BACK IT AND FEATHER IT

Practice #6: Gettin' the hang of things!

What a beautiful Monday for practice! After a late start, we began our 6th practice in the water! Everyone was energetic and feeling well rested after the weekend. After getting the boat into the water, Kyle taught us some new techniques: backing and feathering.
Backing basically requires you to do the reverse of a rowing stroke. This stroke is really important for turning the boat around and for getting us out of tight spots (see below picture!)

We backed our way out of the shore...It's difficult to do a reverse stroke when we have been working so hard on perfecting our normal stroke. After a couple tries, however, we got the hang of it and were able to get successfully turn the boat around without Kyle's assistance! Yay!

The next technique we learned was feathering. This involves turning the blade flat when we come up the slide in our stroke before burying the blade in the water. Feathering is helpful because it increases the distance between the blade and the water when we are going up the slide so that the blade doesn't get caught in the water, therefore disrupting the set up of the boat and interfering with out stroke. This is a more difficult technique to get the hang of, so we are working on incorporating this into our strokes gradually.

These were really important techniques to learn, and we felt like Kyle really thinks we're doing a good job so far. Backing is such an important part of the rowing experience to learn- just like in our lives, we have to be able to get ourselves out of tricky situations and turn ourselves around, even if it means reversing exactly what it is that we have learned so far. Feathering reminds us to make clean and intentional strokes in order to get the most effective stroke possible, therefore benefiting the whole team!
Check out Gena and Sarah rowing it out in the back!

Our newest edition to the blog: CREW MEMBER OF THE DAY! From now until the regatta, we are going to nominate a member of our team as the crew member of the day each practice. This team member is going to be someone who has shown excellent leadership, a great attitude, and overall awesomeness. So, for practice 6, our crew member of the day is: MONIQUE!!!!

Monique is 21 and has 2 children, Treasure (2) and Faith (7 mos). Monique is a member of the Young Mom's Corps Americorps program at Roca and is loving every minute of it! She is a natural at rowing and has secured her place in the front of the boat. Monique loves to dance and exercise and proves her strength during practice every day (Kyle often has to tell her to slow down or not row as hard!) Monique's continually positive attitude has held together our team so far and we are so lucky to have her setting the pace up front!!! Monique, you're the riggin' best!


Check back on Wednesday to see who our next crew member of the day will be!!!