sweep

…with some pretty pictures, because my posts are too boring otherwise.

I decided not to blow off the rest of my classes, despite my frustration, and that turned out to be a good thing. We went out in a quad and sculled with a “guest coach” – this dude Andy who rowed for Yale – and I did better, although it’s clear that I suck at sculling. I just can’t wrap my brain around both oars and what to do with them. And I was feathering completely wrong because I’ve never had a whole class that focused on doing that correctly due to all the rain outs and unhelpful weather this spring.

Sculling – more oars, more problems. Plus, tippy boat.

Monday we went out in the training barge, which is I guess a bit undignified, but it sure helped ALOT – because I finally got a chance to really focus on sweep (which is what I want to do) and I got help feathering, finally, and learned what I was doing wrong; leaving the oar feathered for WAY too long before turning it back on the square and dropping the blade. This is why I was catching crabs all the time.

Sweep – one oar, one problem. More people, more stability.

The tricky part of this is that I STILL need to get what I’ve learned into muscle memory. I’m hoping to start rowing with the other adult rowers on Tuesday nights to try to get some of this down so that I feather correctly without thinking about it. That makes me a little nervous because I don’t want to be a liability for the other rowers, but I’ve got to learn somewhere.

I’ve still been going to the boathouse regularly to erg, but I’ve switched to mornings because it’s so hot in the afternoon. Here’s a little slideshow of my workouts, for your entertainment. You can see the whole photoset here.