This morning Marcy and I volunteered to be in a double boat. She was in the stern and I was in the bow. Since she missed a week of classes she feels slightly uncomfortable on the water. She gets nervous and panics at the slightest tip of the boat. We rowed out to Portage Bay, followed by Tom and his megaphone ... and we listened as he told us one slap stick joke after another. Marcy had a hard time listening and rowing at the same time - often losing focus as he told us silly pirate jokes. RRRrrrrrrrrr.
I convinced her to have us paddle at the same time early in the practice - and she wasn't quite ready for it. Actually it freaked her out. I think her fear of being dumped into the water consumes her to a point where she stiffens up in the boat and doesn't want to get wet. I figure, what the hell - it's part of rowing... so if you go in, you go in. Her normal tendancy is to row stronger on her Starbird side - so we had a meandering boat through the cut. Then she started wigging out - letting that frustration leak out and consume her physical action. Then she started saying I was going too fast on the stroke - to which I responded - I'm just matching her. All she needs to worry about is doing a nice slow stroke - steady and timed with dipping the handles square into the water. I also suggested we start with 1/2 paddle, then 3/4 then a full stroke and that seemed to ease her nerves. We then had some of the best rowing we've done together yet. It was great! I got a kick out of it because although she's 21 - you still can't take the whine out of her when she's frustrated. He he hee.
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