In 2003, when I was training in Augusta, GA, the team went out for a row and launched heading upriver. It was windy and choppy – two things that made my already crappy rowing even crappier. As my teammates rowed, the lengths between us increased and increased and so did my anxiety. I quickly fell behind and was left fighting for control of my boat and oars. Little did I know that when it comes to control, less is more.
At one point I was gripping the oars so hard that one of my blades got stuck in the water. My hands began to separate and I was on the verge of flipping. My friend and then teammate Sam and I still laugh about this almost twenty years later. She watched from the pack certain I was going in the drink. But by some miracle, I was able to pull my handles back together and stay upright. I immediately turned my boat around and rowed precariously back to the dock.
What I learned that day was that I can either be controlled or be in control. I had no control over my boat because the conditions were controlling how I rowed. This is a common problem with scullers. It manifests most visibly in their grip on the oars but can show up in a multitude of ways.
The reason people are afraid to flip is that they are afraid they’re going to die. And because of that they grip the handles too tight to try to control what the elements are forcing them to manage – fear and technique.
You can survive this way, but you can never thrive. And no one can make this change for you. It has to be earned all on your own.
I finally faced my fear of flipping a year later. I was out for a row with the training group at Potomac Boat Club. Similar conditions – wind and chop, and I was getting dropped by the pack. Before I got into serious trouble I turned and went in. I had been beaten by my fear of flipping again. My coach Cam told me something along the lines of I’d never get better if I kept giving up during bad conditions. I knew he was right. I had to face my fear or I’d never get the control I was looking for.
To be honest, I don’t remember the exact moment I figured it out. But over time I began to push my limits and started to understand that control was actually about letting go, rather than holding on tighter. This is both a physical and a mental change. Physically, I stopped gripping the handles so tightly, loosened my fingers, and allowed the handle to move within my grip. Loosening my grip allowed me to feel the tackiness of the grips, and to figure out that turning the handles wasn’t a huge movement. It was a subtle rotation. Less was more.
Mentally, I started to look at bad conditions as an opportunity to master my technique as opposed to something that would hold me back. I came to crave the challenge of rowing in bad weather, and over time, I could row in any condition, without fear. Fear became excitement and I used it to my advantage.
My rowing became a feedback loop and I could apply changes in real time, instead of reflecting off the water after the fact. If I was over-gripping, forcing control, and afraid – I could feel my precariousness every stroke. The blades would slap on the water and the boat would tip. But if I embraced the wind and the chop by relaxing my grip, and rowing above the conditions it gave me an advantage over my competition, and mastery over my boat.
This simple change from being controlled to controlling via letting go unlocked another level of speed I just couldn’t access previously. It was such a freeing feeling. The conditions didn’t dictate how I rowed. I did.
In order to tap into our capabilities we have to understand the things that are in our control and the things that are not. We can’t control the weather, our competition, or our height. But we can control our approach. By letting go, we are able to use our fear and uncertainty to our advantage. They become strengths rather than weaknesses.
The things that control us, often become the things that give us the most control once we learn how to harness them.
