The Straitjacket Roll and Other Obsessions: A Conversation with David Täng

In this episode of The Dubcast with Dubside, Dubside and Andrew reflect on the highlights of the weekend at SSTIKS 2025, the people they met, and the unique energy of the event. It’s a quiet moment of gratitude, insight, and storytelling around the campfire.

We then head to Sweden for a deep-dive conversation with David Täng—Greenland-style kayak roller, skin-on-frame qajaq builder, and founder of Sweden’s growing rolling competition scene. From his early days learning from Cheri Perry and Turner Wilson’s DVDs to launching a rolling club and helping organize the Swedish Rolling Championships, David shares his journey, philosophy, and the technical secrets behind his competition rolls—including insights on cockpit design, spinal flexibility, and the elusive straitjacket roll.

Whether you’re a seasoned roller or just learning your first recovery, this episode offers rich technique discussion, community-building wisdom, and inspiration for anyone obsessed with qajaq rolling. Plus, David tells the story behind his website qajaqrolling.com, and shares thoughts on building toward an international rolling competition.

LINKS:

This episode on YouTube

The Dubcast With Dubside on Instagram

David Täng: Welcome to Qajaq Rolling

Transcript

ANDREW:
Hey everyone—Andrew here. Welcome back to The Dubcast with Dubside.

This episode kicks off a little differently—because the introduction is actually on video. So if you'd like to watch this video, you can find it on my YouTube Channel.  I'll put the link in the show notes. 

Dubside and I had an incredible time at SSTIKS—and in the couple weeks leading up to it—reconnecting with old friends and recording some great conversations. A big thank you goes out to everyone who came up and said “Hi", and told us how much you enjoyed the podcast. Hearing how much it inspired you truly means a lot to us.

And of course, a huge shoutout to the organizers and volunteers who made SSTIKS 2025 such a fun, welcoming, and unforgettable event. We really appreciate all your hard work.

Now, some of you have asked what it’s like to be spending time with Dubside. Let’s just say: I really admire how he can follow a very simple, and focused, almost ascetic lifestyle. His routine is dialed in—yoga every morning while his breakfast cooks, mostly plant-based whole foods, no screens, just books. You know he hasn’t watched TV since he was 12 years old. There’s a discipline and focus to how he lives that really makes you think about what it takes to master something. I’ve learned a lot just watching his routine throughout the day.

So after SSTIKS, we sat down by the fire and recorded our thoughts. I'm going to share some of that conversation here. Like I said, this part is on video, so head over to my YouTube channel to see it.

ANDREW:
So here we are, Monday evening, the day after SSTIKS.

DUBSIDE:
Fly out tomorrow morning, back to the East Coast.

ANDREW:
Yep, getting up early tomorrow. What did you think of the weekend? How would you kind of sum it up?

DUBSIDE: 

Just the weekend? How about the whole, what have I been here, two weeks?

ANDREW:
Yeah, the whole weeks. The run up to the event.

DUBSIDE:
I can't even remember when I got here. Moulton Avery picked me up at the airport, did some classes up there in Vancouver, Washington, and then I was, you picked me up from his house, right?

ANDREW:
Yep.

DUBSIDE:
And then we went on a little road trip doing interviews.

ANDREW:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
Then we got to SSTIKS. Yeah, heck of a time. Whirlwind for these two weeks.

Not a whole lot of time to rest.

ANDREW:
Yeah, that's a good word for it. But we managed to make it work. On a very tight schedule. What do you think of the event itself?

DUBSIDE:
SSTIKS, yeah, I think they're off to a good start. It's definitely a new start. They got a new location, new staff learning how to do things, and they're making little snafus here and there that'll improve over time.

When we interviewed Peter Gengler, he'd been coming to Delmarva for so many years, longer than I have, 25, 30 years almost. And doesn't he lament how, you know, that it's not how it used to be, and you miss the old times, and it just changed so much. And I know that people feel that way.

People who don't come back to these things, it's just not the same anymore. And Peter Gengler said, you just have to embrace all of it. And each one is unique, and not trying to make each one a reference point to the other ones, and a better or worse one, but just it is what it is.
And you come there and enjoy it. So SSTIKS is going to be the same thing. You know, it's a different group of people there, a different location, but hey, you're just going to enjoy it.

It was a very enjoyable weekend, and some new cool people, and some cool old people.

ANDREW:
And I wish I had more time to talk and interview with people. We had, you know, a few people that we were trying to get to do an interview with, but everybody was so busy.

DUBSIDE:
They got me on the water teaching and doing yoga instruction in the morning, and presentation in the evening. So I didn't have much time to get out my gear with you and record stuff.

ANDREW:
Yeah, it was a really tight schedule.

DUBSIDE:
You got some good video, right?

ANDREW:
I hope so. We'll find out.

