Resources:

The Bombproof Roll and Beyond, by Paul Dutky

Kayak: The Animated Manual of Intermediate and Advanced Whitewater Technique by William Nealy

The Sweep Roll is one of the most efficient ways to roll a kayak- it's smooth, ergonomically low-impact, and relatively simple to do, once you've learned how.  The damnable thing about *learning* how to roll, however, is that it's a physical thing, meaning that no amount of talking about it will give it to you- you must practice and through trial and error discover your own way to get the right movements into your body.  What's more, rolling in and of itself is a counterintuitive sort of thing- nearly everybody wants to roll in order to get air, but the first thing we learn is that in order to roll, your head must come up last.  Confounding all of this is the fact that we're underwater, with limited air, unable to see or hear very well... learning how to roll involves putting yourself under a very tangible pressure, as there are many things that must go right in a limited timeframe in order for everything to work.

Rolling is a head game-  The first thing to do is to acknowledge that being upside down, partly blind, running out of air, etc. etc. etc. is somewhat stressful, and this stress can be a serious obstacle if you let it.  On top of this, it's important to understand that your roll is 90% finesse and only 10% strength- that is, the physical motion of rolling should be nearly effortless- the real challenges for most are twofold- you must a) have the right technique, and b) trust it implicitly.  It's very common for beginners, especially physically strong individuals, to rely on their strength to overcome shortfalls in technique and finesse, and this can lead to situations where they're working very hard while rolling, depleting precious oxygen, and when their strength fails to overcome their situation, a certain degree of lost confidence.  The irony, and the trap, is that if you trust your strength over your technique, you can lose both your trust and your technique for a while.

In this article we'll go over the basic technique of the sweep roll, discuss common technique errors, and also discuss a bit of the 'head game' involved in rolling successfully.  This article should not be considered 'instruction'- it won't teach you how to roll as well as an instructor or a friend with a good understanding of the roll will- but hopefully it will provide you with a basic understanding of some of the hurdles you'll encounter as you learn how to roll.

Before we begin with thoughts on technique, however, let's discuss the equipment you'll be using for a moment:

The Boat:  contrary to popular opinion, very few boats are actually 'difficult' to roll in the sense that they 'require more skill'.  Many boats respond favorably or unfavorably to different rolling techniques and it's not at all improbable that one person with a specific type of roll will find a specific boat 'more difficult' for him to roll... but that's more a reflection on that person's rolling style combined with that particular boat than it is an objective description of 'how difficult' the boat is to roll. Remember, 'different' is not the same as 'more advanced'. I would suggest that it doesn't make much sense to select a boat based on it's rolling qualities, unless you're exceptionally resistant to the idea of adapting your rolling style to suit it. Nevertheless, we'll briefly discuss some qualities of boats that are relevant to the demands they will make upon the way you roll, and some concepts that are central to the process:

Center of Gravity: Your Center of Gravity, or CG for short, is that imaginary point upon which you could balance your mass, and around which your mass will rotate.  When you are standing, it's somewhere behind your belly-button, in your torso.  If you're a girl, it tends to be slightly lower in the body.  When you are sitting with your legs out straight, it tends to be just in front of your torso, outside of your body.

Center of Buoyancy (COB):  Your COB is that imaginary point in any buoyant object (like your boat) that describes the center of it's floatiness, the point upon which a load (such as your CG) would balance.  The entire exercise of rolling is that of efficiently moving one's CG into a position where it's balanced on top of the boat's COB.

Primary stability:  When you're floating in water, your 'primary stability' can be described as the moment of resistance you can apply to your Center of Gravity (CG) by moving your Center of Buoyancy (COB) around underneath it.  One can shift one's COB in the boat laterally by changing the shape of the volume that the boat displaces- by tilting the boat, you can move your COB around in order to keep it under your CG.  A boat with good primary stability will demand little of you once it's upright, while one with poor primary stability (think 'perfectly round hull) will require you to pay more attention.

