PHASE 2: The hip-snap using your paddle on something solid – After you are good at Phase 1, hip-snapping with your hands on something solid it is time to practice doing it with your paddle. The concept is the same and the only difference is that you will hold onto your paddle and put your paddle on a friend’s kayak or the side of the pool. Here is what you will do:
- Keep the paddle perpendicular to the boat. You will be tempted to bring the right hand behind your body back towards the stern causing your left hand and blade to slide off the boat, and you’ll be upside down in an awkward position.
- Have somebody hold the paddle blade on the poolside to prevent it from sliding on you.
- Let the boat fall over on you (tip over without resisting on the way down)… Now snap it back up. This should be easy and low energy. If you are having trouble, you are holding your body out of the water, where you are supporting your body weight.
- After you can flip over with no resistance (if there is a splash when you hit the water you are doing it right) and can snap the boat back up without it being a physical strain, then you are ready for the roll! To reiterate, flip over with no resistance on the paddle, don’t support yourself on the way down, “flop in” and splash in, allowing the water to stop your downward motion, not your paddle.
- Now get your friend to hold your paddle until you get upside down and settled. As soon as you begin to pull on your paddle have them let go of your paddle blade. Your paddle will (should) be in the right position, which is perpendicular to the boat and on the surface. If you do the same hip-snap you have been doing in practice on the side of the pool, you will roll right up. YEA!!! You just did your first roll!
- Obviously, when you are in the river and tip over your friend won’t be there to position your paddle for you, so you’ll have to be able to find that position yourself. Our next drill, Phase 3, will be you positioning the paddle by yourself!
- Trouble Shooting:
- If this is not physically easy, you are lifting your body upwards with your paddle, versus rolling/snapping your boat with that energy. You may(Likely) also be lifting your head upwards, either with your nose pointing to the sky, or by arching your neck towards the sky.
- If your Boat doesn’t fall onto your body, but stays 1/2 way right side up- you are not actually tipping all of the way over because your body is tight and you are preventing the boat from dropping onto you, this means you won’t hip snap when you want to come upright either. Learn to loosen your hips by rocking the boat back and forth quickly while sitting upright in it by wiggling your hips and then try again.
- If Your paddle moves backwards and you fall into the water before you can hip snap up- you should open your eyes, and keep them on the right blade when you tip in and make sure you hold the paddle in front of you and slightly towards the bow of the boat, versus behind the center of the boat. This will fix that issue.
- If, when your friend lets go of the paddle you don’t come up easily with just you and the water, you are not hip snapping, lifting your head, and not going all of the way back to the back deck with your head and body. It is a simple thing, if you pull down on the paddle, keeping you head and body in the water and rolling the boat up with your hips, you will upright the boat easily.