DUBSIDE:
And as they're learning how to do things, I was very happy when they wanted a Sunday afternoon rolling competition thing. Usually at SSTIKS, that would mean we get out on the dock, I'm in the water, and everybody else they can find who wants to do it. And we go through a list until usually no one can do any more rolls except me, and I'm doing the last one, and that's the end of the demonstration.

Somebody will be narrating. I wasn't all that thrilled on Sunday afternoon to get my gear all wet again if I could get out of it. And so we had two folks there who were relatively new.

I don't think they've been at prior SSTIKS. And they got good rolling skills. They still got some things to learn.

So I encouraged, I suggested we have them in the water. I was suggesting several people. Those are the two that stepped up to the task.

And I narrated along with Henry Romer, one of the old timers there. We were studying the names of the rolls in Greenlandic and making comments on them. And they were in the water.

And I was happy about that because if you have, you know, when Cheri Perry and Helen Wilson and I, or people like James Manke do the rolling demos and, you know, knocking out all the hard rolls, I think it's just intimidating for other people. I mean, you see how they're done. But to expect someone else to try that and maybe next year they could do the demo, we don't get a whole lot of buy-in on that.

But so to this time, deliberately step back and say, okay, you folks do the rolling demonstration. And they did some good rolls. Then at the end, they started playing around, do some funny tricks they made, which is just like Cheri Perry and I used to do back in the day.

And when Freya Hoffmeister, we do demonstrations at Delmarva and things. So let the new generation come in and give us some new ideas of vitality. 

On this new location at Columbia River, we had these ships, container ships, huge container ships coming right past us on the river at various intervals. That was kind of new.

ANDREW:
That was pretty interesting how close they came to the shore.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. They were doing some nice trips up into the streams and things that feed the big river there. And I didn't get to go on any of those, but it sounds like they had some really cool places to paddle into.a

Maybe next year I'll get to see some of those.

ANDREW:
Yeah, it's a beautiful area. They had this beautiful sandy beach. And we'd also been approached by a lot of people who listened to the podcast, which was really cool.

DUBSIDE:
We met some fans.

ANDREW:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
Good fans. Some people said they'd listened to all of them.

ANDREW:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
I was impressed.

ANDREW:
Yeah, I was impressed too. And it's great to get that kind of feedback.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. Folks who have came to kayaking recently, and this has been sort of their introduction to the whole sport. So all the reference points we tie in there just gives them the background on it.

So that's gratifying to be able to provide that. I gave out a fresh batch of guitar picks. Since I haven't been out here since before we started the podcast. So everybody was new. So I handed them all out. 

So when I get home, I'll have about two weeks or so to prepare for Greenland again.

I'll be bringing my recording equipment and another set of interviews. This two weeks here, we got what, like six, seven…?

ANDREW:
Dubside and I continued our conversation long into the night. Maybe I'll share more of it down the road. For now, I'm excited to bring you Dubside's interview with Swedish kayak builder and rolling enthusiast, David Täng.

David's story is full of insight. He shares his journey from casual paddler to rolling competitor and delves into the fine points of kayak design and his dream of creating an international kayak rolling championship. If you geek out on technique and rolling form, you're going to love this one.

Also, a quick update. We've launched an Instagram for The Dubcast With Dubside. We'll be posting photos, videos, and behind the scenes moments there.

So be sure to follow us. That link's in the show notes too. Thanks as always for listening. And until next time, happy paddling!




 

DUBSIDE:

Welcome to The Dubcast, With Dubside. This is a special guest edition of the Dubcast. An interview with an expert kayak roller from Sweden, named David Täng.

I talked about how he got started kayaking, and how he got interested in rolling. He formed a rolling group, how he got interested in competition rolling. And Cheri Perry and Turner Wilson come up in the conversation a number of times.

He talks about going to the Danish rolling competition. We delve into the straightjacket roll. We mentioned Jan David Jensen.

And we talk about skin-on-frame design, related to rolling and special modifications. He mentions Jorgen and Anna-Sophia from Norway. The finer points of spinal flexibility.

His ideas of organizing the Swedish rolling championship. And having a kayak community. And the idea of an international rolling competition.

This goes for a little under 45 minutes. 

Well, it is August 12th. And if this sounds familiar, it's because I've recorded a few other episodes right here from this location.

But I'm talking to David Täng, from Sweden, at his house. And so as a special guest, I would like our listeners to meet you and get to know you. T

DAVID TÄNG:
Thank you.

DUBSIDE:
And welcome to the Dubcast with Dubside.

DAVID TÄNG:
Thank you. 

DUBSIDE:
So I first became aware of you in finding out about the last couple of years of the Swedish kayak championship.

And when I saw they put up a video of Jan David competing and missing a few rolls that I knew he could do. And some guy named David Täng going after him and doing, I think, what was scored as better than him. Which impressed me quite a bit.

