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September, 2005
Historical Musings
About The Roll
By Lori Safford
"A reliable roll is defined as: when you are in the middle of nowhere during your first solo crossing of a major channel and you decide to do a roll without even setting up," according to Wayne Horodowich, the creator of the term "yakism" (a word, phrase, saying and/or wisdom used to explain, relate, describe and/or justify experiences, thoughts, insights, and/or observations of a paddler’s view of the kayaking world.)
(www.useakayak.org/yakisms.html)
The Inuit and the Aleuts were well known for their ability to roll. They considered the ability to roll as a basic survival technique. Ten different ways to roll have been documented by researchers of Inuit kayaking skills, including full and half-paddle rolls, and rolls using the harpoon or just the hands. All Inuit techniques, according to written accounts, required the kayaker to “flick” the hips to recover, unlike the early non-Inuit rolls (Australian Edi Pawlata-1927 and Englishman Gino Watkins-1930) which involved levering the body upright from the water with little or no “hip-flick.”
A revolution in boat design and construction coupled with the advent of rotomolded boats, namely the Chinook, re-introduced the “hip-flick” as a valuable survival technique for white water paddlers.
Other native kayakers neither knew how to roll nor needed to perfect the skill; they used the bow rescue. To perform the bow rescue, another kayaker must be nearby to assist. A kayaker in distress, that is, toppled over, also would lean into the kayak and breathe into the boat while awaiting help.
What was YOUR first roll experience? Write to No Umbrella and share …
Consider these yakisms, and pen one of your own:
“The success of your hand roll is inversely proportional to the number of people watching and the number of cameras present.”—a swimming kayaker
“Rolling is a sign of success; having to roll is a sign of failure.”—Derek Hutchinson
“Being upside down in my kayak is better than my best day behind a desk.”
“Remember when sex was safe and kayaking dangerous?”—Kent Ford
“Hand held radios do not float.”—Chris Wood
“A gourmet kayaker suggests a good roll with your meal.”—Steve Holtzman
“The …kayak appeals to us on an emotional level beyond that inspired by more prosaic items of material culture. It has a romantic image associated with fur-clad eskimos [sic] silently gliding along, hunting their sustenance or playing like otters in the waves; it illustrates the artistry and ingenuity of man [sic] in fashioning a superior means of transportation in an unforgiving climate. But perhaps we relate to the kayak on an even deeper level—it represents a means of man [sic] becoming at one with the rhythms of the sea; and as a means of transportation, it represents a singular image of freedom.” David W. Zimmerly, from Qajaq, Kayaks of Siberia and Alaska.
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Erase the lines: I pray you not to love classifications.
The thing is like a river, from source to sea-mouth
One flowing life.
--Robinson Jeffers
The birds have vanished into the sky,
And now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountains and me,
Until only the mountains remain.
--Li Po
The story goes that Poet Li Po drowned
after leaning out of his canoe, trying to
embrace the moon’s reflection.
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From A River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean…
One great thing about fly fishing is that after a while nothing exists of the world but thoughts about fly fishing. It is also interesting that thoughts about fishing are often carried on in dialogue from where Hope and Fear—or, many times, two Fears—try to outweigh each other.
One Fear looked down the shoreline and said to me (a third person distinct from the other two fears), “”There is nothing but rocks for thirty yards, but don’t get scared and try to land him before you get all the way down to the first sandbar.”
The Second Fear said, “It’s forty, not thirty, yards to the first sandbar and the weather has been warm and the fish’s mouth will be soft and he will work off the hook if you try to fight him forty yards downriver. It’s not good but it will be best to try to land him on a rock that is closer.”
The First Fear said, “There is a big rock in the river that you will have to take him past before you land him, but if you hold the line tight enough on him to keep him this side of the rock, you will probably lose him.”
The Second Fear said, “But if you let him get on the far side of the rock, the line will get caught under it, and you will be sure to lose him.”
That’s how you know when you have thought too much—when you become a dialogue between You’ll probably lose and You’re sure to lose.
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