Final Novice Session at CYC

Today was the last special session for the adult novices at CYC. I can't say enough about how wonderful this has turned out for us (well, with the exception of the times that Kathleen wasn't able to go) and thank all of the CYC members who helped.

We hit the Learn-to-Row weekend with enough experience to absorb more of what we were told then if we had never seen an instructional tape or been in a shell before. We got good tips and corrections for what we were doing wrong. The additional Saturday sessions gave us more time and more feedback from other experienced rowers. We also got to experience sweep rowing. All in all, a really good exposure to the fun of the sport and the comradarie of the devotees. Exhibit #1 for this working out for us is the sheer frequency of our getting out on the water. I mean, geez, look at all these posts!

Next week, they re-start their youth rowing program for the fall. For us, it's decision time for joining as non-member rowers. We've decided to wait on signing up. We want to get back into a routine of rowing together and figuring out how to improve our setup at home - including dock arrangements and getting video of ourselves. We also want to go to one of the nearby "Head" races in the fall to get a feeling for these events. This desire is Exhibit #2.

Tidbits from June (bow seat) and Barry (3 seat) while Rick (2 seat) and I (stroke seat) filled out the quad:

1. Oar height in the water during the drive - avoid digging by relying on the natural floating depth of the oar. I'm having a hard time with this one. I found that my overall stroke went to hell if I let up too much on the handle - literally struggling to get ahold of the handle again.
   
2. Catch as part of the recovery - this made total sense. Reinforcing that the oar needs to be vertical and back in the water before starting the drive. This sounds obvious but any number of things can keep it from happening.
   
3. As Jay had been coaching, rolling the oar during the recovery to get to the catch position before the end. I found that if I held the handle in a particular way, as I'm reaching for the catch, the handle would almost auto-roll into the proper position. I wasn't consciously trying this during our "power" runs so I'm not sure if my grip would still work when putting oomph into the drive. It may be close because it felt very similar to Jay's description of rolling the handle with thumb and forefinger rather than the knuckle-up or wrist-down approach to feathering.
   

And for Exhibit #3, proving my sister's comment, I'm going to be looking at specialty clothing for us. Kathleen teases me because, at some point during a strenuous row, I'm sweating so much it looks like I'm peeing in my shorts. We'll at least be getting fancy stretch rowing shorts that have padding on the butt. I'll be looking at tank tops too. And hoping to find bright funny-looking colors. We'll see if we keep wearing the life vests.