So I tracked you down. And here I am at your house, talking to you. So how long have you been kayaking?

DAVID TÄNG:
Oh, 10, 12 years. Something like that. It was my wife that said, well, we had to have some common interests. So after golf didn't work out, let's try kayaking. And I said, well, all right.

Okay. And here I am.

DUBSIDE:
So you didn't pick up on the Greenland rolling stuff until relatively recently?

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, I did start to roll basically straight away. But the kayaks I had by then, they weren't really suited for rolling.

DUBSIDE:
Were you using a Greenland paddle early on?

DAVID TÄNG:
Not at the beginning. I had a Euro paddle, had a huge fiberglass kayak, which we didn't like.

But it took a year or two, and then I said, yeah, I like this. It's fun. 

DUBSIDE: 
Kayaking in general?

DAVID TÄNG: 
Kayaking in particular.

DUBSIDE:
And you were going out paddling just day things and not really rough water?

DAVID TÄNG:
No, just smooth water, day trips, going back and forth a little bit. But I did try rolling early because I like to get wet. So there was a lot of bailing out, a lot of self-rescuing stuff going on.

And Euro paddle is not very well suited for rolling, and especially not with a kayak with huge freeboards. So after a while, I decided that, yeah, I want to do this. So I invested in a more expensive kayak.

The second kayak I bought was the Valley Anas Acuta, and that rolls very well.

DUBSIDE:
We've heard all about the original designer of that kayak on the podcast.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, I really appreciated that. That was something else.

So after another year, I found these plans on the Internet for a Greenland paddle. That's something.  I love… you know, woodworking is fun.

So I started making my own paddles, and they were awful to start out with. 1.2, 1.3 kilos, huge things, thick things, heavy things, but they were way better than the Euro paddle.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah? Okay. And so when did you become aware of there was this kayak, Greenland type of community, whether in Sweden or other places?

DAVID TÄNG:
That was much later. I didn't know anything more than the standard Greenland roll. Luckily, I've never heard of the C2C, which I'm kind of not a fan of.

But, well, I spent a lot of time on YouTube by then, and after a short while, I found Cheri and Turner. So I actually got their "This Is The Roll 2” first.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So then the whole world opened up for me, and I said, wow, this is something else. A couple of years later, when I went through most of the rolls on the second DVD, I bought the first one, and then things started to pick up. Because if you don't have a good foundation, the harder ones basically get impossible.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. All right.

DAVID TÄNG:
So I went back and I relearned, and I've relearned a couple of times since then.

DUBSIDE:
All right. Now, when you started, you're out paddling. Now, my awareness of Swedish coastline here, there's some beautiful places to paddle.

I guess you're right in the middle of that. It's outside of, in greater Gothenburg is where you're at.

Did you have other…?

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, well, I live permanently south of Gothenburg at a place called Onsala. So we got pretty good waters around here.

But I am so fortunate that my parents came from up the coast. They're from a small town called Strömstad.

And my grandfather was a pilot there. So they had a little house out on an island outside of Strömstad called Koster.

And that place, well, I can't find the words to describe that place, but it's a mecca. It's a wonderful place for kayaking. It's one of the best places I can imagine.

It's very easy to paddle there because we don't have any tidal waters or tides, basically. And it's very sheltered. And millions and millions, oh, sorry, hundreds of small islands, some of the size of rocks sticking up.

And you can go in between them. In some places, you can stretch out your arms and touch both sides to the rocks.
Yeah, so it's very sheltered. But when you want to, you can just go a little bit further, you know, another half an hour, and it will be the North Sea.

And the North Sea swells coming in. So if you want to go rock hopping or… So you can choose. And I've been so fortunate to have good parents.

DUBSIDE:
So you started learning the Greenland rolls with the Cheri and Turner DVD and things, right?

DAVID TÄNG:
Right.

DUBSIDE:
Now, when did you connect with other people that were similarly interested in Greenland rolling?

DAVID TÄNG:
That was much later. I don't really remember. Well, I was, you know, I was scanning the Internet, and I heard that Cheri and Turner actually was going to be in the Gothenburg area teaching.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
By that time, I was unable to sign up because— 

DUBSIDE: 
Can you think of what year this was about? 

DAVID TÄNG: 
’15, ’16, maybe ’17. Something like that. But, you know, I couldn't attend because I didn't feel very well, but I went there. So I watched from the docks, and I get to say Hi, and—well, they were teaching the basic stuff, but still— And I didn't listen in to the lessons, but, you know, I was sitting there.

And then I started finding people sitting next to me, started talking, and it turned out that they were, you know, just having a chat group, a messenger.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
They were asking each other, you know, anybody want to go kayaking tomorrow and stuff like that. There was a small community around there in Billdal. So I joined them, and one of my first posts was, does anybody like to roll?

