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Rolling, rolling, rolling!

pawsplus

pawsplus

Paddler
Joined
Jan 19, 2015
Messages
1,063
Location
Landlocked in Tennessee
Went to the lake w/ my friend Joel on Sat. He doesn't have a roll yet, but he's strong and can right my boat. And it turned out that when I told him what to look for, he really could help me by telling me if I was letting the paddle dive or not arching my back enough.

This was the first time trying all my new rolls in my own boat (as opposed to the Tahes I used at TIPS, PPS, and with Mike in Vancouver). And I DID THEM!!!! All but the hand roll. Decided not to try that without an instructor until I am really confirmed with the Norsaq. But did the Norsaq and the shotgun rolls with only a few misfires, and then tried the butterfly roll, which I hadn't officially gotten to with an instructor, but had worked on parts of (balance brace in and out, etc). And it was EASY! I am FINALLY at the point where I can diagnose what I'm doing wrong and fix it (and having eyes above the water really helped with that). Usually with me it's that I didn't wait to let the boat get all the way over before starting, or that I'm not arching my back enough.

I'm excited that the next time I see Dubside I'll be able to show him all of those, and hopefully start on some forward-finishing rolls! :)
 
The next time I go to the lake I want to work on "if something goes wrong." I.e., if my shotgun roll fails, I need to be able to recover, set up for a standard roll, and get back to the surface w/out having to wet exit. Because I won't always have someone ready to right me and I want to work on these things a lot.
 
Paws, I love your enthusiasm and desire to learn! If you love this sport (which you obviously do!) you will NEVER learn everything there is to know about kayaking. No matter how much you know, there is always something new to learn. I started sea kayaking 31 years ago and finally took a WW intro class in 1998 to improve my boat handling skills and combat rolls. Twenty years later, I'm more of a river runner than a salty dog, but I have never lost my love of the sea and the wonderful places a sea kayak can take me. My only advice is to keep doing what you're doing! Have fun and keep learning. Kayaking is life. Enjoy!
 
Greg Stamer told us that once he had learned all the Greenland rolls and ropes moves, he got bored and didn't want to do them anymore. So he moved on to long-distance racing. I can't see myself ever getting bored with them, but there definitely IS always more stuff out there to do! :)
 
My latest passion is self-support whitewater kayaking trips, which push me to use all my skills and experience learned from decades of sea kayaking, whitewater kayaking, and backpacking. I just finished a 9-day, 200 mile trip in Idaho down Marsh Creek, the Middle Fork Salmon, and the Main Salmon. It was a high water, high adventure trip with very active weather. In a couple weeks, I'm returning to Idaho for a 220 mile solo trip that will start in the Sawtooth Mountains and end on the Snake River in Washington. I just love watching the country go by from the seat of a kayak!

But there are so many other aspects of kayaking to pursue... One friend quit river running in order to do her new passion, long-distance racing. Other friends are passionate about slalom racing, kayak polo, play-boating, rock-gardening, etc., etc. There ALWAYS something new to learn!
 
More rolling practice yesterday. I worked on the re-enter and roll (which takes a little finesse, given that stupid "Smarty Hatch" in my boat that extends down 4" into my leg space!), as well as switching the paddle underwater and rolling up on the other side, and going in with the paddle not set up at all. What I really need to concentrate on for a while, I think, is my left side standard roll. I'm SOOOO right handed. My right roll is great and easy and I don't even have to think about it -- the left is agonizing. I KNOW the things I'm doing wrong but find it hard not to do them!

The butterfly roll and shotgun roll are really going well (right side only). :)
 
PawsPlus - it is inspiring to read about you having so much fun. One exercise - and modification - for the future is working with the spare paddle. At present, mine are on the front deck, but out of reach. I have home-made pvc tubes tied to deck cord. I'll make the tubes longer and/or move them towards the cockpit so I can reach the paddles. Then a roll practice would be to abandon/loose the main paddle, pull half a paddle from the holder and roll up with it. If your spare is also a greenland paddle, then maybe it is already full length.

Thank you for mentioning arching your back, even with non-greenland paddles, I can see how that could make just that little bit of difference to get over.
 
Great idea, designer! I will add that! I have 2 GPs at this point--a wooden one and a 2-piece Gearlab one. I will practice with 1/2 a paddle first. Basically that's like a slightly shorter paddle in a shotgun roll or a longer Norsaq. The Norsaq is about 70% at this point--if everything is right, it works. If I mess anything up, it's all over. That's one you can't fudge!

Question for anyone who uses GPs: At yesterday's session, I wanted to transfer my roll from my GP to a Euroblade. My right-hand standard Greenland roll is so automatic now that I really didn't think it would be hard. But I COULD NOT DO IT. I hate to have to wait until November, when I will next see Dubside, to work on this. Any suggestions, tips, etc? It just felt like it was diving no matter what I did and Joel, who was up above, confirmed it. I felt as if I were trying to roll in jello.

