January 27, 2001

Her Roll

Fairlands Aquatic Center

The last weekend I went to the pool to give a hand teaching rolling., I had the pleasure of seeing someone make their first roll. This is always a great feeling that anyone who has learned how can remember. The questioning disbelief as the reality of what happened just a moment before begins to settle in to our consciousness. Did I really just do that? Did my paddle hit bottom? Did you help me roll up?

This pool session I was going back with the same intention to help again. My daughter was with me with her promise to stay out from underfoot.

As people arrived, Dave drove up with a fleet stacked on top of his car. With 4 boats above there appeared to be more mass in boats than in vehicle. One of the boats he carried in from the fleet was a whitewater kayak.

It only took about 30 seconds for Dave to realize Katie was bored having to sit on the side of the pool and offered up the whitewater boat to her. After she made a few laps around the pool I decided to see how close she could come to rolling it.

We started out with her holding onto my hands and hip-flicking back up. The fit was loose for her, and as long as she could keep her knee from slipping, she would come up with little pressure on my hands. After a while I decided we needed to switch to a paddlefloat.

I borrowed a paddlefloat from Joan. Since I had planned on teaching others, I didn't bring any gear at all. Once inflated I handed the paddlefloat to Katie and asked her to roll up with it. Most of the time she could, but a few times I had to rotate the boat over myself. Of course Katie would then tell me she wasn't ready for me to roll her up, but nervous dad would rather play it safe.

Gradually I let out air from the paddlefloat. A little more, and a bit more until it was almost flat. Time to switch to a paddle. Here is where Katie showed her greatest weakness. Trying to scull the blade proved to be difficult for her. Getting the paddle in place while upside down proved impossible.

But after a few attempts I would let her capsize, rotate the paddle into position for her, and then shake the paddle to let her know it was in place. This was her key to press down on the paddle and hip snap up. Surprisingly, she came up! Her first roll. Did I really just do that? Did my paddle hit bottom? Did you help me roll up? I wondered these things silently as she spoke them out loud. A second attempt would leave no doubt. Katie had rolled a kayak.

The great advantage of teaching a child to roll in the pool was that after our two hours were up, we HAD to get out of the pool. Had this been summer on the river I might not have ever gotten home as Katie wanted to roll over and over again.

I'm going to miss paddling with this kid when I go to Japan...

Woody