[Paddlewise] ECCKF Advanced Rolling Course and thougths (long winded)

Rolling is a special topic with me.  I do rolling for the fun of it. The 
fact that it gives me an additional benefit as a rescue option is a plus.
I became fascinated with the concept of rolling a kayak long before I ever
paddled one.  The idea that one could right a kayak through a series of 
twists and turns enthralled me.  Hence, when I started kayaking, learning 
a roll was one of my first priorities - I had to be able to do that cool 
manoeuvre.

I learned to do the Pawlata first and soon after took another course to 
learn the C-C and screw rolls.  It took quite a while to advance beyond 
that, in part due to a lack of good instruction in this area.  

I took an advanced rolling course in Grand Marais a couple of years ago 
at the Great Lakes Symposium - based on Euro paddles (EP) for the most 
part.  In one hour, they taught a group of us one roll - the reverse 
screw roll (Steyr for the Greenland paddle (GP) users.)  I couldn't get 
the roll at the time (in no small part due to fatigue), but the next time 
I tried it, I was successful.  The instructor did an excellent job in
teaching me the essence of the roll.

Heavy-duty pool work this past winter along with access to lots of roll
descriptions on the Qajaq USA web site meant I learned a bunch of new rolls.
However, working from written descriptions meant I wasn't sure if I was
doing them right.  I needed to have a check on my technique.  When I found
out that the advanced rolling course at ECCKF was going to highlight
traditional techniques, I was delighted.

Mark Molina presented a rolling demonstration early in the festival.
http://members.rogers.com/michaeldaly2/MarkMolinaEcckf.htm
This was a good warm-up for me, just seeing someone do these rolls and
being able to ask a couple of questions.

The course I was in was on Sunday afternoon and Margaret and Ray Killen
were well prepared with spare GPs for those that didn't have their own.
Since I had made a GP and a storm, I used my own.  They divided the group
into two.  The smaller group were those that admitted to having a weak
roll, while the larger group were those of us who lie and brag.  Margaret
took the smaller group and Ray took the rest of us to task.

This is where it got interesting.  My previous symposium's advanced 
course taught one roll in an hour.  This course was two and a half hours 
long and we went through so many rolls I lost count!

Starting with the basic Pawlata/Standard Greenland roll we quickly moved
on to the screw roll.  Then we tried a few variations on brace type rolls.
The butterfly (aka backhand, aka ??? I forgot the third name he used) 
formed a base for several other rolls.  Put Across and similar were also
done.  Vertical paddle rolls were tried with success.  Twisting our
bodies for some of the fancier sweep rolls literally stretched us to 
new limits!

We also worked through a few trick rolls.  For the first time, I began to
see that these rolls have a pedagogical value.  Ray had a justification
for almost every roll and these were no exception.  While he didn't say
so explicitly, I began to see how some trick rolls do in fact emphasize
a specific skill.  Some will force the paddler to rely on feel or trust.
Others will ensure a degree of versatility - to adapt to a change in
the situation.  And, perhaps most of all, when put together with all
the other rolls, they form a continuous range of rolls for all sorts
of conditions.  If you develop a set of rolls like these, you can be 
ready for anything, regardless of how you go over, what you are doing
or what position you're in.  For the Inuit, these were obviously essential
skills.

The behind-the-head roll proved to be my major undoing.  I can't "get" 
this roll (yet!).  The water was murky, so I couldn't see what was going 
on underwater when Ray demonstrated.  I have the Rolling With Maligiaq 
video, but it wasn't going to help me on the water.  I rely on my body 
figuring out stuff by imitation and that requires "seeing" with my body.  
I can't explain this, but I'm sure many athletes would understand the 
concept.  When I invert, I have to just do the move - if I start to think, 
I come undone.  I managed to come up a couple of times, but weakly. 

I also had trouble with the one-arm sweep (aka armpit roll) - same reason.
I'm halfway between a proper sweep and a butterfly when doing this one
and if I think, I get completely lost.  I believe I managed one at most and 
it too was weak.  These two rolls will require some practice!

