Day 2 Rolling

Friday, February 19, 2010

Arrived at Hampshire for day 2 of rolling. Beth's feeling sick but managing to be the gritty gotta-be-here instructor. Switched boats around and I got a shorter blue job that I didn't like from the get-go. My feet curled around the edges of the foot plate and were uncomfortable but I figured I'd hang in and give it a try. Don't want to be resistant to change just because it's change. But I was still resistant to asking for help as I battled with the damn neoprene spray skirt that requires major muscles to stretch it over the cockpit coaming. I hung out doing some review of holding the side of the pool to practice flips. I felt the water leak through and was soaked before long.

It took quite a while to get through individual instructions so I decided to try what I saw Coquette doing--flip over next to the wall and if you couldn't right yourself, you can find the wall. I hadn't done this yet but I saw others doing it yesterday. I flipped. When I couldn't find the wall, it didn't take long for panic to set in. But, I got my head together and remembered that I know how to wet exit. It worked in real life and this time there was no question that I was underwater when I pulled the skirt tab off. . . can't remember if I had to push myself out of the boat or not. I popped up and saw Beth and Kate right next to me, looks of concern on their faces. "You okay? You made us real nervous." Okay, so they were busy with others but I guess their radar is always turning. But I needed to do something while waiting my turn. And now I get to yank my boat onto the deck and swear at the @#$% skirt as I try to pull it back on. The battle is a discouragement to try anything that might make me flip again and another reason to keep working out at the gym.

Eventually it was my turn and Beth started working with me. I still had good knee action and Beth got me working with a paddle so I could learn the underwater sweep motion. I wasn't getting it exactly and she said I wasn't as relaxed as I needed to be despite promising not to try drowning me again. I didn't progress much and it was the last day of lessons. So much for actually rolling. Supposedly there are lessons elsewhere before we pick up the heavy paddling courses yet to come. There was still a little time left so I decided to try a different boat. It felt more comfortable and I just paddled around in the pool, enjoying the fast response of these little boats but I wasn't about to try flipping again. Time to empty the water out of the boats and head out--next stop Bueno again.

Got back to campus and I went up to the IT department to continue working on my IP and using PowerPoint. Karen's been a great help showing me how to get links live on the slides. I had wanted to put a couple of YouTubes on it but it's apparently problematic. In the end, I'll still need to try this out in advance on the OLP laptop in the classroom.

Next week, all but a few of us will be heading to the White Mountains for the mountaineering trip which is not an actual course. I have some regrets about not going but if it were a day long experience I'd likely do it. And then there's the fact that I was short sighted and sold my winter bag thinking I only needed it for the winter trip. sigh