ori learns to roll

Heres a rolling lesson in pictures, from the first time with Hadas standing besides him , through many days of practice and frustration to a final successful roll. Now begins the task of making the roll elegant, effortless and bombproof. Just when you think that you have mastered the roll you come back to the water and its gone, nowhere in sight. How frustrating, so back you go to the basics, again and again, and then one day its there, easy as pie. And then you start to think about the off side and other variations. So now you know , its a never ending learning experience and a lot of fun.

paddlers of the world unite

As a group I feel we deserve some recognition in the medical field. For example there is Athelete`s foot, Tennis elbow and Swimers ear, all well known afflictions that we suffer from. I also know that many paddlers suffer from a myriad of minor and major ailments, but up to now we have no malady of our own. I appeal to all you out there in the kayak world to submit your suggestions for our own illness, something unique to the kayak community, and maybe we can persuade the powers that be to adopt and recognise our contribution to modern medicine.

new pink hat

Today Hadas showed us her new pink hat, what a beauty. If I wasnt afraid it would be taken the wrong way I would admit that pink is my favourite color. Now that almost everyone can roll we are witnessing a new phenomena, mass rolling, and the old timers are progressing on to hand rolls at a rapid pace.I saw a lot of fishermen out on their kayaks today , in a fishing competition, but the only fish I saw were the flying fish in attack mode.Just another day on the water .
The countdown to our trip to Milos has begun, we leave for a week of kayaking round the island on the 19th of Sept. From what I have heard , it is a great week in a fantastic setting.
Heres the video of the day featuring Hadas in her brand new PINK HAT

so you can teach an old dog new tricks

I`ve been watching the guys and gals learning to roll and taking movies of the process for the last few weeks, it`s an interesting process.Today I saw Ziv do a great roll, keeping his head in the correct position at last, and a few days ago Ruby managed a hand roll with relative ease. All documented on film. Well today it was my turn. With a bit of encouragement and advice from Ruby, I managed to do my first hand roll. What excitement and a great feeling to begin to master something new. I admit that I didn`t think that I could do it as I am not as flexible as the younger paddlers.But there you go then, I was wrong.

dont try this at home

There are no Greenland Style Instructors in Israel, all we know is from what we see on the web and on This Is The Sea from Justine. So when we see Cheri and Freya playing with eskimo rolls we try to copy them , not having a clue as to what they are doing. Sometimes we succeed, sometimes not but we have a lot of fun in the trying.And we get better all the time.See Ruby doing a hand roll for the first time, see Hadas practising and the rest of us just messing about in boats.I agree with Derrick, playing equals learning and we become better kayakers in the process. Actually Derrick will be coming to our symposium so maybe we will have a Greenland style workshop after all.

breakfast of champions

Or how to make SHAKSHUKA... We learn all these different strokes when beginning to kayak, braces, rudders, rolls, skulling , and the list goes on and on. The other day a new student asked me , when learning the basics, "and when do I use this", I answered, first learn the strokes and then you can use them instinctively.So he did. Now I have a short video of Lev,[ not the guy in the story], showing a few braces, rolls and skulling in the small waves on the shore. And then Yuval and Sagi made us a SHAKSHUKA for breakfast. Shakshuka, meaning all shook up, is a very popular Israeli dish made with tomatoes, onions, peppers and eggs. First you fry up a good amount of onions tomatoes and peppers, and whatever else you have handy in a bit of olive oil. When its done you break a few eggs gently into the mixture and let them cook slowly. The dish is usually served in the pan as you can see in the pictures. You need a good bread to mop up the tasty juice too. A glass of Ouzo helps too.

photos from friday

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