R&R on Puget Sound

"Getting to Whoosh"

Being a solid relationship with a skilled coach is all about creating action and sustaining change. Its hallmarks are not so much breakthroughs or epiphanies, but consistent, disciplined, inspired effort. The goals are simple, relevant, well-defined and passionately held. It’s true for sports and it’s true for life.

I’m a competitive rower. Three or four mornings a week, I’m on the water from 5:00 until 7:00am, training with twenty other women who are my friends. When it comes to rowing, the “what” is important, but it’s the “who’s” that keep me encouraged, laughing and coming back.

It occurred to me the other day during a 2000 meter piece through Seattle’s Montlake Cut, that what wins races is simply the ability to take about 200 consistent, disciplined strokes through the water, in steady rhythm and strength, getting momentum to work for you instead of against you. This is what I call “getting to whoosh.”

Whether you’re alone in a “single” or with seven other people in an “eight,” you usually can’t point to the single stroke that wins or loses a race. The best you can do is to say that “it seemed like somewhere between 1000 and 1500 meters, we made a move.”

At the start of a race, it’s nerve wracking. The rowers sit ready in their boats at the line, trying to get their shoulders to relax; mindful of the four other shells alongside filled with equally nervous rowers. Their boat is at a dead stop, lined up, ready for the signal. At this point all momentum is all against them.

Then the official shouts through a megaphone, “All boats are ready. Attention. Go.” And the rowers begin the disciplined, consistent process “getting to whoosh.”

The first strokes are strong, short and quick, using the blades of the oars to pry the boat through the water. Lots of noise and splashing. Lots of nervous energy. Twenty strokes down, and the boat’s moving. Lots of good effort, but there’s no whoosh yet.

Then everyone remembers to breathe, the coxswain, steering the course from the stern of the boat, shouts the command to “Lengthen.” And together, the rowers slow their stroke rate, reaching back with even more length and strength to scoop more water, and the boat evens out and picks up speed. The rowers are tempted to hunch over and wrestle the strokes with their shoulders, but they’ve been coached for this moment. They rely more on the biggest muscles they’ve got. They sit up tall, breathing evenly, focused on the push with their legs.

The boat wants to go fast. Racing shells are built for speed. The rowers know this and begin to settle into a consistent race pace. Thirty-two strokes a minute. Staying long. Staying together. Sitting up tall. Relaxed. Breathing evenly. Matching the power from seat to seat. Trusting each other. Consistent. Disciplined. No whoosh yet, but the rowers trust that it’s coming.

Right about here, the temptation is to start looking around. Where’s the competition? How are they doing? Who’s ahead? Starting to get tired.

But the rowers return their focus to their own race. Consistent. Disciplined. And then they begin to hear it. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Then they feel it. The momentum has turned. From a dead stop, those first one hundred strokes have brought up the speed and lifted the boat through the water. As the rowers roll forward for each new stroke, the wheels on their seats roll evenly, not breaking the momentum, but cooperating with it.

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. They bring up the stroke rate as they burst into the final sprint, and through the finish line.

Which strokes win the race? None of the rowers could say. What they will tell you is that in the final 500 meters, if they are rowing well, it’s a combination of skill, challenge, amazing effort, and a bit of magic as the boat runs beneath them. With whoosh, the strokes of the oars cooperate and sustain momentum, but momentum seems to have taken on a life of its own.

Like a competitive rower, people who are working hard to refocus their lives engage in lots of consistent, disciplined effort, usually with very little fanfare. But when the magic of “whoosh” begins to take hold, they know it. And they celebrate not only with their coach, but with the “who’s” that have helped to make their experience of life rich.