C-Forum

While learning to roll I have consistantly rotated the boat past 90 degrees but have been unable to make the transition of moving my head across the boat to complete the roll. One of the exercises to correct this is to hold on to the side of a pool or other fixed object while rolling the boat. For me this put a great deal of pressure on my shoulders and it did not seem to simulate natural movement of a paddle while rotating the boat under my body. What I did was to take a sheet of 1/4" minicell foam and make a paddle float. I cut pieces to the paddle blade shape and then secured the edges with duct tape. I now had a tight fitting sleeve which fit over the blade. I then made another sleeve to fit over the first sleeve. Now the training began. With the double sleeve on the paddle I practiced the OC1 roll. The floation on the paddle allowed me to use the paddle naturally. As I progressed and began exerting less pressure on the paddle during the roll execution I took one of the sleeves off. I repeated the process until I was comfortable and took the second sleeve off. Finally, I was able to succesfully roll my Outrage about 10 out of 20 times. This occurred over an hour period. I will continue to use this training aid until I have a consistant roll. I hope it helps others with the same problem.

I did my first couple of rolls last week. I used swimming kick board to practice the way Bob Foote shows on his video. (Thanks for recommeding it, whoever did).

Laying over and then bringing yourself back up with that pretty much forced me to keep my head down because it's so short. I got my head moving accross the gunnels pretty well. Then I tried with the paddle and did it 4 more times in a row. I did have the air bags deflated a bit though.

Yesterday I tried my first "combat" roll. And I blew it. I was all arms and lifted my head, as evidenced by this pic and the next one: http://adventurephoto.exposuremanager.c ... 7_1_3_20_4

I think I'm going to bring a little kick board along with me and stick it under my air bag lacing. That way I can practice with it on flatwater sections or at the put in. It seems to help "get my mind right."

Yes, years ago I made a "roll aid" along the lines of what you describe. I found that if it is at all thick it interferes a bit with the sweep phase of the roll, however.

You can accomplish much the same by just taking a piece of minicell foam scrap and securing it to the blade by running duct tape around it.

clarion wrote:I did my first couple of rolls last week. I used swimming kick board to practice the way Bob Foote shows on his video. (Thanks for recommeding it, whoever did).

Laying over and then bringing yourself back up with that pretty much forced me to keep my head down because it's so short. I got my head moving accross the gunnels pretty well. Then I tried with the paddle and did it 4 more times in a row. I did have the air bags deflated a bit though.

Yesterday I tried my first "combat" roll. And I blew it. I was all arms and lifted my head, as evidenced by this pic and the next one: http://adventurephoto.exposuremanager.c ... 7_1_3_20_4

I think I'm going to bring a little kick board along with me and stick it under my air bag lacing. That way I can practice with it on flatwater sections or at the put in. It seems to help "get my mind right."

You were also trying to roll against the current, which didn't help.

Valiant effort Clarion. So smart of you to do it at Cucumber, where there'd be photographic record.

What'd ya think of the Yough otherwise?

Tenzing wrote:Valiant effort Clarion. So smart of you to do it at Cucumber, where there'd be photographic record.

What'd ya think of the Yough otherwise?

But I felt the same about swimming Cucumber too. Can't wait to go again! Hopefully Tandemonium.

Yeah we need to pick a date.

Tandem over the falls...