rolling & footpeg position

[PeterB]

I appreciate everyone’s comments on the relationship, or lack thereof, between rolling & foot pegs.

To clarify two things: By adjusting my foot pegs forward, I meant that I moved them away from the cockpit, not towards.

Also, I hadn’t meant to say that this adjustment of foot pegs affected the action in my feet. It wasn’t like ”wow, now that my foot pegs are farther forward I can push off with my feet better, so I can roll more easily.” I was not aware of using my feet to push off at all, before or after foot peg adjustment ; in fact I couldn’t really feel any change that I could identify, just a mysterious sudden ease in rolling upon adjusting foot pegs , which I suspect was due to the unlocking of my hips. I think the best interpretation of my situation was by Sir Luby: that “sympathetic tension{due to foot pegs positioned too far aft} was effectively taking {my} hip flexion out of the equation”. To me, it would stand to reason that since there are five points of contact with one' s boat (feet, pelvis/butt and and thighs ) that improper position of two of them would negatively affect any aspect of boat control, rolling and otherwise.

As an aside:

Being a thirty nine year old male (the age I have been for at least a decade ) I do not have great hip flexibility, but all of this has caused me to reflect on the how much more flexible I feel than a year ago as a result of all this kayak-borne exercise . I still have a ways to go, but in general I am reminded of a quotation which could readily be applied to the beneficial effects of sea kayaking on a not-so-young male:

“I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at

seventy, and considering that traveling further on the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again, which having done these past four years, you may now call me sixty six. Advise old friends of yours to follow my example; keep up your spirits, and that will keep up your bodies.”

-Benjamin Franklin