Re: [Paddlewise] Dinkless In Victoria

On Wed, 24 Nov 1999, Doug Lloyd wrote:

> Please help me. I don't understand the apparently American prejudice toward
> flicking one's head up as one completes the C to C roll or finishes up from
> a low brace. The ACA seem to teach it. Roger Shuman writes articles
> extolling the virtues of the "head dink" maneuver. Derek Hutchinson is
> ranting and raving against it in the latest SK Magazine (letter to editor). 
> 
> I simply bring my head up last, keeping it well back. I can't see the need
> to use a head dink movement. I generally tell newbies to avoid a lot of
> unsafe head flopping, but now I see it actually being promoted and
> entrenched. Given geometric expansion of numbers, it won't be long before
> everyone in North America is head dinking. 
> 

Boy, now I'm confused. I've been taught the head dink by a number of
instructors, both SK and WW, and no one has ever described it as "flicking
one's head up." When you brace, what do you do with your head? Leave it
sticking straight up? Or drop it toward the knee that's righting the boat?
The latter is the head dink. 

I can't imagine where you or Derek got the idea that somebody thnks you
should flick your head _up_ at the end of a C-to-C roll or low brace. The
_Grace Under Pressure_ rolling video doesn't show that.  I've just looked
at several texts I have handy, and can't find and reference to dinking up.
Tom Foster and Kel Kelly (Catch Every Eddy, Surf Every Wave) say
"aggressively fling your head toward the working blade."  Slim Ray (The
Canoe Handbook) says "The paddler's head ... controls much of the motion
of the rest of the body...Generally speaking, when the head goes one way,
the body goes the other. So when the head goes down [ie, dinks (SC)], the
body --and therefore the boat-- comes up." 

In the Schumann and Shriner Sea Kayaker article, this appears on pages 28
and 29: "Don't undersrtimate the power of the head dink. Anyone who has
done an Eskimo roll training is probably familiar with being told to
_drop_ her head down toward the water. This is also a key element in good
bracing. [emphasis added]" The pictures at the top of those pages show the
paddler's head tilted _down_ at the conclusion of the brace. 

Finally, look at the picture on the top left of page 51 of Hutchinson's
Fourth Edition. The paddler is doing a high brace with his head dinked
toward the water on the right.

So, where have you found all these exponents of "dinking up"? I can't
find any.

Steve Cramer                     

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