oar inspiring

When there are opportunities, do the work to transform them into achievements.

Photo-ception. 📷 #MITMensRowing (at Charles River)

The Barbie Quad gives me life

Favourite crew and coach ever

Funny you should ask.  Every day on the most beautiful river in the world, every piece you think you couldn’t do, every stroke bending the oar, you become a different person.  Nothing can faze you.  The 8 other girls in your boat are pulling for you, and you are lightening their load.  The last 500m of a race is not done with the legs, it is done with the heart.  God I love my boat.  No matter the race results (good or bad), you know you’re doing it for your boat and your coach.  At the sprint, when you have nothing left but adrenaline and a craving for a medal.  At the start, when your mind clicks into beast mode.  At practice, when you’re always preparing for the next race.  There are no off strokes.  And that’s why I love this sport to death.

As a philosophy major who aims to specialize my masters in human free will and addiction, I have formed my opinion to believe that people do have will power. My coach always states that rowing is 90% mental and 10% physical, but I disagree. Rowing is 10% physical, 10%mental, and 80% pure exercised Will Power. When a rower gets on that erg, or gets in a boat, they fully understand what is going to happen. When they arrive at the breaking point, the point when medical professionals declare is the same as two full NBA games back to back, there is an inner strength that is not mental at all. Instead of listening to the mind, which is screaming to stop-demanding that you quit breaking your body in such an unnatural way, the rower grabs a part of their Will deep inside of them; this indomitable part of a person is the same part that allows super human feats to occur…the same part that gives a rower the power to go beyond what should be physically possible. So when that rower is pulling their last few strokes of their race and they are in so much pain they can’t even cry out, understand that they are fueled on the part of a human being that few people are ever able to even touch. That’s not the end though. No, for you see unlike any drug man can make the Will of a human is infinite, and the power achieved from it doesn’t ever become less of a thrill. This means that every time the rower grabs hold of it and feels the power and the success that comes from their Will, they become hooked a little more. That’s why rowers keep going, keep rowing and erging. That’s why the pain doesn’t stop them, us, you, me; that’s why we take every stroke as if it’s our last, not because we think it may actually be our last, but because the power of the human Will is only attainable once the body passes it’s breaking point. Thus, every stroke passed the breaking point is another shot of this infinitely suppliable drug that is freely accessible, as long as the rower can reach the point of no return.

This sport is beautiful.