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Health & Fitness

First Learn to Row Class Underway - New Evening Class starting July 14th.

The evenings have been wonderful at Great River Rowing as nine new rowers set out to learn what it takes to set a boat and start to use the power in their legs. New classes are schedule for this summer.

Take a visit to www.greatriverrowing.com for more info on learning to row.  The next session will be on Mon - Wed & Thurs evenings from 6:15 - 7:45. Other classes are posted there too. There are ten classes in a session, eight people are required to make a session.

Preregistration is required on the Great River Rowing website and by sending an email to "youcanrow@gmail.com"

Below are some basics about the sport.   It is a whole new world.  Enjoy!

Rowing 101

1. The term crew is used in American schools and colleges to designate the sport of rowing. When outside of the academic sphere then the sport is known as rowing, as in the United States Rowing Association or Great River Rowing.

2. When you use the term crew you don't need to use the term team. To say crew team is redundant.

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3. Rowing can be a general term to mean rowing a boat with one oar per person or two oars per person. If you really want to get it right, then, when a person is rowing with one oar then he/she is sweep rowing, when rowing with two oars he/she is sculling.

4. It is perfectly correct to call the boat a boat. Another term that is used is shell. Either term is commonly used.

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5. Nearly all the terms used in rowing are understandable except for one. When a crew is to stop rowing, the cox'n, coach or someone will call way-enough or way'nuff. This is a 19th Century American naval term that has carried on through to today.

6. A crab is an event when a rower or sculler is unable to extract the oar blade from the water at the finish of the drive (pulling phase of the stroke) and a sloppy stroke occurs. This can happen when a rower loses grip of the handle, makes an error in judging when to extract or release the blade from the water, or if the boat tips to the side and there's nowhere for the rower to lower his/her hands to extract the blade. The result is usually a falter and some timing problems for a few strokes. However, an over-the-head crab is more serious. Its when the oar handle forces the rower onto his or her back and the handle goes over his/her head. This usually causes a great deal of disruption in the boat and in most cases the crew must stop rowing, recover the oar, and  then proceed. Still worse, but very rare, thus there is no term for it, is an ejection. This may happen when racing and the boat is moving very fast. The rower catches a crab and the oar handle gets caught in the stomach causing the rower to be catapulted out of the boat. The crew must stop to collect the swimmer and then go on.

7. The boat orientation terms are simple: the boat usually travels forward and the forward end of the boat is called the bow. The trailing end of the boat is called the stern.  When facing forward in the boat (like the coxswain but not the rowers) then the left side is port side and the right side is the starboard side. A rower just beginning to row may get switched from side to side, but at some time may row and develop his/her skills on one side. The side chosen has nothing to do with a person being right-handed or left-handed. Its chosen to make a near equal number of port and starboard rowers and to balance the potential skill levels. A crew doesn't want to have the best four rowers on one side and the next four best rowers on the other.

8. The positions in the boat are numbered according to the seating. The seat closest to the bow is #1, next #2, and so on. The rowing seat closest to the stern is #8 in an eight or #4 in a four and is also called the stroke seat. The person rowing in this seat is the stroke.

9. The coxswain is the person that steers the boat. He/she is a coxswain or cox'n or cox and he/she is coxing a boat. A cox'n usually uses an electronic amplifier system called a CoxBox™. It not only amplifies the cox'n's voice through a speaker system, but it has a built in stroke rate meter and a timer. Some boats, usually fours, may have a lie-down coxswain's position in the bow end instead of the sit-up position in the stern.



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