So there were a couple of people there. So we did, you know, a few sessions, and that's when things really started to kick in or kick off or kick down or whatever you want to call it. But we started meeting up regularly.

So nowadays, we go twice a week. And in the wintertime, it's just Saturdays because, you know, it gets dark. But we still go every week.

And there's, you know, when you find a group of people that can stimulate and help each other, things really start to pick up. And we've been so fortunate to have that group. And even though we're on very different levels, and everybody's welcome to join us, we now started a club.

And why we started the club was just to get the licenses for competing. So half of the fee is for the license fee, and the other one is for future whatever. So we don't invest anything.

So we got the parking lot as our clubhouse.

That's fine in the summer, but it's a little bit chilly in the wintertime.

So they started pushing me. And after a while, they said, well, these are some very interesting people. They're so competitive.

And, well, I completely lured or fooled into, you know, getting my competitive horns growing as well.

So, but I mean, like, Johan, he's been doing the… he's been competing in BMX bike, biking. Henrik Wahlsten, he was the world champion in skateboarding, slalom skateboarding. Johanna Møllersten, she’s… I don't know if she competed in the championships, but she does kickboxing, rock climbing.

DUBSIDE:
So these are all athletic people, but we've also generated an interest in kayaking then.

DAVID TÄNG:
Right. So, I mean, these were the people that joined me and I had around me, and they said, well, we got to start competing. We're getting good!

And I said, no, I mean, competing in rolling? We’re just doing this for fun. Oh. So, well, so I, they said that, and I just, you know, said no, no, no, no, no.

And, of course, that same evening, I started looking where are the competitions.

So, Greenland, of course. So next to that, I said, well, Denmark, much closer. I mean, it's just an hour away, or a couple of hours away.

So I said, does Denmark have any competitions? And they do. And I just showed… I just found out that they’ve been holding them for years.

So in ‘22, we joined up. So it was me, Johan, Henrik, Andreas. No, Andreas didn't go, but Johanna went.

And so we went to, well, my first competition, Struja. Yeah, that was the first place we went to.

DUBSIDE:
Okay. How did you do there?

DAVID TÄNG:
I came third.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So there was this guy from the Netherlands, Knud Stentiks. Sorry, Knud. I can't pronounce your last name, but you know who you are.

He was outstanding. That was the first guy I actually saw pull up a straight jacket drop.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
And while I was sitting there on the docks, Swedish people, we understand Norwegian, Danish.

But since I live closer to Norway, I mean, Norwegian is so much easier for me.

So sitting on the docks, waiting for my turn, and talking to Danish people. Sorry, Danish people, but some have difficult accents. And this was not the place where they had the most simple accent.

So after a while, there was this guy coming down, and he was Norwegian. So it was much easier just talking to him. And he had a skin on frame.

So, yeah, I had a skin on frame. So, you know, did you build it yourself? No, I got a friend build it for me, he said.

You know, he was, I would say that he was the seal hunter of rolling because he was so modest.

DUBSIDE:
That's a seal hunter. Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
So he never, you know, said anything. Then, you know, that was my first competition, so I kept asking him a few things. And, you know, they have this line with small floating balls every meter.

DUBSIDE:
To measure the distances.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, upside down.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So we were talking about that, and he said, yeah, well, I competed once. And then we had this rope to the end of the kayak, but they entangled the rope. So when I was paddling, I got pulled back.

So they had to pull me back, and I had to redo the whole thing.

DUBSIDE:
And clearly you're talking about Jan David Jensen.

DAVID TÄNG:
That's when he struck me. I've seen that video.

DUBSIDE:
Oh, okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
And then, you know, then I became very quiet.

DUBSIDE:
Then you knew who you were talking to then.

DAVID TÄNG:
Then I figured out, then I realized who I was talking to.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
But, I mean, what a guy, what a guy. So that was the first time I met him, and I was hoping to meet him. He didn't attend the dinner that night.

I found out later that he had his daughters with him, so he had to go back pretty early. So, yeah, that was the first time I met Jan David Jensen.

So he came second. So he beat me bad. The first time.

DUBSIDE:
So what roles were you having trouble with then?

DAVID TÄNG:
The same ones I had troubles with now. Yep. What are those?

Well, in my opinion, the hardest role on the competition list is the clenched fists back to front.

DUBSIDE:
Ujaqqamik tigumisserluni kingukkut. 
Clenched fists starting in the back, ending in the front.

DAVID TÄNG:
Exactly. And thank you, Dubside.

I will start practicing the Greenlandic terms.

DUBSIDE:
But, so, yeah, in my experience, with a good-sized brick, the surface area of the brick makes it easier than the clenched fist for those ones.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. It does quite a bit, in my opinion. So the clenched fist is really the toughest one on the list, I would say.

So— But by then, I didn't know the—I didn't have a good technique, so, of course, I didn't make the— 

DUBSIDE: 
Had you been able to do it intermittently, or you never did it?


