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A reliable combat roll
Ahhhhh . . . the roll, often a grey area amongst the skills of a canoer.
Though, if you have been practicing for a while, you probably already have a
pool roll. Now you need to make it a reliable combat roll. Not only because it
saves you from taking a swim, but because you greatly limit how hard you push
yourself, how hard you train, when you are afraid of going over and taking a
swim. When you know that you can roll in almost any situation, then you're not
afraid of going over, then you're not afraid of challenging yourself, training,
and trying difficult moves. And by trying difficult moves, I mean making
comfortable rapids and comfortable moves . . . more difficult, not necessarily
more difficult rapids. And that's how you train to become better. More difficult
lines, tighter eddies, bigger waves, harder ferries, etc. I emphasize a
reliable combat roll, as opposed to a reliable pool roll. So how do you make
that transition? Go surf a large wave or an intimidating hole, then when you
go over, attempt your roll. Do this endless times. In calm water, your fully
planning and expecting your roll when you practice it. In a rapid you're not,
and that's what messes you up and scares you. But in a hole or wave, you sort
of are expecting it, yet you don't know when. So then when you've done enough
surf initiated rolls, your combat roll will start to happen instinctively. And
the variety of turbulent water you will find around a hole or wave will also
help train you for the real deal.
Side surfing.
Lots of it. Get in the bigger holes, the ones you think will definitely drop
you. This will teach you how to roll your hips instinctively, how to stay
loose at the hips, and how to balance the boat. (So many people avoid this
necessary skill builder, but with a reliable roll, you'll be less intimidated.)
Work up front
Where you put your body, and where you work your strokes, make a large
difference in performance. I like to think of my boat as having three different
zones. The rear zone, center zone, and front zone. Sounds funny, but it's
really good to keep that in mind, helps you to be conscience of what zone
you're in. Okay, so what's so important about these zones? Well, you want to
spend the least amount of time at the rear of the boat. Most strokes placed
back there are inefficient, and hurt your momentum. That stern pry that all of
us canoers have a love affair with, needs to be used as least as possible. It
helps a little, but hurts a lot by stalling the boat's speed and putting our
body posture back. Every time you feel like doing that corrective stern pry,
try to do a stroke up front in its stead, like a bow draw or a cross forward
stroke. You really need to keep your momentum up in pushy water. Momentum is
what allows you to go where you want to go, make the moves you want to make,
and stay stable. My personal reminder regarding current has always been,
"catch it, or its going to catch you." When you start slowing down in pushy
water, the current, waves, holes, all start catching the plastic on your boat
with their sticky little hands, rolling and spinning you in all directions. So
you catch it with forward strokes, and go! Strokes at the far rear also cause
you to have a slight back leaning body posture, which is the other reason to
avoid strokes back there, because even leaning your body a little back greatly
compromises your stability and balance. It's a vulnerable place to be. Of
course there are exceptions, an occasional strong stern pry when you have a lot
of speed can be nice, and it's often essential to throw your weight back after
a hard forward stroke to get a boof or unweight the bow for encountering a
large wave or hole.
The next zone up, the center zone, is an okay place to be. Having your upper
body and paddle strokes there should mostly only be used for moving the boat
laterally across the water, for casual forward strokes, and for braces, all
of which are necessary. And as I said, its okay to be hanging out in the center
zone for those reasons, but its not as good as being up front!
Put your game faces on, lean forward, and work up front! This is where you want
to be most of the time, on the offense, and driving. Strokes placed up front
lend toward keeping good momentum and good control of your tracking and
direction. You want to be on the offense and driving the boat quite often, and
you want to be doing it from the bow as much as possible. This means doing a
lot of cross forward strokes, get used to them, you will. In addition, just a
little bit of forward lean makes a large difference in your stability and
control over the boat, by not only lowering your center of gravity, but also by
weighting the bow and engaging the forward chines. The next paragraph explains
even more on the advantages of leaning forward and working up front.
Steer With Your Hips
Of course we do most of our boat steering with paddle strokes, but our
co-driver, hips, should be steering at the same time. You do this by leaning
forward, tilting the boat onto one edge or the other, and therefore engaging
the forward chines. The boat then will favor following the edge that you have
engaged. So, if you're tilting the boat on its left edge, it will want to turn
left. The same concept works with just tilting the boat and without leaning
forward, but by leaning forward on the forward edges, you will have more
precise control over the turning and better tracking over all. Remember this
though, its not as simple as tilting the boat in the direction you want to go,
steering with your hips is much more involved than that. For example, lets say
that you are driving toward river left for an eddy. Initially you tilt the boat
on its left edge and engage that chine, but along the way you find that you are
turning to sharply to the left, and the slight adjustments in your paddling
strokes are not making enough difference because the boat is stubbornly
following an arc dictated by the chine. So you tilt the boat over to the
opposite chine, the right side chine, to decrease the amount of turning the
boat is doing while still heading to the left. Now that you have made your
adjustment in course, you tilt the boat back over to the left chine. Almost to
your eddy, a small rock suddenly pops in your path. You decide to go right of
it, so you throw the boat over to the right side chine combined with a few
pivoting paddle strokes, to quickly dodge the rock. Immediately after your
evasive maneuver, you throw the boat back over to the left chine, and toward
your river-left eddy. That's steering with your hips. So by combining pivot
and turn strokes with hip steering, you will have better and more precise
control over your direction, turning, and maneuvers, and also you avoid
having to do frantic, momentum-harming paddle strokes.
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