John Kuthe wrote:
On Jan 11, 10:36 am, rb608 wrote:
On Jan 10, 11:30 pm, John Kuthe wrote:

PS: good luck learning it on your own! I've met a precious few who
have,
I hear ya. We got the books, we got a good video. #1 offspring tried
doing it on our vacation in a Maine pond, tried it again in the
swimming pool at home. Despite understanding what was *supposed* to
happen, he only managed to get upright once in a few dozen tries.
We're looking for a local rolling course this winter.

j

Two words for ya: "head down" and HIP SNAP!

I had a guy solicit me for private roll instruction once. Seems he and
his wife and a small group of friends were getting into kayaking, and
they all had kayaks and read all the books and watched all the videos,
and tried and tried and tried to roll in a pool but just could not get
it. For some reason they all exschewed the pool class I normally
helped teach, so for a reasonable sum of $ I agreed to come to a HS
pool they had gotten access to and instruct them. The guy was my
easiest student ever, because he listened to what I told him and
within an hour of one-on-one pool instruction he had his roll.

And the 'hip snap" I decided is mal-named. It's really a "knee up", or
as I saw one female kayaker instructing another female kayaker on the
Internet "Think about kneeing a guy in the nuts!"

Head Down and KNEE UP!

The "head down" part is the hardest to learn, but the most effective
too. As I liked to tell my students in the pool "For millenia getting
our heads up when in water has saved human lives. All the humans who
didn't get their head up in water drowned, so what were left with are
the offspring of all the humans who got their heads up in water, after
generation aftwer generation (the "head downers all died!) So what we
are gonna do in the next hour is try and UNlearn millenia of
evolutionary teaching!"

Remember: you have to get the BOAT UP first, not your head! And to get
the boat up you need to pull your head down. Strange but true! Your
head is like a ball of lead that's gonna flip the boat upside down (if
it's not over the centerline of the boat!) Get your head down and hip
snap (or knee up, or whatever you wanna call it) to get the BOAT UP
first. then once the boat is up, use the paddle in a light high brace
to be able to get your head up. Only AFTER the boat is up.

John Kuthe...

While this is all true, it's primarily so if you're teaching the "C to
C" roll or something similar. For touring boats, particularly if they're
loaded with gear, rolls that rely on a quick snap don't work well, as
the boat will not react quickly. Since timing is critical with this type
of roll, the slowed boat response can really screw it up. Layback rolls
with a slower sweep are generally more effective. They are also much
more forgiving of timing and head position.