A whitewater kayaker’s goal is to have a bomproof roll.
To help reach with the goal of successfully rolling / how to practice your roll / the technique behind rolling.. the Endless River Adventures Team and I have spent years writing articles about every aspect of rolling.
But today we are going to talk about the not-rolling-up part of kayaking –
and I am going to use my recent swim as fodder for this.
There are two general reasons you end up swimming out of your Kayak
One is pilot error resulting in doing something like surfing in a big hole that just does not want to let you out.
The second reason is falling over for whatever reason and not coming up.
Of those two scenarios, only one can be directly attributed to the roll not working: that’s falling over and not rolling up.
There came a day recently when that’s just what happened to me.
Even the Best Can Swim out of their Kayak
Yep – the one who always rolls, who has a beautiful roll, who teaches hundreds of people to roll and fixes just as many people who are struggling with their roll, had a swim. And not because of falling into some huge hole. While the whole thing started after inadvertently dropping into a hole, it was such a silly hole that you could have heard me laughing about it if you had paddled by. It was funny. It was a Class III rapid. There was nothing particularly threatening about surfing in the hole, or rolling after. So when I set up to roll and nothing happened, I casually switched to the other side, and was a bit surprised when I did not roll up. Five rolls later, it was time to accept that the “bombproof roll” was not there.
Of course I had to over-analyze the whole situation and I want to share with you why I think what happened happened.
Rolling your kayak is easy
Once you learn how to do it, you realize rolling a kayak is actually very easy. The mental aptitude to actually fire off that roll in the chaos of whitewater can take additional time, but there comes a day after you’ve learned to roll that you just do not like to swim. You focus and just do it. So what happens when after years of a “bombproof roll” you do not roll up? I am going to grossly generalize here and sum it up with two scenarios.
Scenario #1: Poor Technique when Rolling
You can watch a river full of people roll and see so many variations of getting up. You can listen to kayakers swear that their version of rolling is the bomb – even when their version contains some pretty poor technique. Inevitably rolls that involve poor technique are going to fail no matter how awesome the paddler. The bottom line is: if you do not learn/use good technique, or if you fall into bad technique – eventually the roll will not work for you. We have all sorts of articles about this for you and that’s without even going into why you should roll on both sides here!!
Bombproofing Your Roll: Use it or lose it
The irony about whitewater kayaking is that you start out tipping over frequently. Falling over frequently and swimming motivates one to learn how to roll. About the time you learn to roll, you also learn how to not fall over so frequently. And before you know it, you are bragging about “dry hair days” on the river. I will use myself as an example: I work on the river 200+ days/year. This does not include my play time. Of those 200+ days/year, it is unusual if I accidently tip over one or two times a year. It is so infrequent that people are rather surprised when I do tip over.
Rolling a Kayak is so very mental.
You can have the best roll in the world, but if you do not have the mental aptitude to use it, it’s not going to be there for you when you most need it. What do you do to keep your bombproof roll bombproof? Roll. All the time. If playboating is not your cup of tea, then make sure you spend time rolling on the river – but not just in an eddy or winter pool rolling sessions. Rarely does a good boater inadvertently fall over in an eddy. You’ve got to head out into a wave train/on a squirrely eddy line/somewhere you really do not want to be upside down, and roll. Not just on one side, but both sides so that switching is reinforced (I could not resist adding that).
Keeping things positive on the river
Reinforce rolling with positive energy on the river. When you are on the river, makes sure and leave negative energy behind – yours and/or other people’s. Kayaking is supposed to be a wonderfully positive experience. If you surround yourself in negative energy, it can affect your paddling state of mind.
Upside down time = rolling = having fun kayaking!
If I was my own coach, I would suggest that a play boat was needed. Why? Because I do not spend enough time upside down. Playboating gets you upside down – maybe not in in a Class iV+ rapid, but surfing a hole or stern squirting. When one heads out to playboat, the upside down time is not a “mistake” but part of having fun on the river. Upside down is fun. Rolling is fun. Lots of upside down time = more rolling = more fun. This then helps for when you do inevitably do flip in a rapid… you just roll up. It’s called a bombproof roll – and it is attainable.
If you’ve had a swim recently that was not about poor technique, but about any of the above, do what I am going to do: don’t waste time dwelling on that silly swim. Go find opportunities to reinforce the positive about rolling up. Paddle out and tip over with a smile. And not just every once in a while, but a bunch. Even better!! Plan on dusting off that playboat as soon as it warms up and go have fun doing things that get you upside down. Remember: upside down time = rolling = fun.