Re: Rolling my 17lt

Posted by Gary Turner on Jun 21, 2005

FIND AN INSTRUCTOR!

I instructed rolling for many years, and an absolute sure-fire way to fail to learn to roll well is to try to teach yourself.

If you try to teach yourself, you have no feedback as to what you are doing wrong. You also invariably focus on the wrong things, and don't spend enough time and effort on the basics, like the hip-flick. Eventually you may learn something that kind-of-works, and that is the big problem. The roll may rely purely on brute force not technique. If you continue to do that, you reinforce bad habits and techniques. Unlearning bad habits, is way harder than learning them right the first time.

I should also mention that age is a big factor. The lack of flexibility ( partly physical, but primarily mental! ) makes learning to roll very difficult if you are middle-aged. It wasn't often that I managed to teach someone over 40 to roll. That is a bit of a worry, now that I am that age.

I think that rolling is one of the single hardest outdoor skills to learn. The combination of the need to smoothly integrate 4 separate sequential body movements, plus the disorientation of being upside down and underwater, and the fact that unless you get it all right, you will fail to come up by yourself, makes it quite a challenge.

Of course, like all challenges, acheiving it makes it all the more satisfying!

I also have big reservations about Pawlata rolls. Yes, they will usually work, under calm conditions, but... (a) Once people learn them, they don't necessarily make the effort to turn it into a proper roll. A Pawlata is very ungainly, and in anything but ideal conditions, takes a while to set up, and leaves you in a very vulnerable position at the end of the roll. (b) They will sometimes work, despite abysmal technique. There is not so much feedback to force you to do it right.

If you do not do it right, it will be when you are cold and tired, that it will fail. And that is when you want to be able to roll, and have a 5 second dunking, rather than a 5 minute ( or more ) swim.

In Response to: Rolling my 17lt by Susan on Jun 20, 2005

Replies:

• Pawlata by LeeG on Jun 21, 2005