Clam roll by KiteForge

Transcript

1. ›

   Introduction

   0:06

   In this tutorial, we're going to dig into the clam roll. The clam roll is, I think, a more advanced cousin of the flic flac. A flic flac, of course, is where the kite, in mid-air, flips bottom tips up, showing you the back of the kite with the lines rolled up, and then immediately flips back. With the clam roll, it does the first flip (“flic”) and sticks to the ground in its landed position. You can sit it there as long as you want, and once you're ready to recover it, you give it a very similar input and snap it back to its feet (“flac”). With that, let's take a look.

2. ›

   Entry

   1:07

   All right, so that's the clam roll in action. Let's break it down. Getting into it is a little different from kite to kite, but the basic inputs remain the same. The first thing I focus on is having a kite that's heavy enough, for inertia, relative to the wind conditions that I can flip it: it has enough weight and stiffness that I can really impact it and make it move.

   The other thing for the initial setup is to put the kite as far forward as I can without it taking off. I don't want it to launch, but I want to be in a pretty full thumbs-back position like this. What you may notice is that there is an aggressive wrist snap. I don't pull very much on the kite, because I don't want to load it up. I'm just trying to flip it and then release it. So there's this flip, and then I'm almost leading forward with the thumbs and my body, watching the kite roll all the way up. Let's see what that looks like.

   Okay. So it's an aggressive little snap: very short, very concise and powerful, and then instantly letting the kite go. It's very similar to the axel tutorial, where you saw an impact and immediate slack, already moving forward even as you're hitting the kite. That does come into play, especially when the wind is a little higher and the kite requires that additional slack to do it.

3. ›

   The angle

   2:39

   Now what we're looking for is the angle. Once the kite is flipped and makes contact with its leading edge, there is a particular angle that the kite is more secure in. There's also a particular angle that's better for the exit, which we'll get to next. But let's look at the actual lean-back angle. So here we go, full forward, thumbs leaning back. When I make this strike, because my right hand is stronger than my left, I have to be very conscious that I'm doing a whole “two hands of one mind” input. Otherwise my right hand will take off stronger and actually twist the kite, and I don't get as good a clam roll. Here we go... There it is.

   So, we have it in the back position. Generally, when you've done it consistently, the lines will be between the verticals, depending on the bridle and the kite you're on. But I haven't found that this makes a tremendous difference in my ability to exit. Now, with the kite leaned back like this, let's take a look. Of course, if I go too far back in that direction, I have a chance of the leading edge slipping out, or the kite falling down. Then I have no more bite in the kite and I can't recover it using the traditional clam exit.

   I'm going to show you what happens if the kite didn't rotate far enough, or if I start to pull my brake lines, those bottom tips that are now upward, too much: the kite is going to start to float and flip. I'll show you... There it is. I've lost the grip. As soon as I do that too much, the kite is not going to behave the way I want it to.

4. ›

   The exit

   4:24

   Let's set that up again. Nice snap to the clam roll. There it is: it came off nice and square. From here, with a little bit of practice, you figure out at which point you lift and the kite starts to budge. At the moment before it hits that point, you'll see that I aggressively hit a quick snap, and I almost double-time backward after I make that input, AFTER, NOT during. So here we go... I'm going to lift these tips to the key point, then I'm going to snap, and hopefully I get a good recovery out of this. There it is. You can see the hand motion is pretty quick. Having given you the information that we have so far, let's take a look at a few of those in slow motion and really break it down.

5. ›

   Technique review

   6:02

   All right, having watched a few of those, you can start to see more of the nuance that goes into it. The twist in the hands, or the bottom line strike: if you see that in the slow motion, you probably caught the fact that a lot of the impact is going down. That allows me to give it a strong, big, large motion, a glancing blow off those bottom lines, without pulling on the kite and loading in a bunch of tension or sail load, which works against the clam roll. Having mentioned that, let's look at it one more time in slow motion.

6. ›

   Alternate notes and examples

   7:22

   All right, so there's the basic explanation of the clam roll. Some of my favorite applications for this are hitting it out of a rotation, a bicycle spin or a rollover landing, things like that. What I'll offer about that, as a transitional move and not just a trick, is to make sure that after you've done any sort of rotation or setup for that clam roll, you've basically squared up the pressure in the kite, and you're actually feeling four lines square: it's no longer in its turn personality, it's now in its straight personality, the moment that you hit it. With that, I'm going to show you a few demonstrations of different approaches to the clam roll, and then you can pick it apart for yourself.

7. ›

   Common problems

   8:32

   Now that we've shown a few of the different ways that you can attack it, I also want to take a moment to show some of the ways the clam roll goes wrong, and how I deal with that, because it is an odd maneuver. Having shared the tips on how to do this with a number of people and seen the learning process, I'd say there are two big things new flyers do that work against their success rate. One is pulling during that snap. You want to snap and release, and make sure that you're not pulling the kite too much on the entry. The other is not allowing the kite enough slack during the roll-up process. I'll just show you what that looks like. If I don't allow enough, I go here, and there it lifts. I'll do that again so you can really see it one more time. I go, but I didn't quite give it enough slack to let it roll up.

   I also want to throw in that we have a flat relaunch tutorial on the website. If you find yourself in any odd positions, that may very well come in handy. As for learning the clam roll, the one closing piece I'll offer is this: as you're learning, if you find it's doing what it just did a lot, I would suggest practicing over-rolling it. What I mean is, if you're again and again not getting enough roll, draw your arms in, and set this foot back so that you're able to transition forward and release your arms at the same time. Then we're going to make sure this kite rolls up past the clam roll point and goes flat. That looks like this. There it is. Again, if you're having consistent difficulty getting that clam roll to lock in, find out what's on the other side, and then eventually just shave that back, shave that back, until you actually get it stuck in place.

8. ›

   Closing thoughts

   10:35

   With that in mind, have fun. Between the clam roll, the axel and the flic flac, which we'll cover in another tutorial, have a lot of fun, mix in the freestyle and be safe. Hopefully I'll see you on the field somewhere.