Logroller is on a roll

Abby Hoeschler looks nothing like Paul Bunyan, but she can spin a floating 12-foot cedar log with her feet as well as any lumberjack from Bemidji to British Columbia.

At 5 feet 2 and a lean 118 pounds, sporting a blonde ponytail, Hoeschler, 24, looks more like a gymnast or cheerleader than a competitive logroller, a sport associated with big, burly woodsmen. She's been on the pro circuit for eight years, and her newest goal is to spark interest in the decidedly offbeat sport among Twin Citians by teaching youth and adult logrolling classes at Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis.

On a recent evening at the beach, the sun sent glints of light off the water as Hoeschler called out encouragement and pointers to a group of kids who had piled on two practice logs bobbing in the shallows.

"Bend your knees! Lean back! Keep those feet moving, moving, moving all the time!"

The kids spent more time tumbling into the water than balancing on the logs. But when Hoeschler hopped lithely up to give them a demo, her feet resembled an expert baker's hands swiftly rotating a rolling pin -- heel to toe, heel to toe. Keeping her balance on a spinning log seemed natural to her, as if she'd been doing it her whole life.

And she has.

Logrolling first developed among river men during the massive spring log drives in the late 1800s. It became a sport, but one that never caught on widely, probably because it moved along with the logging industry, said Hoeschler, "but there are little pockets from Hayward [Wis.] to Oregon, Washington and Canada."

The La Crosse, Wis., native and her siblings have been scrambling up onto logs since they were preschoolers. Their mother, Judy Scheer-Hoeschler, was a coach at the local YMCA and a seven-time national champ who grew up in Hayward. Judy got interested in logrolling -- not exactly a run-of-the-mill sport then or now -- because Tony Wise, the Wisconsin sportsman who brought the American Birkebeiner ski race to his home state in the early 1970s, had hired a woman to do exhibition logrolling as an attraction at his pancake house, and she taught young Judy the ropes.

The professional circuit is so small that Abby -- like Serena and Venus Williams of tennis -- often has been pitted against one of her sisters in competitions.

"The first time I was up against my older sister I won, and we were both crying," she said. "Her because she lost, me because I didn't think anyone was happy I'd won. But we've all trained together so long, and now within half an hour of competing, we can laugh and joke again. I'd rather lose to my sister than to anyone else."

For Mom, it wasn't so easy. Though she kept entering tournaments into her 40s, knocking her daughters off logs made her too uncomfortable, and she retired.

"It's a sparring sport, and once they started putting up a fight, she didn't enjoy it anymore," Hoeschler said.

"The No. 1 rule is never stop moving your feet, like on a treadmill, but faster," Hoeschler said. "Keeping the feet moving like that and keeping your balance is unlike anything most people have ever done. Also, you've got to stay low, with bent knees, and resist the natural urge to look at your feet, because that makes you tip forward. Look down the log at the other person's feet; that gives you better focus."

With experience, logrollers learn to develop little maneuvers to knock their opponents off, like suddenly speeding up the log by rolling it toe to heel. Being a big person does have its advantages, which is a challenge for petite Hoeschler.

"If you're big, you can literally throw your weight around to change the direction of the log," she said. "My strategy is usually endurance, to just try to outlast them and wait for them to make a mistake. If there were more people involved, they'd probably have weight classes like in boxing."

Logrolling might seem like an extremely physical sport, she added, but the mental part is equally important.

"You have to have a certain constitution. It's really intense and nerve-racking, because you make just one wrong move and boom, you're off. It brings out that fight-or-flight mode in people."

"The body's weight is always falling away from the log, so I've never seen anyone hit their head."

It's also relatively inexpensive compared with many kids' sports

"Once you have access to logs, all you need is a swimsuit and a pair of sneakers," she said. "Kids like it because falling off and spinning in the water is fun -- it's fun whether you're winning or losing."

At least one of her young students at Calhoun appeared ready to compete. Robert Dean, 11, of St. Paul really had the knack of staying vertical for minutes at a time -- because, he explained, he's been taking lessons for a few years at the Jewish Community Center.

"My mom thought I should try it, and I liked it," he said. "I like a sport that requires balance, and when you get going it feels kind of like you're flying."

"The logs, which have to be 12 feet long, are so heavy and cumbersome, it's difficult to bring them to lakes or pools," she said. "With a synthetic, retailers could sell them and you can just strap it on your car like a kayak or canoe."

Kristin Tillotson • 612-673-7046