C-Forum

Hi,

How do I set up to roll and come up on my offside. I can't fathom out even where to put my arms. Do I hold my paddle out in a twisted up low brace, in a high brace position or try and hold my paddle like I'm mopping the floor or something?

I'm totally confused and just want to bail out when I try. I can't find any videos that explain either. Can you help?

I'm also curious if anyone out there uses this as a viable option when an obstruction is preventing an onside roll. I've manage to hit a few by doing an offside low brace but it's very difficult. I'm thinking you might be better off learning to switch hands under water and doing an off handed basic roll instead.

http://youtu.be/adHrpKnyAgs This is a good video of an offside roll, but it won't help much without a good coach. I hold my breath and wait till I can get my paddle out.
Rand

cool vid. wish we could see a similar one with an underwater (and slow-mo) view...

Yeah, watching someone do that in an open boat always amazed me. It is even better to see it in a combat situation. I can't figure out that contortionist trick for anything.

Most of my tries have ended with me fighting off inhaling water because I begin laughing about the ridiculousness of my not having a clue where to even start. "Pool session only."

I'm not that flexible. It's easier, though probably not as fast to switch hands & do an on-side roll. I'm a righty & was taught to roll by lefties. I'd flip, change hands, roll up, change hands again & continue paddling. I eventually learned to roll righty.

One of these days.... I've never seen it done in an open boat. Would love to see a video of one if its out there.

Open boat offside roll:
http://youtu.be/lZ8az05ZXqY

It remains a mystery to me.

Nice video of the off-side and hand rolls, but they were of Philip Prince.
Are there any videos showing mortals doing those rolls?

I'll try and describe it as if you're duplicating the roll motions with the boat upright.

Sit upright in the boat, holding the paddle low, but with elbows down. Power face is down.

Rotate (as viewed from the boat's longitudinal axis) your trunk toward the paddle side, and extend the paddle straight out, keeping the paddle parallel to the water surface and shift your trunk over the onside gunwhale.

Rotate your trunk and paddle together, toward your offside. You're pushing with the backside of the paddle face.

It's all in the hip snap...

OK, as a veteran C-2bow, my take is a little different, but here is:

I am primarily a lefty. At one time, being in a work situation where I had small lake-beach access during my lunch hour, once I had my onside roll cold, I decided to learn to roll on my offside. I wasn't much of a righty, but wanted basic skills as a back-up: paddling righty with a lefty was better than sitting on shore. I just learned do to the same roll, mirror image. I had a good strong roll if I was paddling righty C-1, But I was really klutzy with the hand switching part to synch a righty roll with my righty sternman. I found it was much faster & more effective to learn a bow roll. For those who are unfamiliar, I would describe it as extending the paddle vertical on my left side (as opposed to normal lefty roll set-up) and then slapping the paddle while doing the absolute maximum hip-snap -- now in the reverse direction from my normal lefty roll. In C-2 it works very well because the sternman's normal rolling power function sort of winds up, finishing with a strong brace, while the bow waits to sense the sternman's start and the faster starting bow roll then puts maximum power in synch with the stern roll. Alas, however, it finishes "weak", with the paddle in a sort of cross-bow position, but in C-2 normally no problem as the stern will have a strong finishing brace . That summer I worked all four rolls: lefty, righty, lefty bow roll, righty bow roll. I was about equally strong coming up with each, once set up, but having to switch hands to set up tended to throw me off. I did have the advantage of a fellow boater practicing with me, and I think the most valuable part was helping each other : helper holds your hand while you hip snap, and doing it over & over & over & -- equally on both sides -- maybe even more on the offside since the bow roll really needs the maximum hip snap. Oh, and we also practiced T-grip rolls: hold the paddle at the blade with the T-grip as your "blade", and then hand rolls. If you have a strong hip snap on either side, you are 3/4 of the way there.

One of my fave memories of is of paddling my C-1 up to a popular set of surfing waves during a time when I was training in C-2 to the max. Surf, ender, roll -- but for some reason I kept popping up but then somehow falling over again in the waves! What??? Suddenly I realized that I was instinctively hitting my bow roll -- coming up really fast, but what then?? Oops!!

Well, that's just my personal experience, and I'll confess I have never tried to learn an OC roll of any kind, but I think getting someone to help you get the hip-snap/body motion down cold on either side is a good beginning.