Secondary stability: Secondary volume can be described as volume in your boat that engages progressively as the boat heels over.  This volume, generally in the sides and deck of a boat, describes the secondary stability characteristics of a boat.  Secondary stability comes into play when the boat is heeling over- in a sense, your secondary stability describes the vertical mobility of your COB in the boat, in the same way that primary stability describes it's horizontal mobility- a boat with volume high and wide will have this, whereas a boat with low decks will not. A boat with good secondary stability will almost right itself once you've got it past the halfway mark, while one with poor secondary stability will require you to do the rotating by yourself- a matter of a little more physical work, but not really a matter of 'more difficulty', or more demanding of skill, by any means.

Hull Shape vs. Deck Shape:  The shape of your deck has more influence on what your boat will demand of you in a roll than the shape of your hull does- after all, when you're upside down that's the part that's engaging volume, and the whole point of a roll is to get your CG back up on top of your COB... whose location is determined by the shape of the water being displaced.

Seat Height:  A raised seat in your boat has the effect of increasing the distance between your CG and your COB when you're upright- meaning that the lever arm moment you need to overcome as you bring your CG on top of your COB will be greater- again, this is a matter of more physical work, not a matter of greater difficulty.

The Paddle:  A paddle with some form of asymmetry where you grip it will be a boon when learning to roll- whether the shaft is ovalized or bent, a paddle that tells you which way the blade is oriented will help you to understand at all times just what the blade of the paddle is doing- and because the paddle's interaction with the water is one of the things we'll rely on, knowing what it's doing is the first step towards using it successfully.  A short paddle will be more dexterous and offer more torque, while a long paddle will be somewhat more awkward and provide better leverage.  Large blades provide greater purchase, but can be stressful on your body if they're too large.  You want a combination of dexterity and leverage, but keep in mind that rolling is probably a minor role your paddle will perform- any paddle will do the job of rolling (it can even be done without a paddle at all, for that matter) so it doesn't make sense to choose a paddle by how easy it is to roll with.

Other gear:  If you have problems with being upside down in water, consider using nose-plugs, especially to learn with.  Also, using goggles as a learning aid can be useful as well (especially if you're learning in a pool, which may be chlorinated).

Okay, so now that we've got all those definitions and gear considerations out of the way, let's get to the meat of the subject:  How do we actually perform a sweep roll?  We'll begin by discussing the setup, and then discuss in turn the sweep, hipsnap, and finish, before discussing common errors and their remedies.

The Setup:  When you become comfortable with your roll, you'll begin to realize that 'the setup position' is a myth- we use it to describe a beginning point, a place from which you can begin your roll, but which is not really 100% set in stone- what we'll be describing is A setup position, rather than 'the' setup position.  It's an invaluable learning tool, an ingredient in the recipe you'll use to learn how to roll, but as with cooking, once you're familiar with the dish you do without the recipe.  In other words, although we'll discuss one position as though it were 'THE' setup position, in reality there are dozens of places from which you can begin your roll.

The place we'll begin, however, is considered a standard setup: upside-down, with your paddle parallel to the boat on one side or the other, with your hands at or above the surface of the water.  This will require you to sit forwards underwater, facing up towards the surface, and to articulate your body to one side such that your head is close to the surface on the side where your paddle is.  The paddle blade that's nearest the bow when you're in this position will be the 'active' blade, while the other one will be referred to as your 'inactive' or 'off' blade.  Your wrists should be rolled 'closed', so that the active paddle blade is more or less flat to the surface of the water when you're in the setup position.  Your body should be articulated towards the side of the boat on which you're set up- both in the sense that your torso will be turned so that you're facing to the side of the boat, and also in the sense that your torso will be bent, reaching your head up towards the surface.

Now let's examine where we are:  We're upside-down, with our CG as close to the surface as possible, with our torso 'wound up' like a spring, ready to go.  While our torso is engaged in water, the force of buoyancy acting upon us makes us pretty light- the gravitational moment we express (gravity minus buoyancy) in the water is quite small (would you believe it's just a few pounds?), and we're in an excellent position to spring out of our wound up setup position.