It never worked at all, or you just couldn't get it to work consistently, or how is that?

DAVID TÄNG:
I get it and I lose it.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah, okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, when I practice a lot, it becomes easier, of course. You know, I build my own kayaks.

DUBSIDE:
I was just going to say, this is in one of your own skin-on frames you're doing. Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, lately, there's always a trade-off between laid-back rolls and forward finishing rolls when you do the kayaks. So, of course, I mean, I've been looking for the holy grail these last couple of years, and that would be the straight jacket roll.

So, I built my kayaks to help me in the straight jacket roll without much concern on the forward finishing ones. So, that has been, I would say, rather stupid, but as I do pull them off regularly, sometimes I need a second attempt.

I'd say, yeah, it's worth it because, you know, a straight jacket is 11 points per side, and a clenched fist is only 9.

DUBSIDE:
Right. But at the really top levels, you've got to hit them all, right?

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, and you don't want to have any deducted points. So, yeah, that's why I practice a lot these days.

DUBSIDE:
Well, I don't know, since I don't build kayaks myself, I just take what I've got and try to work with it. I modify folding kayaks by changing the size of the ribs. But, say, in the Rebel Ilaga design, the Johann Wirsen's design, to do the straight jacket stuff, I find you can take the foot pedals and slide them all the way forward.

So, you're not using the foot pedals at all. They're just out of the way. And then when it comes time to do the hardest layback rolls, you slide forward in the seat until the cockpit's against your stomach, and then you can lay back farther.

Whereas that position for the forward-hitting rolls would make them harder. So, in the forward-hitting rolls, you slide yourself back.

DAVID TÄNG:
Right.

DUBSIDE:
And you can get into an issue if the tuliq is not loose enough. Sometimes sliding all the way forward, there's not enough give. Like if it's a Reed tuiliq, you might stretch too much.

But does that make any sense to you?

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. Yeah. The cockpit design is a big thing for me.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
A big thing to me. I'm pretty tall. I'm 183, 184, morning or night, you know.

I'm 184 in the morning. And I weigh less than 70 kilos.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, that makes me pretty thin.

So, I got long legs, but since I want to have my thigh support in a certain place, you know, just about a decimeter above the kneecaps so I can move my hips back and forth and twist them. So, I just have my knee support there and I skip the masik when I build.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, I just put the coaming on my thigh support, which means that I got lots of room in front of me.

DUBSIDE:
Hmm.

DAVID TÄNG:
Okay. So, then for forward-reaching rolls, as you were talking about, you slide back. I don't have to do that because my cockpit is so low in front of me and it's kind of far forward.

DUBSIDE:
Hmm.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, I can lay down from normal seating positions. And I've done the same thing to the back.

So, I moved the backrest further back and lowered it as far as possible. I even wedged it off so it doesn't, you know, have any sharp edges to my back.

DUBSIDE:
So, the edge of the back of the coaming does not hit that back, that isserfik when you lay on it. It's in front of that.

DAVID TÄNG:
Isserfik is far in front of the coaming, yeah. So, if you look down straight down into my cockpit, you can see the isserfik clearly.

DUBSIDE:
It's in front of the coaming? So, it's in the circle of the coaming? You can see the isserfik?

Or is it farther back underneath?

DAVID TÄNG:
No, you can see it. You can see it. You can see all of it, basically.

DUBSIDE:
Oh, okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
And also the coaming, the isserfik is lowered so it's about two centimeters below the gunwales.

DUBSIDE:
So, it's not on top of the gunwales.

DAVID TÄNG:
No, it's about two centimeters below the gunwales. And I made it kind of wide so I don't have to have it that high.

DUBSIDE:
So, it sounds to me like in a fiberglass kayak, they'll put the back band across the back of the seat. So, your isserfik functions as the back band because it's up in that position, not back behind the coaming.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, right.

But, I mean, the back band, if you move that back, I would say almost 20, 25 centimeters.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
That would be 10 inches almost. You can imagine how much space I got behind me.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
And, I mean, I don't have more than 20 millimeters of freeboard to start out with. So, from the bottom of the kayak to the top of the gunwales in the seating position where I sit, I think the kayak is 12 or 13 centimeters high.

So, for our American friends, that would be... 

DUBSIDE:
Three or four inches?

Four to five inches. That's still not a lot.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. Well, with the cockpit pushed that far back, when you do a forward ending roll, if your tuliq isn't, like, long enough, it's going to hinder you. It's going to catch on the back of the coaming back there.

Yeah. Is that ever a problem?

DAVID TÄNG:
No.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
I bought a large.

DUBSIDE:
Okay. You anticipated that.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. All right. So, and also, yeah, well, I got both Reed and Brooks tuiliqs.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
But now, since I… I build about two new kayaks a year in the wintertime. So, I got to experiment a bit.

