“Now, to square the oar, move your hands like this,” Jim Lauderdale, the head coach of the Advanced Studies Program crew team, demonstrated for me. “You do the opposite when you feather the oar.” My pulse quickened as his brief introduction to crew lengthened. I was not supposed to be in the crew boat. I only wanted to observe the practice and take a few pictures. But when they were short on rowers, I knew that I would join the other crew members as a fellow rower. “Crew’s the ultimate team sport,” crew intern Kate Shaper told me beforehand. I was about to find that out for myself.
 |
| Rowers carry the boat into the water |
I heard stories that crew practices are “intense physically,” as crew member Tess Hamilton said. “It’s a full body effort.” Knowing this, I still had no idea what to expect. I followed orders to the best of my ability and tried to stay out of people’s way as we readied the boat. We moved the oars to an area by the dock, carried the boat, which is a lot heavier than it looks, out of the boathouse and gently lowered it into the water. We attached the oars, cautiously set ourselves into our designated seats, and pushed off from the dock. I took some deep breaths and thought encouraging words. “I can do this.”
We started out with some warm ups and gradually moved into a drill called Power Ten, during which we rowed ten, fast paced strokes. “Square the oar, Haley! Now feather it!” Lauderdale shouted at me from his speed boat. The foreign crew terms clouded my mind and I did my best to mimic the motions of the people in front of me. “Timing is everything,” said crew intern Matt LaBrie a few days previously. I replayed his words and tried to match the other rower’s speed.
After rowing for a good portion of the practice, I finally got the hang of it. Well, almost. I began to understand Lauderdale’s crew lingo. The commands “Hold water!” and “From the release” were no longer alien to me. And I started to match the other rowers’ time. “It’s incredible when everyone pulls together,” said Elissa Rodman. I must agree. We did not just row through the water. We glided across it. Lauderdale described this phenomenon to me. He said the crew members merge together so well that they “become part of the boat. They flow with the motion of the boat and learn how the movement affects the way it moves.”
This merging takes time to accomplish. Few people get the chance to experience crew, so they come to ASP with no former knowledge. As crew intern Elliott Munn said, “It’s an opportunity a lot don’t have in high school.” All of the crew members learn “slowly as a group,” he said. “It’s definitely a commitment,” Hamilton said. “Even if you’re the most athletic person in the world, you’re going to have some difficulty with crew.” Rowers must learn how to work together as one and time their movements perfectly.
The new knowledge that the crew members learn give them a quality in common that no one else has, allowing them to build strong community bonds. “Community comes with the territory,” Hamilton said. “In fact, it’s more of a community than a team.” The crew team spends both sport sessions together and practices are a half-hour longer than other sports. “You’re isolated at the docks together. You work out together. You’re always together,” LaBrie said. “Crew is almost like a cult,” Munn commented.
Even though I was a rower for only an hour, I felt that sense of the community. Each crew member watched out for the others. Ben Cares and several other crew members all whispered tips to me and translated Lauderdale’s instructions into English as we rowed. They looked out for the wellbeing of the entire boat and were not just concerned with their own personal performance. “We’re a family,” Rodman said. “You look out for everyone else.”
No comments:
Post a Comment