Community and Attitude

Training after college can often be a very insular lifestyle. At Craftsbury we have the benefit of spending time with a lot of great people who are focused on keeping the center running or are at Craftsbury for other reasons.  However, on our training trips even this outside influence is reduced. We spend our time rowing and then doing all the activities necessary to make that happen. We spend more time together and less time outside of rowing. Like most things this is good and bad.  It can be good to narrow your focus, get more rest, and really zone yourself in for a block of time. However, sometimes with this level of focus, context can be lost and rowing seems just a tad too serious for those of us that often take things too seriously.

This trip I was able to branch out a little bit in very positive ways.  While training on my own in Durham, NC, I had the good fortune to row with CHaOS Rowing, a club of masters rowers on Lake Jordan who really enjoy the sport.  Several of them had past national team experience for a variety of nations and some were starting or continuing club rowing careers. I would train with them on Saturday and Sunday and I was always impressed by the way that everyone would get after it and have joy in the competition.  It was really great to feel the competitive energy of people who have or have had careers completely outside rowing. There was no need to be competitive like those of us who have committed to rowing more full time. Yet, it was still there and seemed more positive for its lack of necessity.  It created a sense of community to share the experience of competing and the amicability and jokes between pieces only added to the way that everyone attacked the next piece.

After I left Durham I met the whole team in Deland, FL.  Because I was managing some forearm tightness I was not always doing two a days on the water. As a result, I looked around for a gym.  The place that seemed to make the most sense was the local YMCA. In a very different way than the club at Durham I felt that athletics were forging a community. It seemed as though it was providing a no judgement zone for people to engage with their bodies and engage with each other.  People were truly at the ends of every spectrum of physical ability yet the environment felt welcoming to all levels. There were a variety of classes and I got the sense that people went there to see their friends as well as workout. As someone aiming for performance, I felt like the relaxed environment helped me work hard free of stress or overthinking the work I had to do.  I can’t say that I took as specific a lesson from here as from Durham but it did make me think about the community facet of the Craftsbury mission statement and how I can add to community engagement with how I go about things.

Thanks again to both great groups.