So, the Reed tuiliq, they're both tent style, and that's important to me. But the Reed tuiliq, you have to stretch it quite a bit now since the cockpit coaming is bigger and bigger. And also, another thing that differentiates my cockpit to, you know, manufactured kayaks is that I can make it wider.

So, the side of the cockpit is actually on top of the gunwale.

DUBSIDE:
Okay. All the way to the width of the kayak.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. And the lip is then sticking out outside the gunwale.

DUBSIDE:
Now, how does that help you with rolling?

DAVID TÄNG:
It doesn't really, but it's out of the way.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, I never touch my coaming when I roll.

DUBSIDE:
Wow. All right.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, it's always out of the way.

DUBSIDE:
Well, I can see, in trying to lay out the side of a kayak for, like, a balance brace or any of the harder rolls, you're trying to twist your body and get your shoulders flat to the water. So, if the rim of that coaming is farther in than the gunwale of the kayak, that does restrict some of your movement. So, I can see that bringing that edge all the way to the edge of the gunwale can give you complete freedom to slide it aside and effectively give you a lot more flexibility.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. So, if my kayak would be to your size, I would love you to try it.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
You may try it as well, but, I mean, I'm quite a bit taller than you are, so you wouldn't fit that well. Well, you're talking about foot pegs earlier, or you're sliding them forward. The interesting part is that we were…

There's another story about it. Last summer, we were training, and I     ed the layback roll. Last summer.

DUBSIDE:
You relearned? What happened? 

DAVID TÄNG:
I met up with two beautiful people, Anna-Sophia Furehaug and Jorgen Fagerheim Wessel.

DUBSIDE:
Jorgen, yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, I think you know Jorgen at least. So, I saw Anna-Sophia do a straitjacket roll, 1st of April, on Facebook.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
So, I started watching this and found out…

DUBSIDE:
She was doing that in a Ilaga, or…?

DAVID TÄNG:
No, she was doing that in a Tahe Greenland.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
And in an outside pool. Okay. So, I figured out that she lives in Oslo, and that's pretty close to where our summer house is.

So, I wrote her, and I then invited her, and she said, can I bring my boyfriend, which was Jorgen, which I didn't know. So, they came, and I've invited Jan David as well.

DUBSIDE:
Okay, wow.

DAVID TÄNG:
And I only met him once at the competitions, but I said, I mean, heck, how bad can he be? So, they stayed at my place in my summer house then for a couple of nights, and they relearned… I relearned the layback roll.
  
They said, you know, turn the kayak first, head out of the water last. You ever heard about that?

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, yeah, I said. Sure, of course. Well, now you have to do it.

And I said, well, I've been doing that all along. No, you haven't.

So, that was the secret to the straitjacket roll. For me, at least. And by that time, Jan David, he brought his skin on frame, but it didn't really work out for him, so he tried mine.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
And he did the straitjacket rolls for the first time with a clean straitjacket roll in my kayak. So, after last year's competition, it was black. My kayak was black.

And I know your opinion on black, but me having a black. I don't really like the black kayak, you know, every little scratch shows up, and even on skin on frame, it does show.

And, I mean, I got a brown tuiliq, I want a brown kayak.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
It was just a glitch why I made it black, because I had a friend ask me to build a kayak for him. So, I had to try out the black pigment.

So, I said, yeah, well, I'll just, you know, try it out on my first, and I'll do yours later. So, that's why it turned black. So, I gave my kayak to Jan David, the black one.

And he is quite a bit shorter than I am. So, I said, well, you'll be having problems with the footrest, because that's fixed, but, you know, you can adjust that.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
And he's a handy man, so, but he just looked at me and said, footrest? Really? Never use them. Never use them. All right. And that was also, you know, something that I never heard.

So, professional or really, really, I mean, I still consider Jan David better than me. Okay. Because his technique is so much better.

I get up, but he makes it look beautiful.

DUBSIDE:
All right. Well, it sounds to me like when they adjusted your layback technique to bring the boat up first, you weren't arching your back enough. Which is another way of conceptualizing it.

DAVID TÄNG:
So you wanted me to give out all my secrets on the podcast? 

DUBSIDE: 
You don't have to. You can do whatever you want.

That's a common phrase I've heard Dan Segal use. “Do that again, just arch your back more”. Which is Helen Wilson's way of saying it, “your eyebrows in the water" thing.

All different ways to get the same idea across.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, yeah, it is physical. I mean, the straitjacket roll is physical, and yeah, it is. But now, when I crack the code, so to speak, it's no longer the toughest roll on the list.

I'll pull that off with more confidence than I do the reverse clenched fist. But I would say you need to bend your spine sideways. I mean, like you know, you wiggle from side to side.

