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The Sweep Roll

Photo by Jock Bradley

Teaching people how to roll can be a wonderful and rewarding experience, but it can also be frustrating for both you and your student if you try to go too fast, or if you lose sight of the fact that very few people 'get it' naturally.  Rolling doesn't make sense to someone who just wants to get a breath of air- and the trick is to convince your student that they don't want the air, they want to be upright.

Remember, rolling is not as hard to do as it is to teach.  The problem we face is that we must somehow absorb the ideas of another person and translate it into our own muscle memory, and there's a significant difference between understanding the words and getting our bodies to do the proper motions.  By that same token, it's not as hard to teach as it is to learn, so there are a few guidelines to remember: 

Every attempt, no matter how dismally it didn't work, is a triumph.  Your job as an instructor is to break rolling down into small enough bits that the student's attempt-to-failure ratio never gets very high.

Success is mental every bit as much as it is physical.  This is an exercise designed to succeed, so have fun with it and make sure your student is included in the fun.

You're only proceeding too slow if your student is bored.  Remember, you take so much of it for granted, but this is new territory for them.  Take little steps in order to keep your student succeeding.

I start my students out using the side of the pool, doing the hipsnap thing- that is, having them grab the side of the pool with both hands, and with their heads at the surface of the water, making them keep their head in the water until the hip-snap rotation of the boat lifts their heads out of the water without them having to push with their arms. The lesson I want them to learn from the hip-snap drill is just where the boat rotates- and that it's nowhere near their arms. Most people begin by trying to do the whole thing with their arms or leading with their heads, especially strong guys.  The secret, I explain, is that we're not lifting ourselves out of the water- we're rotating the boat, and tricking the boat into lifting us, instead. Another thing we learn from the poolside hip-snap drill is that our fore-aft attitude in the boat is important... nearly everyone has a moment of difficulty on the side of the pool when their bow mysteriously wanders off, and they end up caught underneath the stern of their boat...

Before we get into the boat, I talk them through what to expect, and the general object of the lesson- to find a setup position that brings them close to the surface of the water, and to describe a paddle stroke that acknowledges that your relationship to the surface of the water will change constantly as you come to the surface... hopefully resulting in you ending up above it. :-)  I usually teach a sweep-style roll, but if for some reason the sweep stroke is confusing or not working, I'll switch over to a c-to-c type roll, depending upon the needs of the student.  Another topic I'll discuss in depth before we get wet is the idea of where your center of gravity is, where your center of buoyancy is, and how we're going to approach the problem of getting your CG back up on top of your COB.

Because a successful roll is a combination of a lot of factors, I begin by creating drills that isolate these factors one at a time- the first thing I work on is the hipsnap, followed by the paddle stroke, after which we put them all together in a real-live roll.

Once they figure out the idea of what the hipsnap/side-of-pool drill is about, I move them to using a float- say, two kickboards or a big float- many folks will use the side of the pool in order to muscle themselves up, and using a float will point this out to them and train them not to muscle it.  The lessons I want my students to learn from the float drill are that they need to begin their setup at or near the surface, that pushing with their arms (as opposed to articulating from the hips) is detrimental, and that leading with the head is a sure way to foil themselves.

Once they're successful with the big float, I move them on to using progressively smaller floats until I'm happy with the way their hipsnap is working, and they've figured out how to follow, rather than to lead, with their head. Hand paddles are good tools here, as well- be sure to play with them if you can.

Next, I move them on to a low-brace, working finally with the paddle for the first time. The point of this drill is to train the student to use the paddle to right the boat first, *then* to get themselves back over the boat. Often their instinct will be to slap at the water with their paddle and try to get their heads back over the boat by using their hips- and the result will be that they simply pull the boat over on top of themselves, and this 'instinct' needs to be corrected. If the low-brace doesn't teach them this, slow it down some by holding their active paddle blade and make sure their head position and body mechanics are right- the point here is that you want them to use their brace stroke, rather than their weight, to right the boat. Consider going back to the floats/hand paddles as well- don't spend a lot of time working on something where the student isn't getting what you want them to get, it's frustrating for both of you.

