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Sea Kayaks Techniques Bulletin Board
Re: How Do You Teach Someone to Roll, Greg?
Posted By: Greg Stamer In Response To: How Do You Teach Someone to Roll, Greg? (David)
Date: Friday, 8 September 2000, at 12:14 p.m.
: Greg
: Hi Greg. Can you tell us how you might go about teaching someone to roll? I
: teach rolling the way I was taught, but this is only one way to do it. How
: do you teach someone...ie. any tips for other instructors which you find
: helpful and might lead us to shorten our student's learning curve? For
: example, do you teach them how to scull to the surface for air, teach them
: use a layback...etc...?Hi David,
I teach for the local outfitter and reserve at least an hour and a half for each student. My approach is fairly conventional and it is often modified radically depending on the needs of the student, but what follows would be a fairly normal session.
I start off by talking to the student, asking why they want to roll, where they paddle and what they know of rolling. This will sometimes help you discover paddlers with an incorrect mental image of the roll (e.g some paddlers will tell you things like "well I get the paddle to the side and yank down hard"). During the lecture, I try not to talk too much or go off on tangents. Over coaching can easily cause confusion.
I examine their kayak and discuss outfitting. Only about 30% of the kayaks that I see are outfitted correctly. I prefer to teach a nonrolling student in a large Dancer (old WW kayak that fits a wide range of body types), with an adjustable skirt. If an experienced student wants to refine an existing roll then I will often use their kayak, assuming that it is outfitted correctly. I will show them how to outfit the kayak, using duct tape to place temporary pads, and helping them find the correct footbrace position, a more common error than you would think. I see many extremes where the student expects to reach forward just to make contact with the pedals to students who wish to be jammed in the cockpit so tight that all lower body movement required for a hipsnap is impossible. Most people who learn on their own skip outfitting to get to the "interesting stuff", but a snip snap will have little effect if your efforts are not transmitted to your kayak.
I will give a demo in the pool of a slow sweep roll and have the student watch the entire roll several times then one component of the roll at a time, the tuck and how capsizing allows you to sweep on the "opposite side" directly from the tuck position (many analytical types have a hard time with this and will insist on moving the paddle over the deck until they understand the spatial concepts of the roll), the sweep, and how the torso comes up last -- pulled out of the water by the kayak rather than leading the charge. I will also show common errors so the student can identify them with a mental image if they occur later, such as paddle diving, too short a sweep and raising the head. I will end with a few more slow rolls. Before I get out of the kayak I will demonstrate the hipsnap drill of leaning over to the pool ledge and snapping up with my hands or just two fingers on the ledge. To illustrate the importance of keeping the torso in the water I will have the student come to the pool edge and I perform the same drill holding his hands so that he can feel how little pressure is required to snap up. I will also show how much more pressure is generated if I lift my head and try to lever myself up. Finally, I will ask for questions and have the student describe his new mental image of how a roll is performed. What you hear will sometimes surprise you and may cause you to backtrack.
With the student in the kayak and standing by his side I let him capsize when he is ready, and have him tap on the bottom of the hull when he wants up. I will right the kayak by throwing my body over the hull, grabbing the cockpit coaming and falling back to roll him up. This gets the student familiar with capsizing and builds confidence that he is safe. Next comes a wet exit if the student is a novice.
With the student in the water we perform the hipsnap drill until I am satisfied. Keep in mind that some people feel hipsnap in various parts of their lower body. My usual advice is to tell them to relax the left leg then fire the right, try to hit your head with your right knee. This gets them to move the torso toward the water instead of away from it. Instead of the pool ledge I will hold the paddle parallel to his kayak for the hipsnap drill. I then perform a similar drill but with the student holding a paddle at 90 degrees to the boat, first leaning over slightly and finally snapping up from a complete capsize. I point out that the paddle helps to give a rebound effect to the hipsnap. Unless the student deliberately tries to pull down on the paddle, I try to never say something like "don't pull on the paddle". Too many times what sticks in the head is "pull on the paddle". So instead I will emphasize what they need to do, rather than what they shouldn't do. Also, before I start to capsize the student, I will reinforce what we are about to do in simple language.
Then comes work on the sweep, first I will have the student perform some sweep strokes on the surface. Then I will ask them to relax and feel the motion of the paddle while I move it, from a capsized position. Students are usually tense and you may need to move to the front of their kayak and wedge the paddle away from the hull with your arms (Derek Hutchinson illustrates this well in his book on rolling). When the paddle reaches 90 degrees I will rap on the hull to have the student perform their hipsnap and help them up if necessary.
I will then move to the right side of the kayak, just behind the student, have them tuck, and slowly lower them in the water toward me. At first I will hold them just above the water so that they can watch the paddle blade to keep it from diving, sweep to 90 degrees and snap up, with emphasis to make it flow together. Eventually I will capsize them completely and let them perform the roll on their own. Often they will be off and rolling at this point.
If there are problems at this stage I will often use a small, thin square of ethafoam, slotted to receive the paddle blade. This often leads to success but it can also reinforce bad habits, so I try to avoid it if possible. If the student can only roll with the float by the end of the session I will tell them to cut the foam down as they improve, until it is no long required. If they cut too much they can duct-tape it back on.
Some people find it more natural to hipsnap tucked forward, and others leaning back. I will work with their natural tendency on this. If a student is advanced I will often work on sculling rolls but most beginners and even a surprising number of intermediates don't have enough paddle control to make this work. If this is the case I will give them a goal to work on, such as sculling down and touching an ear to the water and then sculling back up. I will demonstrate that if they capsize and perform the same scull from underwater, it will roll them up quite effortlessly.
The real "magic" in teaching is developing an intuition of what will work best for a student as well as getting past common errors. For me, the key is to work to develop a proper mental image so the student is not confused. I also encourage the use of a face mask and nose clips for learning. If friends are learning together I prefer them to arrive together. The person who is waiting on the pool edge will learn a great deal about the rolling process and spotting errors. This will be useful if they work together in the future.
I hope this helps, I have found this method of rolling to work well and will look forward to hearing other methods and other tips.
Greg Stamer
Orlando Florida
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