June 10, 2000

Disappointment and Elation

Ft Belvoir

I couldn't get motivated to get out of bed, so it was 8:00 before I got to Belvoir. Once in the water I found nothing working. My bow rudder didn't want to turn. My high brace was failing miserably. And my roll was thoroughly sloppy. By the time Mardi and Joan showed up at 9:00 I was not happy.

Everyone has an off day but I was wondering if I really had the skills to begin with. The last few weeks I hadn't practiced my high braces, and it was showing. My bow rudder wasn't working last week either. Maybe during the BCU training next weekend they can show me what I'm doing wrong. Even my hanging draw, which I've had working really well up till now, failed to move my kayak sideways at all.

Joan and Mardi wanted to work on rolling. I provided a handhold for Mardi as she practiced hip snaps. After a while Joan inflated a paddle float and stuck it on the end of the Greenland paddle. I had Mardi hold onto the float and practice hip snapping some more. She really was putting little pressure on my hands earlier, and I could tell there wasn't much pressure on the float either once we talked her though leaving her head down a few times.

Then she switched to sweeping with her paddle with the float on the end. She complained it was too easy so we started letting air out. And more air out. And more air out. Soon the paddlefloat was nothing more than a limp bag on the end of her paddle, and I knew it was time to work on sweeping without the float.

The blade angle was critical to her failures. As Mardi would get mid way in her sweep she would rotate the blade vertical and the paddle would dive. We must have worked on getting the blade angle correct for over an hour.

Joan's roll was working flawlessly today, but she did notice a big difference in the two paddles she had with her. One allowed her to roll up easily, the other with difficulty, if at all. She probably rolled up 20 times today. A major improvement with her new seat arrangement.

At one point Mardi rolled up and I was pretty sure I didn't need to add any help. But I wasn't quite sure. So she tried again and as the boat started to rotate I took my hands off the boat and Mardi rolled up! I was shocked! Of course Mardi now had to do it another 10 times.

Mardi can hold her breath for quite a while, so when she failed she would just set up and do it again.

So ended the day. Joan's roll worked up a notch more towards being rock solid - Mardi rolled on her first day of instruction - I failed at everything I tried. My day will come...