So if I'm doing a right-sided roll, going in on the right side, capsizing to the right, just to make sure that everybody's on the same spot here. If you can get up into a static brace in a straitjacket position, just imagine yourself floating like that on the water, then you need to push your non-water leg forward. Because when you push your non-water leg forward, your hips will twist.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
And that will get your lower back up onto the back deck of the kayak while still having your upper torso and head in the water.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. There's a woman in Canada… and we were tweaking those advanced layback rolls, and her phrase was, I'm trying to remember her name to give credit where credit is due, I lost track of that. The phrase she came up with was, “stomach first”.

So getting your spine to twist that way by bringing your stomach up first and your shoulders down is that same sort of sideways spine curving motion.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. I usually imagine having a thread connected to, what's this part of the body called?

DUBSIDE:
The middle of the stomach, the belly button?

DAVID TÄNG:
No, above the belly button. It's where the ribs connect.

DUBSIDE:
Bottom of the rib cage.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah.

DUBSIDE:
Okay.

DAVID TÄNG:
We have a name for that in Swedish. Solar plexus in latin.

DUBSIDE: 
Solar plexus, okay.

DUBSIDE:
All right.

DAVID TÄNG:
So have a string connected there, which pulls upwards. That's how I imagine the layback rolls.

So then everything goes back and down, and you dip your eyebrows.

DUBSIDE:
If you pull up on that, you have to arch your back, so it's another way of visualizing it. Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
Because I like the mental image of me being pulled up out of the water instead of pushing the head back. It helps me. The same thing as you always raise the water leg when you're doing rolls, right, to flip the kayak over, but also to push the non-water leg out or out and down.

Yeah. Cheri and Turner speaks about this on their DVDs, and I've done that. But it's hard to do that with the legs without, for me, for me personally, without engaging the core, and that is the core.

My trick is to imagine having a string connected to my solar plexus. That lifts me up, and then everything kind of falls into place.

DUBSIDE:
Well, I first was invited to Sweden in 2007 and spent 10 years or so there coming on a regular basis. This probably ended just about the time you were getting involved, and the demand for my classes was trickling off because everybody had done the class with Dubside, and that sort of saturated the market. And so for Cheri and Turner to come in, they'd probably been there before, but I'm glad you hooked up there somewhere.

As I said before, their teaching technique, I think, is better than mine. And so when you get into this kind of detail, I'm thinking, Oh, yeah, that's true. I hadn't thought of that before.

Because I would do it, but not really understand what I was doing, because I'm not a natural teacher, but people like Cheri, they are.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, they've been through a lot of students, and that helps because you've seen most of the errors. And I don't teach that much, but as we have the club, yeah, of course, I try to teach my fellows. And anybody in the west coast of Sweden, you're welcome to roll with us.
 
You can come rolling with us at any time. Find us on our website, rolltokarna.se. 

DUBSIDE: 
So your website, say that again? 

DAVID TÄNG: 
That was the club's website. I got my own personal.

DUBSIDE:
I need all this data so listeners know where to kill this.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, but you also need to be able to roll with us. We want you to have your first roll before you come. We don't teach the first roll.

We teach all the other rolls, and we can reteach you the first roll. I got my own website, and it's called qajaqrolling.com. I think most of the people listening to this have been on Christopher's website, qajaqrolls.com.

DUBSIDE:
Crowhurst.

DAVID TÄNG:
Christopher Crowhurst.

DUBSIDE:
His site is called qajaqrolls.com

And yours is? 

DAVID TÄNG: 
qajaqrolling.com Yeah, but it's spelled the same way with the Q and Js.

DUBSIDE:
Q, A, J, A, Q, qajaqrolling.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. I spoke to Christopher, so he was okay with having a very similar name. And he also pointed out some interesting facts that I missed.

I haven't corrected them all, but I'm still thinking about it. And since I never got to attend any class or advanced class, so I met Turner and Cheri, but I never got any teaching from them.

DUBSIDE:
In person, but you looked at their DVD many times.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, yeah, of course. But, I mean, having an instructor next to you, they can point out what you need to do so much quickly, and I had to figure it out myself. So I think I've made most of the mistakes.

So that's what my personal website is all about, the qajaqrolling.com. It's my path through the Greenland competition list. And there are, of course, some videos.

They're on YouTube, so I just link to them. But I hope that somebody will pick up. And it's not teaching per se.

My website is more like a blog of what I think about, what kind of mistakes I've been through. And I'm sure there are many more that I haven't written about. But if anybody finds something interesting there, I'll be happy.

And so far, I left my email there, but so far nobody has contacted me through the email.

DUBSIDE:
How long have you had this website on?

DAVID TÄNG:
It's about two and a half years. One and a half years. One and a half years.

DUBSIDE:
All right.

DAVID TÄNG:
And I've increased my hits on YouTube.

