Lots to Think About

With Kathleen prepping for a qualifying test and lifeguarding classes, I invited Carl out for a second time. In looking back at old posts, I realized that I hadn't covered his first visit several weeks ago. Carl is my boss and rowed in a men's 8+ in college at Rutgers. After hearing that we'd bought a shell, he was eager to come out and row again. Since he works out a lot more than I do, I figured I'd have about 5 minutes on the water before his collegiate training would reactivate, then he'd kick my ass in the boat. I'd pray for blisters to slow him down so I'd survive to the end. It almost turned out like that. Since he had sculled hardly at all, the alien in his left hand was a hindrance for him. Even with that, the two of us moved the boat noticeably faster than Kathleen and I had been able to. When I mentioned this to Kathleen, it proved to be a powerful motivator for her - she's ultra-competitive in the right circumstances. As alluded to two posts ago, Carl and I did several different drills - power 10's, long pauses on the recovery to work on balance - all helpful.

This time, I'd had more experience in the bow seat and had already been working on readying the oar for the catch before getting to the catch position in the drive. I wanted to continue that, really focus on staying in synch with him in the stroke seat, and reduce my wobbling. Compared to our last row together, we took more and longer breaks and talked more about what we were doing. This was really helpful because I didn't get so tired even though I was putting more umph into the power 10's. I discovered a bunch of things ...

• My wobbling tends to be the worst at the release - I still haven't figured out why
• My knee splaying occurs more often than when I'm gasping for air. Bummer! I've developed a bad habit already.
• Our catching cleanly together is really hard to do but when we get a run of them together, it is really sweet! Quiet, smooth, fast.
• A contributor to my difficulty staying in synch with the person in front of me goes back to the ole legs-back-arms routine. Carl's seat motion would literally stop/pause at the finish but move smoothly from forwards to backwards at the catch. Because I wasn't doing the former, I was finding myself needing to at the latter - which always felt funny. I think I'm still not quite coordinating my legs-back movement properly - leaning back during the drive rather than waiting until the finish to do the pivot. Watching his seat rather than his back helped a lot.
• When we really got some speed going, the water flow past the side of the shell was amazing. I couldn't see our stern or generated wake (such as it is in a non-power boat) but what I could see on the side was mesmerizing itself.
  

When I asked about proper breathing, he didn't remember it coming up in his training days. We guessing exhaling on the drive was correct. Funny thing - when we finished the following set, he confessed to having gotten messed up trying to think about it during the set - and made a golf parallel. The point is smooth, even, consistent technique in the swing. The worst thing to do is focus on one thing in the swing because then others would get messed up. A friend of his used to win money in his foursomes all the time by "innocently" asking about details of the other 's technique. The power of suggestion was enough to throw their game off. Rowing seems very similar - a lot of little things that can be focused on at any time. It's a lot to keep together. As they say - easy to learn, hard to perfect.