Time on the Water
Along with my return to the trails i'm back in the throes of paddling with the SFOCC. My team sport. 6 people moving a 400lb boat as one, all lats and torso, twist and turn, paddles in and paddles out at the same time. Unless you're me. I have a little timing issue. I'm told I tend to whip my return back too fast - go figure. Patience has never been my strong suit.
But when I do get it right, the boat surges with each hit of the paddle and glides as we pull ourselves over the water. The stroke has been described to me as something akin to a pole vaulter planting a pole. Stretch, reach, bury the pole and pull yourself over it. It sounds easy enough until you start over thinking things. This is good for me. Like the dreaded putting green, it requires me to connect more with finesse and form, relying less on my default go-to's - strength and sheer will. I don't always like it, what I can't bulldoze my way through, but I can appreciate that it requires a different part of me to succeed. Patience, timing, discipline.
Doing mostly solo sports as I do, it's a nice contrast to be part of a competitive team. To go out and practice drills and race starts, to know that you're only as strong as your weakest teammate on any given day and to have that slightly nervous feeling before a race, pondering the what-ifs of letting your team down. The closest thing I can think of in my post-collegiate years are the softball teams I played on back in my Miller Freeman days. Without the nervous feeling though. We weren't that good. Until we WERE good and then we kicked ass - won the whole thing one year. That was a good season. But I digress.
Being on a team is about interaction. It's practicing the art of communication, of patience; it's filtering your frustration and doing your best on any given day. It's accepting critique; and learning the balance between confidence and earnestness - knowing what you bring to the team and knowing what you still need to learn. (I guess it's sort of like work although I have a hard time romanticizing the all-for-one team notion to the same extent.) Paddling is a nice compliment to the solo efforts of long distance running. Just as the water is the perfect companion to the trails.
It took me a long time to find a water sport I could embrace living in California. Triathlon was the gateway drug that lead me to Mary that lead me to Hep that lead me to outrigger. I drank the Kool-Aid and the rest is history. And mangled Hawaiian phrases. I'm still learning. Aloha.
But when I do get it right, the boat surges with each hit of the paddle and glides as we pull ourselves over the water. The stroke has been described to me as something akin to a pole vaulter planting a pole. Stretch, reach, bury the pole and pull yourself over it. It sounds easy enough until you start over thinking things. This is good for me. Like the dreaded putting green, it requires me to connect more with finesse and form, relying less on my default go-to's - strength and sheer will. I don't always like it, what I can't bulldoze my way through, but I can appreciate that it requires a different part of me to succeed. Patience, timing, discipline.Doing mostly solo sports as I do, it's a nice contrast to be part of a competitive team. To go out and practice drills and race starts, to know that you're only as strong as your weakest teammate on any given day and to have that slightly nervous feeling before a race, pondering the what-ifs of letting your team down. The closest thing I can think of in my post-collegiate years are the softball teams I played on back in my Miller Freeman days. Without the nervous feeling though. We weren't that good. Until we WERE good and then we kicked ass - won the whole thing one year. That was a good season. But I digress.
Being on a team is about interaction. It's practicing the art of communication, of patience; it's filtering your frustration and doing your best on any given day. It's accepting critique; and learning the balance between confidence and earnestness - knowing what you bring to the team and knowing what you still need to learn. (I guess it's sort of like work although I have a hard time romanticizing the all-for-one team notion to the same extent.) Paddling is a nice compliment to the solo efforts of long distance running. Just as the water is the perfect companion to the trails.
It took me a long time to find a water sport I could embrace living in California. Triathlon was the gateway drug that lead me to Mary that lead me to Hep that lead me to outrigger. I drank the Kool-Aid and the rest is history. And mangled Hawaiian phrases. I'm still learning. Aloha.
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