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 ============================================================================== *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Hi, when I read this little story about learning skills (btw very interesting) it made me posting the following story. It's about learning to roll. I took a Eskimo -better Inuit- Roll clinic last year in April, before I ever was in a seakayak on open water. Just did a self rescue clinic before -also in the pool. Well, at that time it didn't work very well. Only the first 180 degree of the roll were bomb-proof, the other 180 worked only with aid of the paddle float now and then. Almost a year later, during the last 3 weeks I did 2 pool sessions with a whitewater gang in one of their little tiny playboats -was hard to believe that I could squeeze myself into one of these things. Seems like one of those would almost fit into the rear hatch of my seakayak ;) However, I think they are great to learn the basic rolling technique. Whenever I tried to roll up with the paddle not 100% in the right orientation, this little thing started to spin around his bow instead of rolling up. This shows you every little mistake and forces you to correct it. It works now and then, but I need definitely a couple of more sessions in the pool before I try unforced rolling in the Atlantic. The ocean here in Nova Scotia gets even in the summer only up to 16 Celsius, parts of it are right now solid. Anyway, now I am curious to give it a try with my seakayak, but than 50% of the whitewater boats have to stay out of the pool ;) The guys might hate me for that. Keep on learning and practising Cheers ulli Ulli Hoeger Dept. Physiology and Biophysics Dalhousie University Halifax, B3H4H7, Nova Scotia Canada Phone I : 902-494-2673 Fax: 902-494-1685 Phone II :902-488-6796 http://is.dal.ca/~uhoeger *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: paddlewise_at_lists.intelenet.net Subscriptions: paddlewise-request_at_lists.intelenet.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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