Did get some good practice in on the left-side roll, though. I can go over and scull for days on the right side--just lying on my back, soaking up the rays, and gently sculling, but what is easy on the right is hard on the left. So worked on that, and, of course, what helped was really remembering to arch my back and keep my ears well down in the water. After about 30 min of working on that, I tried a left roll and BINGO. Much better. Did a bunch of those and it feels better. Will keep working it until it as good as the right.
 
For the euro blade:
-extend the euro as much as you can, with both hands on the shaft
-while in the setup position, incrementally adjust blade angle until paddle no longer dives.
-try using the back face instead of the power face (assuming the power face is grabbing too much water ie jello)
-try a roll where you pause in a sculling position before recovering onto the back deck. You might need to learn this with the GP first.
-take some video & post it
-work backwards from the recovery position ie lay on back deck, slide into water, recover. Repeat but now move torso out & forward before recovering.
 
I'm not (at all) a good roller, but I have had plenty of problems with diving paddle blades on roll practice. That may help! :)
Nootka's hints are good. I'll express the same ideas in slightly different words.
Some things that helped me:
My paddle is 'straight' i.e. unfeathered, so using an extended paddle (gripping the blade end the same way some beginning GP rolls work) let me be a bit more conscious of what the 'working end' was doing. That's also my go-to on a reset if a couple of 'regular' rolls fail. I hate bailing out if it can be avoided.
Releasing my usual 'death grip' on the paddle shaft and letting the paddle float on the surface (a bit easier with a foam filled blade) before starting to sweep showed me the 'flat' position.
A few exploratory part sweeps (sculls) before trying to roll up usually tell me if the blade is diving (or at a too-steep climbing angle). If I can feel blade resistance, it usually means the angle is wrong. When it's right, it seems 'effortless'.
 
Euro blades require much more care about blade angle than a GP does, so that likely is what I would look at first. If the paddle blade is not staying at the surface, this is the likely issue.
 
Sculling with the euroblade--I will work on that. I can lie in the water and scull forever with the GP--doing it w/ the euroblade will really help, I think. Will try that next time. Having to worry about the power face vs. non-power face is a PITA--this is reason #1,543,678 why I LOVE MY GREENLAND PADDLE! :)

Nootka-how can I use the back face? With paddle held in usual paddling orientation, the only way to re-orient it for the roll is Dubside's "happy hands" (wrists bent back towards body, which necessarily puts the power face on the water). ??
 
Nootka-how can I use the back face? With paddle held in usual paddling orientation, the only way to re-orient it for the roll is Dubside's "happy hands"
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If your hands are not glued to the paddle shaft, you could just rotate the shaft in your hand :)
ie as though you were paddling with the wrong face. Rotate 180°, fall in, scull.
 
respectfully, I think rotating the paddle 180 deg is a complication . . . and I think that it might be too much of a complication.

About paddle location - the paddle does not need to be right on the surface: it will give lift anywhere [even directly opposite the surface] as long as the sweep is just over 90deg to a force applied to it. [In this case the force is generally 90deg to the longitudinal axis of the kayak. And additionaly , the force is not necessarily altho mostly in opposition to gravity - ie one tries to make the kayak 'roll around']

Paddle dive is very common. One of the simplest techs [assuming you keep your eyes open] is to pretend that your tender nose is tied to the paddle blade by an unbreakable 15" long string during the whole sweep. That way you can monitor the angle and assure yourself of a decent sweep - it also is a brilliant tool to delay body rotation until the last minute - or setup for reverse sweeps or sculling. If you don't open your eyes, or its night, or the water is murky or roiled up, you can reach forward with your back [or forward depending on turbulence] hand to assure yourself that the blade angle is initially set correctly. Another way to think about it is that a euro blade, especially, is a much blunter sweeping tool than a greenland, and conversely to initial thoughts, is much less prone to stalling for larger angle of attack variations [much much lower aspect ratio]. This means that you will derive lift from almost any variation of an attack angle, wheras a greenland will stall out [at those same higher attack angles]. So if one gets paddle dive, just exaggerate a better angle and lift will happen.

[I swear in some 'panic' situations that I have got lift from an almost 89.99999999 deg angle of attack, heh heh]

[whatever the case, I personally have found [repeatedly and it's oxymoron over and over again]that it is less fruitful to practice more on the strong side than the 'weakest' - as whatever techs are learned on the lesser side much more easily converts to the stronger versus the reverse - but I ain't the teacher here!]
 
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pawsplus said:
With paddle held in usual paddling orientation, the only way to re-orient it for the roll is Dubside's "happy hands" (wrists bent back towards body, which necessarily puts the power face on the water). ??
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I may be mis-understanding this statement, but for me, rolling my hands 'back' or 'up' by bending my wrists back toward my body will create a diving blade; I usually need to think about rolling my hands 'forward/down' (flexing my wrists?), or at least keeping my hands in a 'neutral' position to get a climbing angle on the blade.
 
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