[Paddlewise] A year and a half-VERY long

I figure everyone seems to be into the list so I thought I'd add my story. 
This was written on Aug 5, 2000.

--Today was like a turning point in my perception of my skills. All paddlers 
hear about how if you can roll it substantially expands your confidence 
because the consequence of flopping over doesn't have to be a swim. That is 
totally true and intellectually everyone can grasp such a simple idea. Today 
I got it.-

    In the 18 months I've been kayaking I missed only 2 weekends of paddling, 
at least in the pool. I quit counting miles at 750ish. I kept meaning to get 
back to the journal but. . . Thanks to some very concerned paddlers in this 
area I got great instructions in the basics of wet exits, self rescues and 
equipment at the very beginning of my paddling. I fell in the a great group 
of paddlers who allowed me to join them at times. My primary good fortune was 
to fall in with Woody, who has been just far enough ahead of me in skills to 
challenge me without  making me feel like I couldn't catch up with him. I 
can't tell you what a plus it is to have a good friend to paddle with.
    We have taken trips together, practiced together and encouraged each 
other, and it is all his fault I spent all that money on stuff. That's my 
story and I'm sticking to it! 
    One of the things he has done that I mostly wouldn't do is go out and 
practice alone. I'm way chicken about some things and being the middle-aged 
female I've indulged myself by not doing things that make me too nervous. 
Woody, a substantially younger male, will do what I claim are wacko things. 
I'm always glad to see him in one piece.  I always half feared hearing that 
some kayaker got his head stuck in the mud at Mason Neck and they were 
waiting for him to come to, to find out why he was upside down in such 
shallow, muddy water. I won't practice there, needless to say. His 
willingness to spend a great deal of time out practicing put him way ahead in 
the development of skills like rolling, bracing and not falling over doing a 
hanging draw. 
    I tried practicing rolling by myself a couple of times last summer. I 
decided that I wanted to learn to roll. Greg Welker, who is very generous 
with his time for anyone how asks, spent some time with me until I seemed to 
have gotten it. So, off I went to practice in a rather safe place. The thing 
was that I couldn't get over the idea that if something, who knows what, 
happened all they would see would be the upside down red hull of my boat and 
who knows how long I'd be there before anyone noticed. I can work myself into 
quite a state with ideas like that. Besides, I lost my good sun glasses there 
that day. So, I gave that up as too nerve wracking. I tried rolling at the 
pool but  somewhere along the line I lost my roll and couldn't seem to get it 
back. I'd make it up once in a great while, very frustrating. I needed to 
work with Woody but not in the cold water and not at Mason Neck. I wasn't 
going ask him to drive bizillion miles up to the pool. It would just have to 
wait.
    Over the winter I practiced all the rescues and stuff in my drysuit but I 
never had the nerve to try to roll except in the pool. Thank you one and all 
for stories of the gasp reflex, ice cream headaches and all that lovely 
stuff. I still haven't tried it in cold water. We were just speaking today 
about the thrill of new drysuits having worn real thin last year. I guess I 
have to invest in ear plugs this year.
    In January I got a new boat and spent the first month putting a new seat 
in, and new this and that before I ever even put her in the water. I couldn't 
roll her in the pool either! So I kept working on the stuff that I could do 
like sculling and bracing and strokes. I wasn't feeling so good about my 
skill level because I was seeing several people who had started after I had 
who were mastering their rolls and for whatever reason I was falling behind. 
I could even coach others in their rolls but I'd come out of my boat just 
about every time. I kept trying, and trying and trying. My other issue was 
that I didn't feel secure in the boat. It felt so tippy to me. More work on 
the seat and some rather tentative steps into the uncomfortable range of 
conditions has substantially improved this area for me.
    I had people look at my rolling to see what I was doing and they would 
say things like they had no idea what I was doing wrong. It all looked just 
right. It had to be the hip snap, but that looked right but they had no other 
idea to even put forward. So I plugged on, I worked more on my hip snap, 
making a roll here and there but mostly swimming. I just kept getting sucked 
out or falling out of the boat.
    Woody and I found a new place to work this past winter. It is a tiny bay 
on a cove by an army base. The little bay is very sheltered and when there is 
a wind it blows you or your boat back to shore. There is a sandy/pebble beach 
and the shore slopes for a short way then there is a quick drop off. This is 
all perfect for practice. You can practice really close to the shore but be 
in deep water or you can stand in water for working with each other.
    Woody has been really good about spotting me in the water. With him I 
seemed to be making more than not, so I gained a shred of hope that I'd get 
it. I can't explain the next series of  times I was on or off. I got fed up 
with not rolling my new boat so I brought the Looksha, a hard chine, plastic 
boat. It is narrower than my Gulfstream and it isn't my Gulfie. I rolled that 
boat very consistently. I got in Woody's boat, the same boat I have but with 
a different seat, and rolled it several times in a row so I went back to the 
Looksha to practice. The next day I went down by myself with my Gulfie but 
only made 6 of 15, if I recall. I pulled the new seat out and rolled her! 
Then I lost it again. How irritating!
    I can't recall the exact order of things but at one point I took Mardi 
down with me for Woody to teach her to roll in the Breeze on a Sat. I was in 
my Gulfstream and I was totally "on" that day. I made every roll except when 
I tried not to use the extended paddle position, and when I tried a different 
paddle. I must have made 25, as every muscle told me the next day. The next 
day I had my boat fully loaded for a swim support I was working and wanted to 
be sure I could still roll with all that stuff on the deck. Twice around and 
