Last week we tried to get some aerial footage of me rolling different Cape Falcon Kayaks but the drone just wasn’t stable enough so this will probably have to happen looking down from a cliff with a telephoto instead.
One of my biggest frustrations is never having the time to make a rolling instruction video. It makes me absolutely crazy to see so many people having difficulty with a skill that is so easy to learn.
The best way I can explain what’s wrong with how people learn to roll is to talk about how I’m learning Spanish right now which is a perfect example of everything you shouldn’t do if you’re serious about learning a skill efficiently.
1) I’m putting in the time I have instead of the amount of time that is most efficient and will save me time in the long run.
2) I’m practicing at night when my brain is tired which dramatically reduces my acquisition rate and reinforces bad habits that I’ll have to unlearn later.
3) I’m focusing on practicing language skills that are easy and available as opposed to the language skills that will actually achieve fluency the fastest.
So basically I’m just gonna keep forcing my way through it in the most inefficient way possible, and at the end of two years I will have either given up or I’m going to have shaky conversation skills that will fall apart under pressure.
This is exactly how most people try to learn to roll, and then we get frustrated when it doesn’t work very well. It doesn’t have to be that way. Almost anyone can achieve a rock solid kayak roll in less than three months.
Rolling success has almost nothing to do with strength, flexibility, or boat choice, and everything to do with how effectively we support the ways that our brains and bodies learn things most easily.
For health reasons I’m not sure if I’ll ever have the time to make that kayak rolling video, but it’s important to me to share what I’ve learned on the subject so I’m considering making an Instagram series hitting as many of the key points as possible from my methodology. It might be something that people would find useful.
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This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
