[Paddlewise] Josh's Fourth Lesson: Discovering the Hip Flick!

This last Friday's lesson was a bit of a breakthrough...

It started when I told Omer my instructor that I was still feeling wobbly.
He said, "OK, let's work on that."  He placed his bow perpendicular to my
cockpit, and had me get the feel of tipping the boat while I held on to his
bow.  I did this a lot, to both sides, and was soon not even holding on to
his bow.  I was hip flicking, that prerequite for the holy grail of
kayaking, THE ESKIMO ROLL (big, booming letters).

After that, Omer stood behind me and tipped my boat suddenly to either
side, as I recovered with the low brace.

Next, we combined a sweep stroke with a lean;  this was it.  I could
confidently lean the boat while turning.  It felt great. And then, in the
middle of one of these turns, as I was about to capsize...low brace!
Instinctively.

The rest of the lesson was spent on the open water, off of Hertzliyyah.  It
was interesting to see that how much the behavior of the boat is dependent
on sea conditions such as wind, waves, etc. (I know, obvious...).  Greater
confidence in strokes, however, makes adjustments easier and more natural.
Omer gave me some more stroke tips, concentrating on the use of the torso
and feet (for the latter, kind of a bicycle thing).  These made my strokes
more effective, and had me using muscles I did not know I had, particularly
the upper thigh (pelvic?) muscles, just below the waist.

I was pretty wiped after this three hour trek, but satisfied that I had
turned a corner in my kayak training.

This concluded the four lesson, twelve hour introductory class, but not my
learning.  Jacqueline and I are joining Omer and Sagi's Terra Santa Kayak
Club, and hope to be out on the water fairly often.  We still need to
practice rescues, hopefully in tougher conditions.  In April, after the
fill the pool at the Dan Acadia Hotel in Hertzliyyah, there will be a
rolling clinic.  Gotta keep working on that hip flick...

Best wishes,

Josh in Ra`anana, Israel

==============================================================================
Dr. Joshua Teitelbaum, Research Fellow               Tel: [972] 3-640-6448
Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and        Fax: [972] 3-641-5802
  African Studies                                                       
Tel Aviv University
Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv 69978  Israel
E-mail:teitelba_at_ccsg.tau.ac.il
www.dayan.org
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