"The bet thing for rowing is rowing." -Calvin Coffey-

You've learned how to scull, or at least progressed to the point where you can keep your oars off the water during the recovery and put some pressure on them during the drive.  Perhaps you rowed sweeps in college and this process has only taken a few months, or even a few weeks.  Now you find yourself wondering what the challenge of sculling is all about.  Perhaps you should enter some races, you think, and put your skills to the test.  Then one day you're out on the river, paddling along, and an old duffer shoves off just ahead of you in a wooden boat.  His tousled white hair and old grey sweat suit make him look like a physics professor on the loose from the local university.  Nevertheless, instead of waiting for you to go by, he starts paddling along right in front of you.

You chuckle inwardly.  This old coot thinks he can actually match strokes with you.  O.K. you say to yourself, I'll play along for a while.  Instead of powering right by him, you decide to pick up the pressure gradually, pressing the ancient mariner until he can't take it any longer.  Your plan is a little cruel perhaps, but he asked for it, cutting right in front of you like that.  You begin with a firm paddle, keeping a relaxed grip on the oars, and getting into a rhythm.  After a minute or so you take a look ahead and see that he is still there, about twenty strokes ahead of you.  You pick it up to half pressure for a few minutes, and for a moment you think you notice the puddles of his oars drawing nearer.  You don't need to turn around, you can feel that he is right in front of you now, but you're going to press your bow right up to his stern and act as if you didn't even know he was there.  Devious but delightful at the same time.

Suddenly, you don't feel his puddles cuffing your hull anymore, and you look ahead to see that somehow the professor is now some forty strokes ahead of you.  So, he's got a little kick in him after all.  Abandoning your initial plan, you pick up your stroke rating and put full pressure on the oars.  Enough of this game, it's time to dispense with this guy.  He's beginning to get on your nerves.  Another two minutes go by and you still haven't caught him.  Your forearms are starting to cramp up and you realize that you've been gripping the oars too tightly.  As you try to relax, you realize that you've abandoned technique in favor of raw power and it isn't working.  You're barely making progress on old man river.

Somehow he's still out there, just in front of you, chugging along at a steady clip.  Your boat is now lurching and checking as you power it along.  Your finishes are rough; the blades are either washing out or crabbing.  You have closed the gap between you and your opponent, but you are at the very limits of your aerobic fitness.  Lactic acid has already started to seep into your legs and shellac your quadriceps with pain.  Worse than this, you suddenly realize that quite possibly you played right into the old man's plan and not vice versa.  With every stroke, you get more and more frustrated as this thought takes hold.  Finally you stop, short of breath and out of patience.  You can't bear to look ahead an see him still rowing, acknowledging how hard you have been pulling to no avail.

As you turn around to head back home, suddenly you hear a voice:  "Not bad, but you need to learn to take the turns a little better."  The professor comes paddling up beside you and now you notice that his arms and legs are sinewy but quite strong.  Beneath his leathery skin lies a set of lean muscles that look like wound steel cable.  You paddle along together for a while in silence, and you notice how he takes fewer, more relaxed strokes to keep pace with you.  He doesn't appear to use much power as he pulls the oars through the water, and there is no rushed or jerky movement of his body between strokes.  His boat moves very steadily through the water, as if an invisible rope is pulling it along.  Yours seems to surge and stall.  He is almost mechanical in his sense of rhythm, which seems to come from a strong internal focus.  You need to look out of your boat a lot more, and you let steering, wind, and water conditions interfere with your concentration.  In short he does less and gets more.

So how did he get to be so good?  Time on the water, people have told you.  But what does this mean exactly?  What should be happening during this mysterious incubation process, so that you too develop into a master sculler?  It helps, especially if you don't have a coach, to have some general sense of what you should be thinking about during this developmental stage.

Some of these more subtle themes provide the discussion for the first part of this article:  blend

Internal Focus:  Keeping Your Mind in Your Boat.

Willpower, inner strength, visualization ability; these are terms used to describe someone who has internal focus.  Beginning scullers have very little ability to focus within themselves, because they are so preoccupied with the various external matters of technique.  Until the basics are mastered, it is nearly impossible to keep a steady internal focus, which shows in the overall integrity of your stroke.  Once you have gained enough mastery of technique so that you can relax, however, you should begin developing a sense of this awareness and focus.

Close Your Eyes

Try closing your eyes in a stable boat or on a rowing machine and see what how many strokes you can take before you feel tippy or out of rhythm.  This drill will provide you with a kernel of the inner concentration I'm talking about, for the mind and the oars to be in synch and free from the constant worry of visual distractions.  The expression "keep your mind in your own boat", refers to the type of concentration required to allow you and your boat to become one efficient orchestration of movements in the face of external distractions, particularly during competition.

Watch Others, Watch Yourself

Another thing you can do is simply to watch others who have this blend of concentration and grace.  I'm not suggesting that you copy their technique down to the minutest detail, just that you observe and absorb the general elements of their power and grace.  If you don't have anyone to study, try watching videos of some great contemporary scullers, to absorb some of the rhythm and integrity of their movement.  One of the best male models ever put on film was the Russian Vyacheslav Ivanov; one of the best female scullers was the German Christine Scheiblich.

