Paddle up the eddy, jump on the wave, and play until it cheerfully spits you out something other than upright. Roll up, and do it again. The 20th time is a lot less scary than the first.
I'll never be much of a playboater, but I'm having fun.
Not macho…realistic
I’m conceeding on the pool thing as ya’ll gave a lot of logic around it. You, a surf kayaker of all people know the huge importance of the mind in rolling. If the roll is hugely mental, but one only practices in a pool, they are not addressing the mental aspects of real world paddling. It’s that simple.
My experience with quite a few people is that subconciously they see the pool as their primary practice place, NOT a place where they can dial in a new skill in comfort before practicing in in the cold dark. As long as the pool does not become a crutch then have at it.
Two truths.
1. There’s no such thing as a “Bombproof Roll”
2. We are all “Between Swims”! (Nature bats last)
Exactly!
The pool is a great place for trying new stuff, but if the goal is self-rescue you need to learn to make it work where it’s cold and bumpy and noisy and dark. No argument there.
That was what surprised me most the first time I flipped in whitewater – the noise. All my practice had been on flat water, and I just didn’t expect how loud it would be.