The 5 lessons you learn from participating in something you’ll never be any good at

As I travelled between New York City and Washington DC this weekend, I passed over rivers that I haven’t traversed for decades.?

The Schuylkill in Philadelphia.

The Susquehanna in Wilmington.

The Potomac in Washington D.C.

Apart from evidencing that urban development often, but not always, occurs on rivers whose names serve as reminders of the Indigenous Americans who named them, these rivers, together with the Charles in Boston, are meaningful for another reason. For anyone who has crewed (aka rowing) in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic, these are the flat waters where you spent hours of your life training in the early morning and competing in regattas.?

At my undergraduate college, Rhodes University in South Africa, the crew team for decades has been home to rowers competing at World Championship and Olympic levels. Put another way, it was a sport for serious athletes only.?(I am not exaggerating!)?

As someone who was crew-curious, when I moved to DC as a Fulbright Scholar I was delighted to discover that some of the District’s universities with rowing teams like American University , had, in addition to highly competitive A crews, B crews?for people like me — inept, inexperienced but enthusiastic.

We were the physical antithesis of the A crews. When A crews throw the boat ie lift it overhead and place it in or remove it from the water, or shoulders ready up ie lift the boat to shoulder height to carry it, those moves are a thing of synchronized beauty, aided by the uniformity of the crews’ height and build.?

Our diplomatically termed “development team” B crew was a thing of a different kind of beauty — we looked like the DEI-poster/Benetton version of a rowing team. One where every height and body was both welcomed and present. Apart from our shoulders being at radically different places rendering the above moves more staccato than streamlined, our lack of physical uniformity meant we had to make many adjustments to discover our sweet spot in the compromise between leg, arm and torso length and fundamental elements like stroke length and cadence.?(Lots has been written about the ideal rower. Trust me, I don't match the criteria.)

Our shells (boats) appropriately matched our lack of expertise — we used the 美国乔治敦大学 Hoyas 8s pre-owned ones and thought nothing of it, happy to be on the water no longer in the bulky and heavy training barge and able to compete.?

Being a novice is an incredibly liberating experience, and I hadn’t reflected on what I learned from crew until now.

1. Motley crews can make a great team: The 8 people in our boat had only 2 things in common: none of us had ever rowed before, and all of us wanted to learn to do so. Kudos to our coach who matched us in personality and physicality to the seats we best suited, sometimes with surprising revelations. One seemingly languid person was dropped into seat 6 behind me, together with seat 5, this is where the most powerful rowers of the ‘engine room’ sit (seats 6,5,4,3). Of course, she was amazing. Lesson: Seek and see talent that might be missed.?

2. Showing up, all for one and one for all: I wondered whether our team would endure and how much dedication we would all bring to a sport that we were keen on in concept, but had no experience of in reality. What if half of us hated it? We only had shells for 8s so if 8 of us couldn’t commit there would be no B team. It’s true that we started the season with more than 8 people who enjoyed the fall excitement of induction and the head races (major rowing competitions), but we were whittled down to only 8 half way through the winter, when the others decided they did not want to get out of bed at the prospect of more monotony on the ergometer and in the gym with no water in sight. There are few more stark examples than in rowing of how vital it is that every person show up for every practice and race. And the last 8 of us did.?Lesson: Showing up means never having to say you're sorry.

3. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: The most unexpected thing to me was how much throwing up accompanied showing up! My recollection is that I witnessed someone throw up on a weekly basis — novice or expert, from our team or others. Whether after a race, a testing session on the erg, or infamously running up and down the Metro stairs until the first person gave in to nausea. It isn’t the only persistence needed in this sport — ignoring fatigue and the lactic acid cramps in your legs because you haven’t yet crossed the finish line is assumed. Progress sometimes takes going through adversity is the lesson.

4. The Power 10 has a place in everyday life: Sweep boats of 8 always carry a coxswain. The rowers face backwards and you literally cannot see where you’re going, nor should you be glancing about to check out the competition, your focus is being one with everyone in your boat. The person in whose hands you place your vision, leadership and safety is the coxswain, the only person in the boat who can see where you are going, where the rest of the field is, and who makes strategic and tactical decisions that are outcome critical. It’s also the only person who isn’t rowing. A fascinating analogy for a leadership style, in which unquestioning trust is required.

You cannot sustain full effort from start to finish over the 2,000 meters/1.25 miles or in head races 4,000-4,800 metres/2.5-3 miles. At certain moments, the coxswain can call for a “Power 10”, a kind of rallying cry for every person in the boat to give 10 of their best, most powerful strokes. This might be an opportunity to pass the competition or fend them off from overtaking you, it might be part of a strategy to preemptively prevent another boat from getting into striking distance. It is a rally call with a purpose. There are certainly many moments in life when you might give yourself or team a rallying 'Power 10!'?

5. Finish strong!: This is a story about failure that I should share more often. It’s about the first time our boat walked through the field and won…ish. That is, we made it through the heats, repechage and all the way to the finals for the first time ever. We crossed the finish line and cheered. Everyone on the banks of the river was screaming at us and waving, we assumed in shared jubilation and waved back. It turns out that our entire shell had not crossed the finish line, so technically, we had not finished. As a result, we lost. Apart from overcompensating the entire rest of the reason by not stopping until well beyond the finish line, it was a bitter but important lesson to not only finish strong… but make sure you’re actually finished!

Life, like rowing, is a team sport. Unlike rowing, we are a part of many different teams in which we play vastly different roles and thus find ourselves occupying many different analogous seats in the boat. In crew, I was never as good in stroke seat 8 as I was in 7, those stern pair together set the rhythm for the boat. At work, I relish the opportunities I have to be the coxswain and I know that it depends on earning and keeping the respect and trust of my colleagues. As a partner, the ability to be a bow rower and help the boat as smoothly as possible through the water is invaluable (even when I desperately want to yell directions from the stern.) And as a parent, it is to coach my child to be agile in being able to switch seats and, increasingly, to no longer be in the boat at all, but to cheer from the bank. ?