Rolling session

What happens when you post an announcement for a rolling session in the Campbell River pool? Before you know almost 20 people sign up and you find yourself figuring out how to get everybody to town.
For a lot of people rolling a kayak is something magical. Almost everybody at SPL, form housekeeper to office employee, wants to be able to pull off that trick. Learning how to paddle a kayak. “Mwah maybe some other time.” Learning how to paddle a canoe? “Not today, maybe tomorrow.” But practicing how to roll a kayak. “I am in, when are we going?”
The traditional kayak roll, or Eskimo roll, is developed in the Arctic by Inuit. The Inuit people have been rolling their kayaks for many centuries; for them, the ability to roll was a basic survival technique. A missionary, writing in 1765, described ten methods by which an Inuit righted his craft, including full- and half-paddle rolls, and rolls using the harpoon or just the hands. A significant observation in the account is that once the paddle was positioned, the kayaker applied 'a flick of the hips' to recover.
The C-to-C is the most common roll. It involves an initial torso rotation along the side of the kayak, so that the paddle moves across the surface of the water to a position at a 90 degree (right) angle to the kayak. The paddle is then pulled across and a hip snap is applied.
The sweep roll, also called screw roll is probably the easiest roll to learn. In this roll the active paddle blade is brought from the setup position away from the side of the kayak and then across to the final position in a continuous fluid motion.
The hip flick is the most important move when rolling. The paddle is only used for support. You don’t need big arm muscles to pull off a roll. Another important thing is to keep your head close to the water when you are doing your roll move. It is very natural to get you head out of the water first, but that’s wrong. Leave your head in the water as long as possible.
It’s going to be fun tonight!