The Sweep:  We begin the sweep by first clearing the off-hand blade- that is, by raising it out of the water enough so that it can swing over the hull of your still-inverted boat. (sometimes it helps to think about putting the thumb knuckle of your off-hand onto the underside of your boat)  At the same time, we sweep the active paddle blade in a semi-circle away from the boat.  It's not necessary for the paddle blade to have a 'climbing' angle, although it is important that the blade stay at or near the surface.  Another important idea to convey here is that you want to reach out with your paddle in the direction of your sweep- a longer reach means better leverage towards righting your boat.  To this end, you want your active blade arm fairly straight, reaching along the shaft of the paddle, while your off-hand should be somewhere near the middle of your chest, keeping the paddle blade close to your body and flat to the water.  Remember, the paddle is an extension of your arms, but your arms need to function as an extension of your torso.

The first part of the sweep is used to just get your body clear of the boat, so that you can snap your hips.  You're still underwater at this point, establishing that reach with your paddle, preparing to perform your hip-snap.

As your sweep progresses, it's important to stress that your relationship to the surface of the water will change- you'll begin underneath it, and finish above it- in order for your paddle to stay at the same angle to the surface of the water as you snap your hips, it is vital that you roll your wrists back, as if you were opening the throttle on a motorcycle, in order to keep the blade angle from getting too steep and stalling.  Remember, the paddle will be acting as a wing and you only need a little bit of lift from it- controlling the attitude of this wing is one of the key factors in the success of your roll.

Another important concept to introduce is that while your sweep will involve moving your arms a bit, your arms do not provide the power- all your arms do is place the paddle and articulate it's angle- the real work needs to be done nearer to your Center of Gravity, down near your hips.

Hip Snap:  The hip snap is the crux move of your roll. It's so important that in general it's the first thing that is taught when learning how to roll- you begin by hanging on to the side of a pool or something else that's solid, and getting your mind and body wrapped around the notion that when you right the boat, it's not your head that you're lifting, it's your center of gravity- which is, remember, someplace near your belly button.

We begin the hip snap shortly after we begin the sweep- if we begin the hip snap too soon, we're performing it against a brace that has poor leverage- and it helps to have better leverage, as this translates into a 'more solid' feel on the paddle.

What we're really doing with the hipsnap is using the boat as a cam to lift us, backwards, out of the water.  Remember, we began in a wound-up position, close to the surface of the water, and as our sweep begins and we feel the lift from our active paddle, we can use that moment of lift as an opportunity to use the boat to lever ourselves out of the water.  It can be accurately described as throwing your near hip over the top, or as bringing your far hip underneath your near hip, or pushing your near knee over the top, or as rotating the boat such that you exit the water leading with your near hip... in the end these are all the same thing- you're using the moment of support provided by the sweeping active paddle blade to right the boat.

It is vitally important to understand that your head must exit the water last during your hipsnap-  because it's the farthest extremity on your torso from your Center of Gravity, it can employ the greatest lever arm moment against it (meaning you'll have to do the greatest amount of physical work in order to overcome that moment) it makes sense to keep it in the water, where the force of buoyancy largely cancels this moment out.  The other reason your head must be last out of the water is that if you raise your head out of the water, in order to support it you must either have incredible paddle support and arm strength... or you're using your torso to lift your head.  If you use your torso to raise your head, what you'll succeed in doing is pulling the boat over upside down on top of you again.  Because raising your head too early is perhaps the commonest and surest way to kill your roll, I often recommend students to visualize actually pushing down against the water with the back of their head.  Of course, you'll get minimal lift this way, but in terms of keeping your head from coming out too early, this can be a wildly successful technique.

Another technique that seems to help students is to actively watch the active paddle blade (if you can't open your eyes underwater, use goggles for this) while learning. Note that the first part of the head that should exit the water will likely be the side of your chin that's away from the active paddle blade- if you're turning your torso before then, (remember you'll finish looking down at the water, back at your active paddle blade).  This may sound or feel awkward at first, but it translates into a smooth, effortless roll.

