Rowing a shell takes practice, patience

by Ron Wiggins, Palm Beach Post on 22 Jun 2006 Picture yourself rowing one of those sleek racing shells — knifing through the water, back, arm and thigh muscles rippling under your skin like frisking ferrets as you revel in each rhythmic surge of...

Snap out of it!

You're dreaming.

You have no idea how to row a shell. If you even attempt getting into a shell without instruction, all you will achieve is wetness.

But you can learn.

The 60 members of the Treasure Coast Rowing Club offer a standing invitation to try the sport by taking free introductory lessons. With systematic instruction and practice, you may one day join the rowers on their invigorating 9-mile morning sprints on the St. Lucie River.

I took them up on the invitation and after a bit of tutoring from rowing instructor George Sharrow, I was able to demonstrate about 17 things you do not want to do in a skittish 18-foot boat so light that it doesn't float on the water so much as it perches. You only think a canoe is unstable. People who row shells break dance in canoes.

Every novice — that's me — starts in the club boathouse on the Ergometer, the club's rowing machine. You learn what you can before getting near the water. Like the shell, the rowing machine has a sliding seat. This allows the rower to gather power from a crouch and jackknife position before exploding backward using legs, back, shoulders and arms.

Repeat 4,000 times on the water and there's your 9-mile workout.

Still in the boathouse, Sharrow, 51, demonstrated on the machine that there is much technique in the pull and the resting return stroke afterward. First, he showed me the pull (straight back, very linear), followed by the deft oar adjustment to allow the blade to skip over the water without drag.

'To feather the oars,' Sharrow said, 'rotate the blades forward with your hands so that they skip. If they come out of the water, you will tip. Keep them in the water for balance. When you pull, twist down with your wrist so that the blade will bite.'

By hooking the oars with soft, relaxed fingers, the rower feels the oarlock guides 'help' the oars into perfect position.

The entire stroke was described as sketching a long, narrow rectangle, not a circular motion.

'Not like a rowboat,' Sharrow said significantly.

Lord, no, not like a rowboat.

At the water's edge it it took me two minutes to climb aboard the shell without tipping. Sharrow was certainly right about keeping the oars in the water for balance. Every time an oar came out, the shell spoke to me. It said: 'Let's turn upside down and have a look at the bottom.'

That didn't happen.

My tutor stood on the shore and guided my baby steps. I would row and he would catch the stern before it got away. Pulling 9-foot oars is not a natural act. The oars cross slightly at the hands and must be kept from clashing. That tight rectangle, so easy on land, does not come easily in the water for a novice.

If I did anything right, I did it one thing at a time while I did five other things wrong and out of sync. Knowledge will take you only so far. Feel is everything and feel is elusive. Muscle memory is built on success. I felt like a ninny.

'You're doing fine,' Sharrow kept assuring me. 'Nobody gets it at first. There's a lot to learn before it becomes automatic.'

'Maybe next time,' I said as a lightning storm moved in, cutting short the lesson.

I meant it, too, about coming back. Even if I never became I rower, I would like to go to their parties. That morning as I arrived at the boathouse, about 20 members were coming off their 9-mile workout on the river up to the Interstate 95 bridge and back. Their backs and legs glistened like muskrats from their exertions, and they chatted and laughed as they rinsed their shells and hoisted them into their racks.

A handful of them were high school kids and the rest ranged in age from mid-40s to 60, 70 and one wiry gent who was 87. After burning 1,500 calories on the river, I knew what they were having for breakfast: anything they wanted.

George's wife, Deb, said the spirit of camaraderie among rowers may be stronger than any sport you can name. 'About half our rowers rowed in high school and college,' she said. 'The rest, like me, learned later from scratch. It doesn't take that long.'

As physically demanding as rowing is, it is easy on the joints, exercises muscles you don't know you have, and get this — it's pleasurable.

'The beauty of the river early in the morning is just awesome,' Deb said. 'When you find your stroke and rhythm and you're just gliding along on the water, there is no feeling like it.'

For full story see: www.palmbeachpost.com/accent/content/accent/epaper/2006/06/18/a1d_skulling_0618.html