I’ve been meaning to start a blog for a while; just now I’m off the water for a few weeks as I wait for an injury to heal. So this seems like the right time to start! So here goes!

Can you roll your kayak? Or is the roll holding you back from the paddling you want to do? I know so many people who are struggling with their roll and I think there are many fascinating aspects of why this might be so. But in this case I want to encourage you to think about the way that you practise your roll, especially if you have been struggling for a while or have lost your roll.

Be brave about your practise. Firstly this means – do practise! The problem with rolling is that it’s binary – black and white. You either come up – success – or you don’t – obvious failure, usually in the form of a swim. You often can’t tell whether you are improving or not. There’s a huge temptation not to practise. (“If I don’t try, I haven’t failed!”). Especially during one of those dips in performance when rolling feels difficult or doesn’t always work. But don’t worry, we’ve all been there!

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OK, so you’ve decided you will practise. But what does that practise need to look like to actually help you improve? For so many people practise means that they sit in their kayak on flat water (in a pool or an eddy) and move to the set up position still sat up and breathing air, then they capsize towards their paddle and then roll up relieved and smiling happily. “Done it! I can roll!” (and often adding silently “Phew”). The problem is no one ever capsizes like this so you are practising for something that literally never happens. So stop practising this as soon as you can do it – it’s potentially cheating (you can use the momentum of capsizing to roll up) and what’s more it’s only half a roll! (And the easy half too!).

Half a roll? What do I mean by this? Capsizes happen when you get something wrong, the water is usually chaotic, you may lose your grip on your paddle as you bash your hand on a rock, and your body or head may hit rocks before you successfully roll up. Part of rolling for real is getting your paddle into the setup position while you are upside down in cold water, possibly re-grabbing and / or re-orientating your paddle, and deciding whether to wait like that or to roll straight away. Getting your paddle into the set up position – while you are upside down – is an important part of the roll – so important that I would argue it’s almost pointless to practise a set up roll.

So as soon as you can do a flat water roll, stop practising set up rolls. Make sure you practise the set up phase, underwater as often as the roll itself. So instead capsize with your paddle in one hand, or at shoulder height straight across your body, or change from left to right hand set up underwater before rolling up, or pass the paddle over the kayak before setting up. And if you are still working on your first roll, make sure that you practise capsizing and then moving the paddle to the set up position as often as the roll – even if you need a friend to roll you back up once you have set the paddle up correctly underwater.

So once you can do a flat water roll, how do you practise in a swimming pool or in a sheltered bay for capsizing in a tiderace or in a grade 4 rapid? Here’s one game I’ve found really useful. I call it “topsy-turvey” and it works like this. Get a friend at each end of your kayak. Their job is to capsize you randomly and repeatedly, left or right, fast or slow. You can decide if you are allowed to use support strokes or not, and whether they need to wait until you have completed your roll before they capsize you again. There’s no way to win this game unless you decide you have to be able to survive a certain time or a certain number of capsizes, but if your friends do their job – your roll for real will definitely improve!

If you’ve been working on your roll for a long time and feel you haven’t progressed much you may be wondering what might move it forward… One friend who could do a set up roll on flat water used to bail instantaneously whenever she flipped in a river. But then she tried and enjoyed surf kayaking in her river boat. When you surf, you flip frequently and emptying your boat is tiring and frustrating. But the environment rewards you if you try and roll – often the water works with you and you actually need to do very little other than try. Within 6 months her response on the river was always to set up and try, and essentially her roll and paddling have been transformed. And if you don’t live near the sea, learning playboating can have the same effect.

So promise yourself now you’ll be brave and practice your roll. But make it as real as you can. Stop practising set up rolls. Start learning to set up underwater. And if you capsize for real, try rolling. Then try again. Even if you ultimately swim, view trying as a success. You are practising the set up phase of the roll and are getting comfortable underwater. Believe me, you’ll pretty quickly improve!