If you have the opportunity, you should also get yourself on video.  Keeping a video and/or written record of your own rowing from season to season can be very helpful.  With a video in hand, you or your coach can bring into alignment the external picture of your rowing and the internal picture you imagine as you row.  Sometimes you may fall back into bad habits that are more easily corrected by having a look at your journal and/or video.  More often it is jut fun and inspiring to watch how much stronger and more graceful you become as time goes by.

With internal awareness comes better boat awareness, or an almost intuitive sense of how the boat is moving through the water.  The numerous physical and mental tasks required to scull well may at first seem like an impossible juggling act that will never come together.  Eventually, however, you will begin to feel it as a total synchronicity of mind, muscle, and boat, with less and less distinction between the three.  With the passing of time, your fitness in a boat will naturally improve, as your body becomes more and more accustomed to the specific demands of the rowing stroke.  Likewise, you will become more adept at handling the boat and the oars.

External Focus:  Moving Outside Yourself

Remember your friend, the old sculler?  Are you ready to show him the new power and efficiency in your stroke?  Perhaps you have a rematch in mind, where you can finally put him in his place.  Not so fast.  Even though you've worked hard on your stroke, you haven't practiced these new skills side by side with another sculler.  The professor was not only more efficient and more focused than you, he was also a clever competitor who stayed right in front of you, where he could gauge your every move and respond without you noticing.  When you put the power on, so did he.  When you relaxed, he eased off as well.  He was rowing in a superior position, playing off your power.  It would have been almost impossible for you to pass without exerting an enormous effort.

Some of the following strategies are basic racing skills, but they will serve anyone who wants to improve their rowing.

Find a Paddling Partner

If you have been training on your own for a while and feel like your technique and fitness have reached a plateau, you may want to search out the company of other scullers.  Try to find a person or a small group who has the same general goals as you do, and who sculls roughly around your speed or slightly faster.  It makes little sense to try to row with the real sharks on the river when you are still a guppy.

If you are lucky, you'll find a paddling partner who you can row with for miles without straying too far apart.  In a very relaxed fashion, you can get the practice of being quite near to another sculler without losing the integrity of your stroke.  Rowing with another person demands another level of concentration that is difficult if you haven't gained enough intuitive sense of your stroke.  Part of your mind needs to be attending to your partner, but enough of it still needs to be in your own boat.  At first you may feel awkward, but when you get the hang of it, you'll find rowing with a partner can be invigorating and a wonderful way to go out and click off the miles.

Some scullers like to chat on these partner rows, while others develop them into more serious training sessions.  When you are comfortable with each other and aren't clashing your oars together every ten strokes, you can practice trading the lead for different stretches of water.  One way to do this is to have the trailing sculler gradually pick up the power for a short period of until her stern reaches your bow.  This leapfrogging approach is a kind of two-person pyramid-style workout.  Once you've gotten used to rowing together like this, you can do any number of interesting workouts, with set intervals of different length and duration.

Sometimes rowing with just one person all the time can become redundant.  It can also be annoying if one of you is always faster than the other, and both of you are working your toward a competitive goal.  For this reason, I encourage partner rowing as a long, slow, endurance workout a few times a week, where both people stay together through the duration of the practice.

Train in a Double

Another way to enhance your training and technical proficiency in a single is to find a good double scull partner.  Again, choosing the right person is important; you don't want someone who is either way behind or way ahead of you in terms of ability.  On the other hand, you needn't choose someone who is completely compatible with you in temperament, technique, or single-scull speed.  Some degree of contrast in both personality and rowing style can make for a fruitful exchange.  Some of the best competitive doubles have in fact been composed of rather unlikely duos.

A coach can help you identify a doubles partner and work with you to mesh your styles.  Typically, one sculler will be stronger technically, and the other may generate more raw power.  If both athletes can borrow from each other's strengths, they can figure out more quickly what make a boat go fast.  In most doubles, the more technically inclined sculler should sit in the bow seat and take on the added role of steersman, while the more powerful sculler should be placed in the stroke's seat.  Initially, however, you should switch seats a few times and just get comfortable with each other.

You also need to get comfortable with the double itself, which will travel much more quickly than a single.  As a result, your catch and finish reflexes will sharpen and become quicker, and the way you apply power will generally smooth out.  Needless to say, this experience will ultimately benefit the way both of you row in singles.  Again, choose your partner wisely (e.g., don't just pick a friend or spouse) and try to have a coach on hand for those times when things get frustrating.

Teach Beginners

Even if you haven't perfected your sculling (if that is ever possible), coaching beginners can be a valuable experience which will accelerate your own progress.  Like watching videos, coaching allows you to carefully observe the mechanics of the human body as it tries to accomplish this rather odd motion we know as sculling.  When you have to verbalize your observations to a total novice, you will receive yet another perspective on the sport, a way of developing a critical distance from something you may be passionately engrossed in.  This perspective is something you will need to apply to your own sculling if you want to improve more rapidly.  With every sculler you teach, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the subtle physical challenges of sculling and hopefully be able to apply them to your own stroke.

Be Patient

Whether you are looking to compete against others or just yourself, you will undoubtedly reach points in your sculling career where your enthusiasm and ambition overrun your ability.  Those moments can be frustrating indeed, but don't beat yourself up too much.  Try to balance your passion with patience.  Keep your motivation going and let it develop into a gradual, long range plan.  Get together with a coach or an experienced sculler, and figure out some general goals at the beginning of the season.  And don't let occasional defeat get you down.  There will always be someone faster than you, and always someone slower.