What Does Greek Mythology have to do with Rowing? — Everything!

In Greek Mythology there is a story about Sisyphus(Sis-uh-fihs), the short version is he was the King of Corinth, who got on the bad side of the Greek Gods by cheating death - twice. The Gods were so angered that they damned him to push a huge boulder up a very steep hill for all eternity. The set up was, just as he was reaching the top the boulder would roll back to the bottom and he'd have to start all over… forever! On the surface, this could be viewed as the stereotypical Greek tragedy, but nothing is ever what, or simple, as it first seems.

Then in 1942 along comes Albert Camus a French novelist, essayist, and playwright, who wrote, The Myth of Sisyphus. A very different take on the meaning of the Sisyphus story. Instead of a tragic ending to a King's life, Camus argued that there was beauty and purpose in the never ending effort Sisyphus was condemned to. Putting forth the idea that human life is basically meaningless, that pushing the boulder up the hill repeatedly and for his entire life equated to the repetitive nature of modern life, in simple terms; wake up, commute to work, go home, eat, sleep and repeat for most of one's 70-80 years. A daily cycle that is never ending, pointless and extremely frustrating. Camus points out the only way for Sisyphus to beat the Gods that sentenced him to this was to find the beauty, purpose and meaning in the effort, to enjoy the effort for the sole sake of the effort. I imagine that in that effort Sisyphus found himself.

How does this apply to today and to rowing? If your an experienced rower, I'm betting you may already have a pretty good idea, for those of you who aren't or are just starting and rowing is still just a good physical workout and not a life altering philosophical exercise, then let me explain.

When you first begin rowing a stroke is just a stroke, or more accurately a stoke is a very awkward series of seemingly disjointed movements that feel any thing but natural, for all except the few naturally gifted athletes. Then as time and your learning progress you understand that a stroke is made up of the catch, the drive, the finish and the recovery and that sequence is repeated every 3 seconds or less. Then, you discover there are several smaller movements, even "non-movements" within each of the four movements of a stroke. What's a non-movement? Well for example; I have many sayings trapped in my head that swirl around when I'm on the water. Sayings that one of our coaches has repeatedly said to do or not do while they try to refine my stroke. One of those is "relax your eyes"! WHAT?! Yes "relax your eyes". Forget what they meant by that. The point is a stroke becomes so much more than just a stroke.

Then at some point a stroke becomes once again just a stroke. A beautiful blending of all the independent movements into something that I like to imagine as graceful as a ballet on water. I was watching a video the Women's Double (2x) World Championship from 2025 most of the teams in the final were rowing between 35 - 40 strokes per minute for the entire 2,000 meters. If you haven't done that yourself, it is a very high rate,(imagine speeding up a rowing video to 4x the normal speed and that is how it feels to me it would look like) but those teams didn't look like my 4x speed imagined they would… all frantic and chaotic, they look like they were doing a nice cool 18 strokes per minute, out for a nice Sunday row enjoying the scenery!. They looked so smooth and effortless.

A beautiful blending of every movement — a ballet on water.

A friend and fellow rower recently shared with me something called Price's Law, which says that the square root of the total number of participants does half the meaningful work. It was then extrapolated to apply to the number of workouts that produce meaningful learning / improvement. It isn't clear this applies equally to the # of participants, as it might to the number of work out sessions, or even the number of strokes. It is, however, similar to the 80/20 rule, where in business or sales, for example, 80% of your revenue / sales comes from 20% of your customers. Either way the point is that only a small number of strokes you take, or practice sessions you participate in, only a small percentage will produce meaningful results. The break through that helps you row better, faster. The KEY point buried in this is that if you don't take all the strokes all the practice sessions you will NOT get the improvement that you seek, or at least the time it takes to get it might be longer that the time you are actually active in the sport.

I have always enjoyed pushing myself physically, and don't mind the associated pain as long as it is not causing any permanent damage. Rowing 8 - 12, maybe 14K meters in a mornings practice event at the slow rate of 18 strokes per minute takes stamina, perseverance, even out right stubbornness to the task. Say you rowed 10,000 meters and propelled your shell 10 meters per stroke you'd row 1,000 strokes that morning. That's a lot to stay focused on and not drift off to something you see on shore, your days to-do list or an argument you had the night before. If you don't have a reason to remain focused odds are you won't. I find racing provides a focus (there certainly many other reasons) if your not into competition, then your fitness could the focus. I tend to get philosophical and find motivation in rowing for rowing sake, just the pursuit of the perfect catch, drive, finish and recovery individually and then collectively. The perfect concert of all those combined into one beautifully smooth stroke that seems effortless when witnessed from the shore.

Rowing is Life! Let's face it, a lot of life is repetitive and can and does become boring and down right annoying to do. But many of those things are necessary for life. Take eating 3x a day, three hours or so after I have breakfast I'm thinking "seriously it's time to eat again??!! I wish I could fill my body up every two weeks like I fill up my car! Almost nothing in life stays done or stays in good condition. The natural order of this universe is decay, I've never had a pile of rusty scrap metal sit in the drive and one day it has become a shiny new Porsche! But that same shiny new Porsche, ignored, will certainly be come a rusty pile of scrap with only the passing of time.

Bodies, careers, relationships everything decays without the effort it requires to maintain them and then even that is not enough. The world around us keeps changing , some call that advancement, who knows, but maintaining is standing still while the rest of the world keeps going by. So everyday to really thrive one needs to expend the effort to advance, and the key is to pick those areas that mean the most to you and put in the effort to stay ahead of the curve. Take your weight or your health in general, you will fight to keep it off or to stay healthy or you will have to fight to take it off, to get your health back. At some point you'll find yourself unable to get it off or get it back. Sooner or later we ALL sit down to a banquet of consequences, the ONLY question is what do you want to sit down to… a plate full of crap or filet mignon? Rowing helps develop that persistence, drive, the willingness to wash, rinse, repeat for the sake of it, and the ultimate reward is similar to the masterpiece Michelangelo revealed from that giant block of Marble some 500 years ago.. the Statue of David, your reward? Just maybe the turning of your, your life into it's own masterpiece.

I have a bronze statue of Sisyphus on my kitchen island(exactly like the picture I used for this post) and every morning I come out and rub that big boulder to remind me… today we fight! We fight to stay healthy, fit of sound mind and body. I texted a friend one day from the gym a thought that ran through my mind. The text read "work out today as if your life depends on it, someday it will!" the reply was; "that day is TODAY!" This is correct, today is the only day that ever exists.

Rowing is just that, everyday go out on the water and fight, fight your weaker self who wants to hit snooze five times, make up excuses why you can't row today( and lets face it they are ALL excuses!) In the immortal words of Yoda, I love that little green guy, "Do. Or do not. There is no try." Fight everyday, do the practice drills, the pieces, the meters and strokes. Do it! Coach or no coach. Because IF you don't pretty soon you will not be rowing, you will not be fit, trim you will not be healthy, you will not be working, or "living your best life" in fact you will not be living at all. Your body may not have ceased living but you will be as Ben Franklin said, "most people die at 25 and are buried at 75"…

This is why I say Rowing is Life, and why I see life in Rowing!