Key points to introduce about the sweep stroke:

When you go from under the water to above the water, you change your relationship to the surface.  Since you don't want to change the way your paddle blade relates to the surface, you need to roll your wrists back while you're snapping your hips.  If you don't roll your wrists back, as you snap up your blade angle will climb until it stalls, which can lead to other problems.

You don't need or even want much climbing angle on the sweep stroke.  If you've got too much, the blade will stall and it will feel like a bunch of work.

One common error involves 'punching' with your off-hand.  This may seem to be effective, because it feels like you get added load on the paddle, but in reality it's just more work, and in the end you end up bracing on a vertical paddle blade with both arms on the same side of the boat, which is undesirable.

Next, I move to a high brace- first by teaching them the general stroke (it's the same stroke they'll use on a sweep roll) and starting out by having them fall over onto me. I have them tip over towards me, catch them at the surface of the water, and support them by the back of their shoulder. While they're in this position I show them the stroke they'll need to use, and have them 'sweep' themselves up from that supported position.  If they attempt to come up by leading with their heads, I'll place my hand on the underside of their head and have them 'push down' with their heads- and I'll explain that although you don't really get any 'push' with your head, what you're really doing is allowing yourself to right the boat before you come up into it.  The boat acts like a cam, lifting your center of gravity up and into it- if you try to come up head-first, you'll defeat that cam action.

Key concepts that I try to communicate:

This stroke is done not with the arms, but with the torso. Pushing and pulling with your arms will just tire you out and cause other problems. This is because the real lifting work is being done by the boat- and this is accomplished by articulating your hips, not your arms.

As your relationship to the surface of the water changes, your wrists need to adjust in order to keep the paddle more or less at the same traveling angle. The task of your arms is to keep the paddle blade saluting the surface of the water, and to make your paddle an extension of your torso.

The real work here is being done in your hips. The object is to rotate the boat, not to lift yourself 'up'. The boat will 'cam' you up- you're not lifting anything, you're tricking the boat into lifting you. :-)

From there, I do the supported high-brace drill, holding them lower and lower in the water until eventually they're 'bracing' themselves up from under the surface of the water. I then tell them that what they've been doing this whole time was the exact same thing as rolling.

Often, at this point, they get it and make their first attempt. :-)

Now, at any point during all of this that something goes wrong, your job as instructor is to identify it and move on to a drill that addresses it. If the head is coming up too soon, we move to the floats. If the paddle is diving, go back to the supported high-brace and make sure they're rolling their wrists back and not punching with their off-arm.

During all of this, it's crucial to limit the amount of failure the student meets. Remember, this is fun and sometimes you have to blow a little sunshine their way! Make sure that both you and they understand that this time is about them and their progress- and that it's expected that they move in baby steps. Celebrate every time they get something right, and above all, convince them that this goal of being able to roll every time is a very attainable one.

Your worst enemy is frustration, and the notion that 'I just can't do this'. sure they can- anyone can- unless they convince themselves that they can't.
If you reach a sticking point, where your student isn't getting what they need from you, don't be shy about getting an outside opinion. Often someone else will just say the one thing they needed to make sense of your lesson, and everything will click. Don't regard this as a failure on your part- regard it as a triumph, because you recognized in time that your student needed something that you weren't articulating. :-) We all communicate and learn differently, and your responsibility is to your student- this isn't about your ability to communicate, it's about getting them what they need to progress. :-)

Using this general curriculum, I get 80-90% of my students rolling with a fair degree of success on both sides within 4 hours (2 sessions) of pool time, usually working with two students at a time. Maybe 40% have hand-rolls as well, and given another pool session you're likely to see some regressions to polish out, but after another couple hours of roll practice, the numbers improve again. :-)