May 3, 2002

More practice

I dropped the boat at the edge of the water on the base beach. The first time I've launched on the lake from here. Friday afternoon after a long workday. I'm here to practice.

My hanging draw isn't working well. The bow or stern wants to wander and keep me from holding a straight line. I also bleed off speed faster than I would like.

My bow rudder is freaking awesome. My high brace on the move is getting close to never missing - on both sides. I think I missed one offside high brace out of ten. Low brace turns are elegant and graceful. I'm finding it easier to choose which side to roll up on based on my paddle position.

I'm trying to learn some reverse sweep rolls, but I'm afraid I'm doing them wrong. My arms seem to be too far out away from me - adding risk of shoulder injury. I'll need to spend some time with a book before going out again.

I'll be glad when the water warms to wet suit temps so I can shed the dry suit. The dry suit is too buoyant when upside down and I'm anxious to find out how well my rolls and high brace work once the dry suit is gone.

I put in some ear plugs to keep the cold water out of my ears. What a difference it made. I found I could hang upside down much longer, and I had zero disorientation when I rolled back up. Of course I also had a bad case of CHS, but since there were no boats out, there wasn't much danger in not being able to hear.

I can't hand roll yet, but I can roll up by pushing down on my floating paddle about 75% of the time. Dry suit is certainly helping by adding flotation. My balance brace was working too, but again I think the dry suit is helping me stay above water.

C-to-C was working pretty well, and to make it more difficult I choked up on the paddle - one hand at the base of the blade, the other at the mid-point of the paddle.

I still need more work on a sculling brace on my off side. There is still a large gap between my on and off side.