The entire objective of the hip snap is to get your Center of Gravity back to a balance point on top of the Center of Buoyancy of the boat.  In short, if you get your belly button above that COB, 90% of your physical work is done, the rest is just cleanup.  Once we've got that COB under us, the native stability of the boat will work in our favor, which is fantastic news, because in that moment between where we've got our CG over the boat and where we actually finish, we can use all the free help we can get.

The Finish:  Now that we've got our CG more or less above the boat's COB, all that remains to be done is cleanup- that is, getting the rest of our body inside the gunwales of your boat, and then sitting up.  If we're fluid about transitioning our hipsnap into our finish, (and we'd better be, it means doing less work and relying less on our paddle) we have a fairly strong inertial moment working in our favor- in the process of getting the boat righted, we've begun a bit of movement that can have the effect of 'slinkying' you upright into the boat- that is, stacking up your vertebrae in much the same manner as a slinky rights itself- and every ounce of your mass that slinkys across that 'gain line' (inside the gunwales of the boat), the more the stability of the boat will work for you and the less you'll have to rely on the paddle for support in order to finish.

If we don't get that magical slinky moment helping us, however, we're faced with a situation that requires a brace- that is, you either continue or reverse the traveling sweep of the paddle, and use that momentary support to bring your body weight inside the gunwales of your boat low before sitting up.  Remember, we began the sweep by reaching as far out to the side as possible, now we have the opportunity to use that long reach to act as the beginning point to a sliding draw stroke along the surface of the water- as your paddle travels from a far reach to a near one, it provides a momentary climbing angle, enough for you to use to bring yourself into the boat low as you would with a regular brace.

You should end up sitting upright in the boat, looking back at the spot in the water you just exited.  Your active blade arm should be extended into the brace you just finished, while your off-hand should be low and held in close to your torso.

It should be noted that the mechanics of the sweep roll do not differ at all from that of the high sweep brace- they're essentially the same thing, performed from different starting positions.

Common Errors:  If everybody got this right every time, there wouldn't be a need for this article or for instruction- but thankfully enough, most problems with this type of roll fall into the following categories:

Raising your head too soon:  We often lead ourselves with our head- it's where we see, hear, smell and breathe... so the urge to think of our head as the leader of what we want to do can be powerful, especially when it's air that we really want, right now.  This is probably the number one reason for failed sweep rolls.  Again, pushing down with the head while you sweep and perform your hipsnap is my 'standard' remedy, but we'll also discuss other things that can lead to raising your head too soon, below:

Offhand Punch:  Another common error is 'punching' with our off-hand- perhaps because we like the feel of a lot of resistance on the sweeping active blade, we're tempted to use the shaft of the stick as a lever against it, but what we do when we perform this levering action is bad for several reasons:

1. It commits the weight of that arm out on the side you want to come into the boat from- killing your 'slinky' momentum and making your finish that much less efficient.
2. It turns the paddle blade in such a manner that you'll end up with your paddle shaft vertical with both arms over one side of the boat- a position from which a brace is virtually impossible and in which you are unlikely to be stable.
3. It provides momentary but inefficient lift to your upper torso, when you should be more interested in articulating your lower torso up and into the boat.
4. It is unnecessary work, and will fail much more readily in moving water- keeping your blade flat and near the surface will make it less susceptible to the foibles of oncoming current.

The irony here is that often we resort to levering against the shaft of our paddle in order to increase the resistance we feel against the blade- often the offhand punch accompanies raising your head too soon, and makes it a bit more complicated to diagnose.  The remedy here is to relax, trust that you don't need a whale of resistance against your paddle blade, keep your head down until it comes across the gunwale of the boat, and try to keep that off-hand in close to your shoulder.  If you discover that the boat is turning as you roll, or if it feels like you're doing a lot of work or 'muscling' your roll, check to see where that off-hand is during and after your roll.

Pulling on the paddle:  This often occurs when paddlers try to crank their hipsnap without committing to a wide reach for their sweep- often paddlers (especially you strong guys) will sweep all of a foot away from the boat and then proceed to perform a forward stroke, parallel to the boat, from underwater- when what they want to do is to sweep and do their work perpendicular to the boat- after all, we roll by righting the boat- not by lifting ourselves by main force out of the water.  It's the process of righting the boat that cams us out of the water.