DUBSIDE:
Okay, yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
So that's something.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
So after I went to the first competition in Denmark with my friends, who were very competitive, as I said, we started thinking about, well, we should do this at home. We should have a Swedish championship. So how do we do that?

Well, bummer. You have to be a registered club with the Swedish Canoe Federation to be able to interact with them at all.

DUBSIDE:
They've got requirements for things.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, you know, the licensing for one part to get a competition license. So we started talking with some friends. Well, I wasn't really friends with them, but Johanna, she's our chairman in rolltokarna.se, our club.

She knew some people, and she started mailing, and she connected me. And then we got hold of Karin Åmosa, and she's on the board of the Swedish Canoe Federation. So she helped us out and got all the connections and, you know, checked out the rules that I pulled off, the Qajaq USA, and Danish Canoe Federation website, and did the translations and stuff.

So we got approval to be a, what do you call it?

DUBSIDE:
Recognized.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, recognized. So last year was the first time that we held the competitions in Sweden and Stockholm. They said that, well, David and Johanna and all of the people on the west coast did a lot of work.

So they said, well, if you want to have it, please, you know, do the arrangements. But we were so, I mean, you just started up the club. We were kind of not organized at all.

So we said, please, could you do it for us? And they did a great arrangement, great competition last year.

DUBSIDE:
That's when Björn Thomasson was judging.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah, so that was the first time I met up with him. And I mean, just having people knowing Björn to call him up and ask him. Björn is like Johan Visén.

For me, they're larger than life, you know, you just don't call them up. But I think they're probably nice people, persons as well. 

DUBSIDE:
Yeah, they are.

So that's how that started. So they said, well, next year you're going to have it in Gothenburg. So we'll have it in Gothenburg in about two weeks time.

DUBSIDE: 
Two weeks from now. You'll be competing.

DAVID TÄNG:
I will be competing.

DUBSIDE:
Good luck.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, thank you.

DUBSIDE:
Well, I'm very encouraged to hear that this much progress has been made and the rolling has gained momentum here in Sweden. And that's very inspiring to see. And I don't know how much of my early instruction in teaching people in time in Sweden has influenced that.

But I'd like to think it helped a little bit in building up the popularity.

DAVID TÄNG:
Oh, yeah. I mean, you're a big name.

DUBSIDE:
Some of my early students have probably long since stopped kayaking and onto other things now. But at least it keeps some sort of momentum going. So, yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, you know, Sara and Johan, I mean, they were always around. I mean, they're around Gothenburg.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
So Nautopp [Nautopp Kajakceter] is not far away from here.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
Their business. I haven't been involved that much with them, but everybody's talking about them. Also further up north.

Yeah. Oh, sorry. Nautopp is further up north. Escape Outdoors was what I was thinking about. Here in Gothenburg. And, you know, Sea Kayak and Billdal. Also Mikael Svalstrand and people.

So they've been champions. They haven't put in the time that we have now. I mean, practicing that large amount of hours that we put in.

And also, I mean, just having friends like that, it makes all the difference in the world. I talk to people in Denmark, and they're so envious of us that, you know, have this community that we meet up every week and just, you know, have fun. Some days, I mean, you don't do much rolling at all.

You just hang out, but you sit on the water. I mean, people have tough jobs these days. So just getting out of the water, looking at a beautiful sunset, it's worth it.

And, you know, to be able to share it with somebody, that's beautiful.

DUBSIDE:
Well, we've talked in the last couple of days about the idea of making a bigger, like, Scandinavian rolling competition with visions towards maybe an international competition. So we won't go into heavy details on that right now. That idea is in the air.

So hopefully in the future, maybe we'll see more in that direction.

DAVID TÄNG:
Yeah. I mentioned that Silas Kral from the Danish Canoe Federation, he contacted me together with Ida Nielsen, Gormlund, and David Teichner. You know him?

DUBSIDE:
Yeah, David Teichner, yeah.

DAVID TÄNG:
So they were the Danish representatives. We know where we're heading. We don't know how to, you know, get there.

But if everybody, you know, works in the same direction, I got great hopes.

DUBSIDE:
Yeah. But using the Greenland method, you're on the right track. You don't play every last little detail.

You just know, in general, this is going to happen. So we'll just be ready for whatever happens and go with the flow and make it work. 

DAVID TÄNG: 
Well, they survived. So will we.

DUBSIDE:
Well, thank you for being on the Dubcast with Dubside. And it's very nice to come here and visit you and meet you for the first time. And I'm hoping to come back and see you again.

DAVID TÄNG:
Well, thank you for having me. And thank you for visiting. It's been a pleasure.

DUBSIDE:
You're welcome. All right. That is David Täng.

Interviewed August 12th, 2024, at his home in the suburbs of Gothenburg, Sweden. Check out his website, qajaqrolling.com. You've been listening to another special guest edition of the Dubcast with Dubside.