Wednesday 4 August 2010

A butterfly and a bat

Looking at the last rolling video over and over I realised I was making a fundametal mistake in the hand roll by keeping one arm out of the water and pushing down with the other, so I decided to practise the butterfly roll and the 'bat' (read fat blue norsaq) roll, to improve body position.
This felt like taking a step backward. Just how far am I going to take this? Why not just stick with someting that is effective already? but I had to give it a try. Sure enough the hand roll felt less reliable but there is something else not quite right - I am still to figure that out. Also it was significantly easier on one side that the other I am sure this has to do with the resistance of my buoyancy aid on the day hatch.



I am in shallow water to be close to the camera on the shore and to save time with emptying the boat when the inevitable happens ( I also believe the water is 1 or 2 degrees warmer here), but because of the onshore wind I ended up touching the bottom a few times. This is quite good as it makes you tuck up round the boat in a U shape. 
After a certain amount of time I resort to a snorkel mask as my eyes start to hurt from the salt water and I get an ice cream headache between the eyes, it allows more thinking time. 
I am aiming for 90% thinking and 10% effort.
The camera combination is really helpful for analysing what worked/what felt awkward and so on - that is my excuse for saving so much footage. I used a gorilla pod mount on the boat. It worked fine - I don't like the idea of drilling a hole in my boat!







This time Helen's instruction to keep the chin up was the main point I tried to focus on and it worked very effectively if the rest of the roll was on track.

The only vantage point I could find to film from above was over water clogged with jellyfish, but I hope to film there before the water gets too cold this year. Filming from above might reveal the obvious...I am hoping practising little and often will help all this stick, but a great reason for doing this is you can't think about anything else other than what you are doing there and then. Its addictive!

7 comments:

  1. Your making me realise I gotta start working on some skills again.Ive gotten lax.
    Well done!

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  2. have you found helens video worthwhile getting? I was gonna but didnt really like the preview of it.

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  3. Cheers Lee - It has been my summer project since I haven't been on any big trips. Now I can't stop...

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  4. Helen's DVD is exactly what I was looking for, so it was ideal for my purposes. It is broken down into progressive stages and she keeps the instructions concise and straightforward. The video footage is clear too. She says you can roll with anything not necessarily a GP but I have ordered a norsaq like hers because its kind of a missing link. I guess you would be able to just knock one together pretty quick!

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  5. yeah I got a few kickin around the basement! Thanks I think I'll order that DVD today...may inspire me to get some more practice in. Im going through trip withdrawls!

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  6. beautiful rolling! I have a good roll but I don't have a greenland backdeck roll yet. Need to work on it, your inspiring.

    PO

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  7. Cheers PO - its a bit of fun really. I should be probably be spending more time on sorting out my regular rolling in 'conditions'.... though I think all the messing about helps.

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