This maneuver uses the upper body to lift the upper body out of the water, with the idea that somehow if they crank hard enough regardless of where their active blade is, they'll end up upright and somehow on top of their boat.  Instead of using the active blade as a wide-sweeping wing to provide lift, they're using it as a barn door close to the side of the boat to provide drag while they muscle themselves up.  This maneuver nearly always fails, because by the time they've made it most of the way out of the water and are at their least stable, they're leaning on a vertical paddle blade with virtually no brace support.  This maneuver is also nearly universally accompanied by a raised head and a punching off-hand, but is very often caused by something simple: if, during the setup, the off-hand is not raised above the bottom of the boat, the off-hand blade will jam into the side or cockpit of the boat, causing the sweep to feel as though it's hit a 'wall' of some sort, and the paddler may then resort to muscling the roll.  Another cause for pulling on the paddle is a sort of insidious desire to feel a 'solid' purchase against the paddle, a sense that if there's a lot of resistance to it, one can use that purchase to right oneself- it's a trap, however, because it leads to a poor finish and an unreliable roll.  Another remedy for this may be to simply clear the offhand, commit to a wide reach on the sweep, delay the hipsnap until the active blade is well away from the boat, and follow the active blade with your eyes.

The 'locked wrist': Again, as you snap your hips, you will change your physical orientation with respect to the surface of the water- after all, you started out upside down, facing the surface of the water and you're trying to finish this whole thing upright, facing down towards the surface of the water. Because you don't want your paddle's relationship to the surface of the water to change (it needs to stay more or less flat or else it can't provide lift), you must roll your wrists back (just like opening the throttle on a motorcycle) as you cross the plane of the surface, or else that angle *will* change.  If you sweep but keep your wrists locked, the angle of the blade with respect to the surface of the water will climb, making the sweep more difficult, until the angle of the blade no longer provides lift- it will then stall, shank off downwards... often leading the paddler to punch with that famous off-side hand, and raise their head to get a breath of air before going down again for all of the above reasons. ...And all the while turning the boat in a big circle because of the forward purchase that happened while the active blade was on an angle like that.

The remedy for this is to flatten out that sweep blade- you don't even need a climbing angle on it, just keep it flat and the sweep itself will provide all the lift you need, and roll your wrists back as you snap up- in fact, if you finish with your wrists all the way back, you're in an excellent position to reverse the sweep for a climbing brace stroke in the opposite direction should you need more stability to recover fully.

Freaking Out:  Of all the reasons for blowing a roll, this is at once the most insidious and most difficult to remedy, because now it's not a simple technique thing, it's got something to do with your state of mind. Rolling when you're not confident about your roll is a very pressure-filled endeavor- you've got a limited amount of air, we're blind, we can't really hear, for all we know there are big rocks rushing towards us as we float headlong towards the lip of killer death fang falls... we've introduced a certain amount of pressure and fear into the situation.  The solution to this is often difficult to come to terms with, because often we're not all that in touch with whatever it is that pushes our buttons and causes us to hurry things up, and it's often this hurry and/or breakdown in focus that impairs our judgment, which may cause us to forget some of our finesse, to trade it in for a bit of speed.

The short solution to freaking out is in finding your focus, and understanding your priorities: the first and only thing you should be worried about is getting upright.  Once you're upright, THEN you can worry about whatever else it is that you need to deal with.  If you discover fear or confusion getting in the way of your ability to execute, take the time to think and talk about what it is that's flustering you.  Once you've got a handle on it, you can devise a plan for situations like this, even if it just means relaxing for a second, collecting yourself, and trying again, or switching to your off-side.  For a more detailed discussion on the topic of dealing with fear, click here.

In sum, there are a lot of things that can go wrong in a roll, when what you really want is for everything to go right, obviously.  The only way I know to get everything right all the time is to practice, get outside input if necessary, and understand what needs to happen for you to put together a successful roll- both in terms of technique and in terms of your mental state.

If you have questions, comments, or suggestions on how to improve this article, please let me know.