Swimming home

There are two kinds of rowers, those that have flipped, and those that will flip. 

Me, with some help, NOT flipping a shell. Take that, water!

Since many of my students are very scared of the idea of flipping their shell, I have decided to put myself out their and set an example. I want them to understand that flipping happens, that you move on, and maybe even they will become a sculling instructor in spite of having to swim home to the dock.

I have been rowing now for just over 5 years, and I have had the pleasure of flipping my shell a total of six times. Each flip is ingrained clearly in my memory, and as I look back on them while teaching my students, I realize they are virtually a primer of the ways in which to flip a shell. No better way to teach than from experience!

Flip 1 : The wall

It was my first lesson, it was a cold and hostile November morning, and I got my tub pinned against the seawall north of the Fullerton Avenue Bridge. My port oar, stuck in the corrugation of the sheet piling was the problem. The solution? Hmm, let's see. Clearly all I have to do is pull the oar inboard and get it out of the way. Splash. I didn't even have time to close my eyes. I recall seeing the water line pass across my vision, and for a moment I was sure I was looking upside down at a startled fish. Thankfully, it was so cold that day, the water felt almost balmy, and I was relieved to learn that a shell ejects you so forcefully you come clear out of the shoes. No need to fear those straps.My fear at being in the water alone was quickly replaced by relief that no one saw that happen.

Flip 2 : The rock

My first summer rowing on the lagoon, I was having a grand old time rowing full laps by now. After turning around in the south basin I was charging back towards the club without realizing I hadn't kept an eye on my course. The water was low that year, and I ended up grazing a shoal with my port oar. A rock seized the moment. Splash. It was, I imagine, like sticking a rod into a bicycle wheel. Sudden and catastrophic. I was shot clear of the shell. (I was in a racing shell by now!) While trying to stand up I tripped in the water, and fell, cutting my hand on a razorback mussel. (Yes, Virgina, there is life in that lagoon.) No way to pretend this flip didn't happen with blood gushing from the palm of my hand.

Flip 3 : The oarlock

A one-on-one row with my coach Lev Skylansky. It was a beautiful summer evening and we were practicing some maneuvers near the dock, starts and turns and all sorts of fun oarwork. Strangely, as if fate wanted to me to watch, I looked over at my oarlock just in time to see the whole thing slip effortlessly up off of its pin. Splash. Helpless to even try to react, my shell freed itself from its stabilizing oar and rolled over on its back like a dog looking to get its belly scratched. I of course was beneath. I recall emerging from the water and yelling "Not my fault this time, the oarlock came apart!" It was how I learned that a flipped rower can be towed, with his shell, by holding onto the stern of a non-flipped shell.

Flip 4 : The dock

Ah yes, the lure of rowing whilst on vacay. I was visiting my mother in Seattle and I wanted to row on Lake Union. I contacted the Lake Union Rowing Club, and assured them I was a competitive rower, visiting from Chicago. It was Thanksgiving weekend, and naturally their open row was at 5:00 am. Yep. 5:00 am. In Seattle, in November, the rosy hued dawn makes the sky first blush sometime around 8:00 am. Naturally I sold my skills, so I had to do the fancy leg push off from the dock. It was just so early in the morning, too early for me to realize that I was entering the shell from the opposite side as I always do at LPBC. Try this sometime. It is like cutting your own hair in a two way mirror. Push off. Splash. Die of embarrassment in front of a group of strange rowers who don't know you from Adam. Oh, my mom was dock side too. Somehow I should have found a way to blame her. 

Flip 5 : The crab

The Grand Regatta, in Grand Rapids Michigan was the first time I had rowed on a river. Things had gone pretty well. I mean, I had rigged an oar with the oarlock on the wrong side of its pin, pushed off, learned what strong current feels like, (Quite scary, actually.) and then realized the error! I opened the oarlock, pulled the oar out, and flipped the oarlock around. All while out on the water. A more perilous or scrappy maneuver would be hard to imagine, and I pulled it off. If that isn't immunity...Fast forward to the last 50 meters of the race, I was squarely in second, perhaps first, when I look over one last time to make sure not to cream a finish line buoy. To this day it was too fast to know what happened. I suspect it was a crab. The next thing I remember I was being pulled into a launch. In front of all the spectators and my fellow club members. Somehow I saved my shoes, but that really expensive rowing seat was swallowed by old man river.

Flip 6: The wind

And we come full circle. My first lesson teaching LTS1 at the LPBC this spring. It was a beautiful day gone bad; halfway through the water portion of our lesson. Winds and current got whipped up, and I had students trying to turn around beyond the bridge, but being blown ever farther into Diversey Harbor. I had to save them! I had to instruct! There I was teaching the turn, verbally, and then when sign language. You know, if I just hold my arms out and turn my hands like oars, I can show her what to do. Damned Italian side of my family, have to talk with my hands. Splash. Well, now I am cold and wet, but my student is still blowing away. I stood up in the water to my waist and finished the tutorial, got my student turned and back off to the dock. That is when I realized I was not more than 20 feet away from...Flip 1. 

We all will flip, it is getting back in the seat and moving on that makes flips no big deal. This may seem like a litany of horrors, but let me tell you, they pale compared to all the amazing times I haven't flipped. I have rowed on the glacier fed water of Lake Dillon, Colorado, the papyrus trimmed banks of the Nile in Cairo, Egypt and the serpentine arcs of the Charles River in Boston, Massachusetts. I have even started a humble collection of metal to hang around my neck. 

Every one of those flips was worth it.