not a hesitation. I blew 2 rolls after the event and decided I was too tired 
to play get-back-in-the-boat. Besides, I was substantially annoying the 
fellow I was practicing with. 
    I struggled for a couple more weeks with a success here and there. I was 
making more and more but had no idea why I wasn't making all of them. When I 
made them it was like silk. When I didn't, I felt like I was being sucked out 
of the boat. The only other thing that I felt was wrong was a couple of times 
I couldn't get my paddle to the surface, like it was hung up on something. 
Weird feeling and I'd get scared and come out to see what it could be caught 
on.
    One day Woody pointed out that my paddle angle was odd. For those who 
don't know, I use a Greenland paddle. I "felt" what I was doing. I had the 
paddle turned so that it  was vertical in the water rather than horizontal! 
If I had been using a Euro paddle someone would have caught that months ago. 
Actually, I had been doing that last fall but THOUGHT I had corrected it. 
That was the turning point. Now I was making 95%. The other 5% were an 
irritant because I wasn't blowing one and managing to recover and make the 
next try.
    My solution to that was to hang upside-down and after a count of 10 try 
to "J" up with the paddle and come up. That was were I discovered what the 
"hang-up" was. I had my paddle horizontal in the water and I'm pushing it up! 
In essence I was making the same mistake in getting the paddle out of the 
water that I had been making on the sweep. So, I had to determine what was 
the best angle to hold the paddle was I went over to get it out of the water 
and then I had to "feel" the right angle for the sweep. This also lead to one 
of the many small successes I've had, I finally made my first recovery and 
now make almost all of them, even if it takes 3 or even 4 tries. My failure 
in 1, 2 or 3 is still the blade angle and when I feel it going south I can 
now usually make the adjustments before it is too late. Now I KNEW I could 
and I just had to fine tune what I knew about rolling.
    Today was like a turning point in my perception of my skills. All 
paddlers hear about how if you can roll it substantially expands your 
confidence because the consequence of flopping over doesn't have to be a 
swim. That is totally true and intellectually everyone can grasp such a 
simple idea. Today I did things I thought would take a lot longer. 
    I met Woody this morning with an ambitious agenda. I had put new bungies 
on the back deck and wanted to see if they worked, a paddlefloat self rescue, 
wanted to try to do a roll going over on the side I have never tried it from, 
wanted to try a reentry and roll and I wanted to try rolling with my 
Europaddle.
    We paddled long enough for me to get the kinks out and I tried a few 
rolls. I usually hold my paddle on my right and go over on my left side, 
which is essentially going over backwards, then I do a sweep up. As Woody 
said, "a piece of cake." I went and changed paddles but didn't have the nerve 
to just go over with the Euro. I finally asked Woody to spot me, which he 
kindly did. 
    I found the paddle weird. I may be overpowering it. I was encouraged to 
speed up my sweep when I was having so many problems and with this paddle I 
think I need to slow it down and I know I don't have a good angle on the 
blade. I felt a lot of resistance in the sweep, which I'd guess means I need 
to flatten the angle a tad. I just don't want it to dive on me. Woody said 
that he doesn't push his paddle up, he just lets it float up. When I tried 
that it was much easier and that slowed me down so I didn't feel so much like 
I was fighting the water.
    As I did the sweep I was hanging onto the boat with my legs and feet 
because I felt like I was being pulled out of the boat by the blade. On the 
third roll my foot came off the peg and I got the WORST charile-horse in my 
left calf! I still can't walk right. I just croaked and Woody had to pull the 
boat up because I was stiff with pain. I got out and tried to walk it out but 
really didn't manage much improvement. After a bit I decided forget the leg 
and that blade for the moment and I would try my reenter and roll. I got back 
in the boat then I thought that would be a good time to try the "over the 
other side" roll, assuming I would  make it because I actually needed to get 
out of the boat. I made it. It was actually a lot more comfortable than the 
roll to the left I've been doing. I'll have to try it some more, maybe 
tomorrow.
    I did find that the paddle got kind of sucked out of position but it 
wasn't hard to put it back. I needed to get out of the boat so I tried it 
again, I got to the point where I knew I had it and then sank back down so I 
could get out or I'd spend forever rolling this way and that. Woody was going 
to help me with the reenter and roll. I started by tried getting back in the 
boat without my paddle, just to see how hard it would be, simple! He told me 
to hold the paddle in one hand as I held the coaming and put the boat on. It 
worked like a charm, very easy. I almost made it that first try-bad blade 
angle! The second time was a breeze! Of course it would have been nice if I'd 
realized that there is a strong potential for falling all the way back over 
if I wasn't careful. I have no idea how I didn't but I didn't. 
    Then I tried the bungies and they worked well too. Now I have two way I 
can get back in my boat by myself, which all those who paddle with me will be 
most grateful for.
    After doing the reenter and roll with such ease I GOT IT. All the skills, 
and all the hours, and all the failures, and all the bits of this and that 
has been woven into a tool kit. I'm not suggesting that I'm all that good at 
things yet. What I have now is a kit with some usable tools. I don't have a 
combat roll. I don't want to fall over in the middle of the Potomac again to 
find out, either. 
    What struck me as I sat in the water after the reentry was that I took 
skills learned over the last year and a half and combined them in ways I'd 
never tried before and they worked!  Thank you to all the people who have 
shared their time, knowledge, passions, and equipment with me. I treasure 
your gifts.

Joan Spinner
Paddling the Chesapeake Bay 
watershed in a Yellow/white CD 
Gulfstream and a Red CD Breeze
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