Starring: Greg Schwarz, Jim, Gnarlydog, Adventuretess
Guest Appearances: Moira, Bruce
12 months since the tradition of ‘birthday rolls’ began, it was time to do it all again. All rollers chose to use Greenland Paddles, including Jim who was using his homemade GP for the first time.
Birthday presents are not exchanged among group members; the act of getting together in this way is considered gift enough. I was therefore taken by surprise when Greg Schwarz handed me a small red fleece bag. What lay inside left me speechless: Greg had made me a Norsaq, a Greenland harpoon throwing tool similar to a Woomera. My Norsaq is a beautiful work of art meticulously made with the same timber used to make my GP. Greg substituted Ash on the tips and trim where traditionally bone would have been used.
I have no experience rolling with a Norsaq so was appreciative that Greg included lessons as part of the gift.
Entering the water, the effect of the recent devastating floods was apparent by the unusually brown water and our discovery of a freshwater catfish eel flopping around on the tide line. This poor fellow must have been washed out of a nearby freshwater creek.
12 months ago aged 45, I had wondered at my ability to perform as many rolls. Today attempting 46, plus 1 for luck, I had no such concerns. The challenge for me on this birthday lay in doing different types of rolls. The groups abilities are at different levels but throughout the session, butterfly, Greenland, hand, offside, speed, forward ending and other types of rolls were successfully performed.
On top of these, Greg decided to do his as hand rolls, all 50 of them, one after the other!
After completing the required number of rolls, we played.
Gnarlydog perfected his skirt-in-place re-enter and roll while Greg turned to his role as mentor, helping Jim achieve his first offside roll, using his new GP then guiding me in the use of the Norsaq.
I've found practicing and playing in my kayak improves both my skills and confidence and I’m fortunate to have many opportunities throughout the year to celebrate my kayaking friend’s birthdays in this way.
Jim & Tess
How do you celebrate your birthday ?
Starring: Greg and Moira Schwarz, Gnarlydog, Adventuretess
Australia isn’t only about vegemite, koalas, mateship and cockroach races at the Story Bridge Hotel, it’s about living the Aussie dream and ‘having a go’.
After returning a day early from Fraser Island, I decided to spend my bonus day off pursuing my current Aussie dream, to hand roll my kayak. An impromptu session with rolling mentors Moira and Greg Schwarz was arranged.
Watching Greg and Moira’s effortless balanced braces and Greenland rolls has inspired me to ‘have a go’. It isn’t always pretty, but I have a lot of fun testing the boundaries of balance in my kayak. Without their guidance, balanced bracing would just be some weird thing that those kayak roll specialists do.
Armed with determination and a neoprene oven mitt, we met Moira and Greg among the patriotic hordes setting up bbq’s and esky’s along the grassy shorefront.
I’ve been attempting hand rolls for a short time and I just couldn’t quite pull it off. Almost reaching the back deck and then failing, my bare handed sweep wasn’t working for me. Warming up with a short paddle and a few rolls, I carefully studied Greg and Moira as they performed hand rolls.
I put the neoprene glove on and listened carefully to Moira’s instructions. Before I knew it I had rolled and was lying on Sialuk’s back deck looking into the sky. Success!
Tentatively I tried again, to make sure it wasn’t a fluke. Feeling more confident, I tried it again and sure enough, up I came.
By this time, I was getting excited and wanted to try it one more time before going commando (without the glove). Well, the magic left me and my hand rolling came to an end. Moira comforted me with assurances that this was common when learning to hand roll. It comes. And it goes.
Taking a break we all swapped kayaks and I watched as Moira hand rolled, Greg elbow crook rolled and Damiano butterfly rolled in Sialuk – his first!
Moira paddles an Avocet LV and the cockpit fits me very well. I decided to try the hand roll one more time and surprising myself, I managed to hand roll a further 3 times in the Avocet LV before the magic washed off.
We 4 left the beach satisfied. For a few short hours we’d all ‘had a go’ and ‘lived the dream’. Sharing celebratory ice creams afterwards, I was a very happy kayaker.
Starring: Gnarlydog, Greg Schwarz, Adventuretess
Celebrating my birthday close to Christmas and New Year has always posed challenges as to the best way to celebrate. Most people are partied out after so many ‘festive’ celebrations. I prefer celebrating by spending time with favourite people, outdoors if possible.
During a recent QSKC trip, ideas were tossed around as to the best way to acknowledge my 45th birthday. It's the wrong time of year to undertake a 45km bush walk in Queensland (too hot), perhaps a 45km paddle would do the trick. The suggestion was put forward to try doing 45 kayak rolls using Greenland paddles (GP).
As I only learned to kayak roll with a euro paddle a little over a year ago and could then only do 3 rolls in a row in flat water if I was lucky, I felt this would be a suitable, fun challenge to commemorate my birthday. While I can roll and have spent hours roll training, I have never counted them. I believed the desired outcome was achievable; I just wasn’t sure how difficult it would be.
Vanilla and Blackduck were both out with chest infections, leaving Gnarlydog and Greg Schwarz to bravely join me in the challenge. Plans were made, rules discussed and rewards decided. The 3 challengers would use traditional paddles (Greg his homemade Schwarz GP; Gnarlydog an Elver GP & Adventuretess a borrowed Mitchell GP – thanks Steve).
We 3 are all GP newbies, with different kayaking styles and skills. The smart money was on Greg having the easiest time reaching our target of 45 rolls each. Greg and his wife Moira are skilled rollers who practice regularly and enjoy sharing their knowledge with others. They introduced me to balanced bracing and have taught me new rolls, as well as helping me to improve my existing rolls.
All the visualisation, vitamins and yoga paid off (I’m kidding, we woke up, drove to the beach and launched) as Gnarlydog set the pace by aggressively rolling 10 times in fast succession.
While Gnarly was eager to get his rolls on the tally board, Greg and I were a little slower to begin.A healthy competition to be the first to reach 45 was soon underway, our beachfront audience of mostly grey nomads watched in alarm before realising we were repeatedly tipping over on purpose.
There was a variety of beautiful rolls performed, but the choppy conditions made photographing our quest difficult.
My rolls were not always ‘pretty’, but I did not fail any until I passed the 50 mark and started playing with my offside and forward sculling rolls – neither of which I have done before!
Gnarlydog was first to reach 45, plus 1 for good luck.Greg and I quickly followed and as there was still some air left in the tanks, we continued to roll. Around 60 rolls in, Gnarly’s ADD (Action Deficit Disorder) kicked in and he couldn’t resist surfing the small waves pushing us around.
‘Speed rolling’ was something else I hadn’t tried before, so timing each other, we took turns to see how many rolls we could do in 10 seconds. What fun, although I may need to change my name to Dizzytess!
Celebrating later with Greg and his wife Moira over a feed of fresh prawns and ginger beer, the new Gordon Brown DVD played in the background as we discussed the different ways to construct traditional paddles and the merits of using different types of wood. It was the perfect end to my birthday challenge.
Completing the challenge was a huge achievement for me. The improvement in my rolling during the last 12 months affirmed my 2009 decision to dedicate time to roll and play instead of ‘throwing a few rolls in at the end of a trip’, usually tired and with a loaded boat.
I’m now almost more comfortable upside down than right way up in the kayak.
2010 presents more opportunities to continue improving my skills, with a strong focus on GP. I am very impressed with traditional paddles and particularly the lack of stress in my body. I also paddle with an Aleut paddle, which is slightly different to a GP.
I could not think of a better way to celebrate turning 45 – except maybe doing 45 different rolls….
