Sunday Reflections, 2.25.24 - Part 2 of 5

…Sometimes I see the two pursuits, rowing and artwork, as unrelated.  I don’t intentionally mix the worlds.  I don’t seek out to make art about rowing (anymore!), and I don’t always know how what I’ve learned in the world of rowing, or sport in general, applies to the world of art.  Maybe, sometimes, the lessons are non-transferrable, but the reason I bring up rowing in this written piece, is that even this week, I was reminded of how valuable it can be to challenge oneself, to be open to impossible things, to realize that I really don’t have any idea what is possible until I am on the ground (or on the water) trying it out.

After a year off, with no rowing, in 2021, in the fall, I took up rowing again.  Initially, it was nothing more ambitious than training for an alumni crew from Dartmouth, my alma mater.  We raced, it went well, and I was, as I had been before and since stopping in 2020, at peace.  I wasn’t at all near the best shape of my life, nor did I expect to be.  Summer of 2022, I took up rowing in the one-person boat, the single scull, as part of a local team whose work I respect massively, Seattle Scullers, who I’d been rowing with in 2019-2020.  It was very fun, almost easy, and I was moving the boat better than I expected.  A few practices here and there spiraled into five then six 5am mornings a week, then bike rides in the afternoons and lifting too… and by fall and winter of 2022-2023, I found myself “training” again…. Even though I wasn’t sure why, and didn’t know if racing was a good idea or not.  But I did race, and found out that I was not (at the time) close to competitive, not at the National Team level (anymore), which was a bit disappointing, as I couldn’t shake the habit of wanting to make the boat go as fast as I possibly could manage!

It’s been months of rowing, months of training, not really knowing why I’m doing it, especially as things on the art making side of my life, and especially the art business side of my life, feel in competition for my time and attention.  Part of my rationale for sliding into an 11-session a week of exercise lifestyle again was that because the art business and the art-making is so so challenging, the rowing practice could be a practice of discipline itself, a game with clear rules, boundaries, where fairness reigns, and the solid practice invested usually translates well to progress and (if desired) race results.  In the world of making art and selling that art… the game is much more challenging, the rules less clear, and the various events and processes not necessarily fair or even.  I row because the art world seems less challenging by comparison to being at my physical and psychological limits in the dark on the water, and in turn, rowing seems pretty silly and fun, watching sunrises on the lake, surrounded by enthusiastic other athletes, in comparison to the abstract and often tedious task of inventing an art business.

All to bring me, long-winded, to tell a bit about this week.  I had just returned from a multi-day trip to the east coast with best friends, my college rowing teammates, doing little working out, but much celebration, including my 38th birthday on Saturday February 17th.  Coming back from a long weekend of uninhibited fun meant that my expectations for rowing practice this week were realistic.  Thursday morning, we revisited a workout that we’ve executed many times, one of my favorites, but also a workout that rewards explosiveness and freshness… two things I felt completely without upon waking at 4:05am that morning.  The challenge is to row three strokes at absolute maximum pressure, rate (cadence), and speed, followed by three strokes off, completely easy, then four “on” at max, four off… and so forth up to seventeen strokes on, seventeen off, back down to three.  The highest cadence or rate I’ve ever seen for this workout (having performed it since my high school days) in the single scull has been 49 strokes / minute.  Warming up, that number seemed to me like the moon.  I would be lucky, I thought, to hit 44 today.  Our coach reminded us before starting - push our capacity today, expand what we were capable of doing, don’t play it safe in other words - go for it.