G'Day, At the weekend I was training with a friend deconstructing my rather ordinary and very reliable Pawlatta and trying to develop an intuitive sweep roll. Now we've just entered winter here and while a Sydney winter in Australia just doesn't compare with northern US conditions its still possible to get hypothermic. Part of our training involved practicing a variety of skills while in the water. After an hour or two, I was shivering and my roll and most of my other self rescue skills started to completely break down; apparently due to a mild state of confusion. Recognising the problem my mindset altered subtly to a state where I was much calmer and executed a slower than normal and almost effortless roll back up. Considering the disastrous effect cold can have on my skills I want to continue practising while mildly hypothermic to get used to adopting that positive mindset. I'm going to do this near a beach and with a friend nearby for assistance. As most Paddlewisers are likely to be more used to cold and its effects on skills I wondered what your experiences, techniques and precautions were for maintaining skills when mildly hypothermic (shivering)? All the best, PeterO *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
What was the water temperature you were working in? On 5/19/2010 2:59 AM, rebyl_kayak_at_energysustained.com wrote: > After an hour or two, I was shivering and my roll and most of my other > self rescue skills started to completely break down; apparently *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
Mark wrote >What was the water temperature you were working in? G'Day Mark, Not cold at all - 70deg F But in judging this, its body core temperature, the fuel that maintains it and the clothing and layers of fat that insulate the body core, that matters most to me. I'd had a good breakfast, was wearing five layers - rashie, polartec vest, waterproof vest, wetsuit, cag and PFD. After about a couple of hours activity in the water I was shivering and losing coordination. There's a theory I've heard that body fat was a survival advantage for Pacific islanders making long journeys between islands. High body fat so plenty of calories stored in the body and good thermal insulation! Sadly I'm no Pacific Islander, skinny as a rake, have to eat every hour or two and lose heat easily! Jim wrote >But, so far at least, even when shivering, my roll works >independently of my brain G'Day Jim, Thanks Jim you've hit the nail on the head That's the sort of thing we were trying to learn with the sweep roll. Currently both of us have intuitive Pawlatta's through years of practising and they serve well in surf and when we practice in choppy seas. However, neither of us are 'naturally' good at rolling, though we're both fit and strong. We've recently had to rescue people who were unable to cope in very rough water and its brought home to us that our margins for error are tight, so we're moving on from just relying on one trained response and to have a range of rolling related skills for a variety of conditions. As well as better judgement in assessing people! We're both at the stage where we step through the sweep roll sequence using one or two thought reminders for stages of the roll that we're working on and we've gone about as far as possible with that and its not intuitive. The rolls aren't smooth and it doesn't take much distraction to wreck them. The next stage for us is not thinking about the sweep roll and we refuse now to listen to comments from anyone nearby who tries to provide well meant feedback, because we don't want to be thinking about the roll while we do it. Rolling with eyes shut helps and rolling while doing something else i.e while paddling or cracking a joke or just talking helps. If and when the sweep roll starts to fail rather than continue rolling we go back to relevant exercises: sweeping and high bracing and handing ourselves up off a paddlefloat - the latter only possible if the finish position is exemplary! The idea being that we need to reset muscle memory. Rolling (eventually) while cold last week was a perfect example of how not thinking about it worked under distracting conditions I want to achieve that kind of state more often. Hope some of that makes sense. All the best and thanks for the comments, PeterO *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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