At the end of the class, we finished by doing a sweep roll with someone 
hugging the back deck.  I knew I would get this one, since I've practiced 
with a fully loaded Solstice GTH and know I can rely on my screw roll.  
I started the roll, immediately noticed I needed more "oomph", adjusted my 
paddle sweep on the fly and generated a good, slow, emphatic hip roll.  
I was up easily.  It's good to do something like this to keep up my confidence 
in my skill; it's so easy to think I rely too much on luck or strength.

I was, I guess, typical of the class.  Some had trouble with a few rolls but
got most of them.  One woman, Regan, was awesome, flubbing only a single roll!
She obviously has a natural skill in rolling.  It struck me that there was
such a division in the course.  The weak paddlers who were separated required
special attention but the others got through almost everything.  I didn't see
any wide spectrum of skills, but rather a tight clumping of skills.  Either
folks can't do it, can do them poorly and need work or do them generally well 
and advance easily with practice.

This puts me in a strange frame of mind.  It started with this past winter's 
pool sessions and was reinforced with this class.  Let me say at the outset
that Ray's instructions were top notch.  But still there's something else.
Is it the switch to the GP?  Is it the merging and maturing of disparate 
rolling skills into a single overall rolling skill?  Something is at work 
here and it's influencing the way I'm thinking about rolling.

So few sea kayakers learn to roll and those that do seem not to advance 
much beyond one or two rolls.  Yet I see in myself and the other students
a big jump into another realm of rolling.  That is not to say we are 
proficient in all these rolls.  But to go thru fifteen or twenty different
rolls with general success and to see that only practice is required in 
the future is something.  We're certainly well past the point of thinking
"gee, I wish..." when it comes to rolling. 

The Greenland paddle seems to be an influence.  I noticed early on in the pool
how easy the storm paddle is to use as a rolling device.  It floats into position,
it generates lift easily in a sweep or scull (self orienting, as Ray adequately
demonstrated) and lends itself to the various techniques.  But how critical is
it to our success?  This past winter, I made sure I could do most of the rolls
I knew with either the EP or the GP/storm.  But would I have learned them as
easily with the EP?  There's something in me that says "no."

At the same time, there are two rolls that I learned that created the greatest
difference in my skill set - the reverse screw roll and the butterfly.  The
former taught me to use the layback as a starting position and opened up a 
range of reverse techniques.  The butterfly taught me to rely on my hip snap
and a good layback finish (minimizing rotational inertia).  Once I had learned
these two, everything else seemed like just an extension.  

So many beginners start with the Pawlata or C-C and seem to stall in their learning.
It seems to me that learning a different roll would be better for these folks.  I 
asked Margaret if she felt learning a butterfly first helped those who couldn't do 
the Pawlata develop it later on.  She was pretty emphatic about confirming this.  

Maybe the secret to teaching the roll to most students (i.e. those who would have
trouble with most rolls) is to start with a butterfly or even a simple sculling
roll.  This would convince them that rolling is in the realm of the possible.
Then move on to other easy rolls.  Only introduce the harder rolls later.  Which
order to follow would, of course, depend on the student.  

Perhaps we have to get GPs into the hands of these students.  I see lots of 
beginners failing due to diving EPs - yet the GP seems to be dive-resistant 
(John Winters once told me that thick-edged paddles seem to be dive-resistant 
and suggested using a rim band on troublesome EPs).  Once they've developed
the basic rolling skills they can move on to a potentially finicky EP.

I also am thinking that it's time to emphasize rolling as an achievable skill
for a large number of sea kayakers.  White water paddlers roll in great numbers,
even if they stick to only one or two rolls.  Why can't we use a broad range
of rolls of differing difficulty to introduce sea kayakers to the skill?

Have I been biased by being exposed to a collection of exceptional paddlers?
Or have I seen what happens when ordinary paddlers are exposed to good 
instruction with good paddles?  I don't know, but I'm not stopping here.

Keep getting wet! :-)

Mike


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