Jane Austen and the North Bay Rowing Club

Yes, an odd pair.


Even odder, I realized recently that I had never read anything by Jane Austen.  Many, many people love her books and many movies have been made from those books but I have neither seen one of those movies or read one of her books!  How could this be!  In order to remedy this, I began reading "Pride and Prejudice" and now I am stymied.  What is her appeal?  I find this book to be vacuous and trite, all about getting a husband and going to balls and talking about people behind their backs.  I know that this book was written two hundred years ago but unless I hear otherwise from some learned person, I doubt that I will be reading any of her other books in the near future.  This book is simply not moving me.  I may try one of the movies.  Any suggestions?


Moving on:  the North Bay Rowing Club is in Petaluma and is, of all things, a rowing club!  northbayrowing.org  A friend of mine from West Marin mentioned taking a rowing lesson and since that has always been a secret dream of mine, to be in good enough shape to take a scull (not a skull) out on the water and row, I thought I would look into it.  Now, we all know I am not in very good shape but hey, one lesson, how terrible would one lesson be.  My teacher was a cool woman named Kris who has rowed for years.  Excellent teach.  I, on the other hand, not an excellent pupil.  


Rowing in one of those long, thin sculls is very tricky, not because  you think you are going to tip over (although that thought crossed my mind several times) but because it's as much mental work as physical.  Since my mental agility is on par with my physical agility, it was quite a struggle on both levels.  There is a pattern to rowing, very specific things to do with your body at each second of the rowing action.  Legs, hands, arms, back, up, down, wrist turning, oar maneuvering......  you have to get into the sequence mantra or you flail at the water in a most ineffective manner.  Quite embarrassing.


Watch this:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyKZ9-mOGSE  it is 30 seconds.  Note how their arms cross over each other, how their hands deftly turn the oars, how they are all perfectly synchronized.  Note to self:  practice, practice, practice!  Years and years of practice.  They are in a quad scull.  I was in a two person scull.    I could have very well have been in a huge skull with crossbones on it.  Totally not graceful, that's for sure.  Even getting into the tiny boat is daunting.  Getting out is easy, you can just roll onto the dock like a floppy, boneless cow, which was my method.


Needless to say it was an adventure. Will I join the NBRC? I don't know yet. Will I go back for a second lesson? Probably. You will be the first to know!

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