You can purchase Into My Scull - Out of My Mind: My First Year with Oars here.

Sensibilities

I am learning to attend to how I feel about what I am doing, not to think about the moves that I make. Rowing asks that I get out of my own way, stay out of my mind, and let my body tell me the story.

The aches and pains I experienced in my first months of rowing were not from the true effort, but from self-defeating movements as I struggled with the fundamentals of my stroke. My muscles were antagonizing each other, and I heard their complaints after a session on the water, even more loudly on the morning after.

After those early months, I got my muscle sets to work each in their turn, and in a healthy sequence. Now, when I pull my boat out after six or eight miles, I'm not sore in any particular place, just tired all over. This means to me that I have been rowing better, in a durable series of integrated steps.

I feel whole again; I have been in my boat.

Impressions

I learned that rowing is a little bit like putting on a dolphin suit - a few smooth strokes, and I am almost at full speed, and when I lift my oars to let my boat run, and I might glide like a marine mammal.

The more I can relax, the stronger I can row. When I am at ease, I can feel the wisdom of the boat - it's more stable than I am. As I relax my hands, my oars, deftly designed for the water, will naturally find their native depth and their engineered pitch.

The experiences of generations of rowers before me illuminate my own sessions in the present - those rowers are my silent coaches. I'm a novice, but I can choose what I need for the day and put it to work in my own boat.

Rowing has become a metaphor for life - I can't fight it, and I can't force solutions. I want to develop a full awareness of the work and the tradition of rowing. It takes place in the real world, in winds, in currents, on water, between obstacles. So how will I navigate?

Mind

To get handholds on the learning curve, I need to embrace my errors - my boat knows far more than I do. My will is no match for the water, the boat, and the rowing tradition. I intend to feel like a rower, and to stay in touch with that feeling.

When I over-row it's not helpful, and when I over-think, it's never helpful. I have been able to reduce my thinking by setting rowing principles into visual terms - if I can meditate on an image, I can execute that image instead of a batch of words. In my mind, the useful thoughts are pictures; they take up less space, and I can recall them more freely.

So what's the best way for me to row? If I stay out of my head, I can let my body do the work it is training for, and follow the wisdom of my oars, evolved over generations to do their best for the rowers who trust in them. If I listen to it, my boat will tell me when I am "there," and it will always tell me when I am not. Getting into my scull has become an opportunity to get out of my mind. When I take that mindful step into my boat, the first stroke of my day can be as sweet as the last. I can't imagine a more unifying meditation than getting out at dawn on quiet water and leaving my busy mind on shore.