Offensive rolling

Monday, February 20, 2006, 4 comments

A posting about rolling as an offensive move. In some conditions a roll can succeed where normal paddle strokes may fail. One of these is when beating out from a shore through heavy surf. Instead of trying to push through and risk being swept back on the beach or even flipped backwards, a roll into the breaker achieves two things: it presents a half submerged kayak bottom to the wave instead of the upright paddler being slammed in the chest, and when upside down the upper body anchors the paddler in the water, so that he or she looses no ground. After the wave you roll up and continue paddling. A slow continuos roll is usually well timed to the wave passing (in Justine Curgenvens ";This is the Sea", Ralph Johnson demonstrates this usage of a roll - stressing when talking about it, that it is just a demo, and of course not needed on such a tiny wave).

Another situation is when paddling with the waves coming in at your left or right side and one suddenly breakes. Instead of being swept along on a high brace you could capsize on the lee side and perform a slow roll up behind the wave, again taking the full force of the wave on the kayak bottom with the upper body as a sea anchor and avoid losing ground or being thrown off course. Since the water moves in circles in a wave front, you hardly need to do much of a roll - often it is enough to wait for the wave to bring you upright again (which of course those who haven´t tried won´t believe).