Rowed competitively for twelve years and I miss being coached
Posted as the_early_water
- Looking for
- discipline that feels like training rather than punishment
- Experience
- Four years, two dynamics, neither of them structured enough.
- Around
- Altona, Hamburg
For twelve years I was on the water at half five, four mornings a week, with a man in a launch telling me exactly what was wrong with my catch. I stopped nine years ago and I have never found anything that replaced it. It took me most of those nine years to work out that what I miss is not the boat.
Thirty six, Altona, submissive, four years in this. What I respond to is being held to a standard by somebody paying close attention who is not sentimental about it. Being corrected mid movement. Being told to do it again. Being measured against last week rather than against nothing.
So the dynamic I want has a training shape. Set expectations, repeated practice, an honest assessment, and somebody who does not confuse encouragement with usefulness. That can include physical discipline and usually does, and for me it sits in the same category as a hard session rather than in the category of cruelty.
I still wake at half five out of habit and I am useless after nine at night, which is the reverse of most of this board.
Not looking for a dominant who will go easy because I seem tired, since that is precisely the moment any of it is worth something. Not looking for anything that ends with being told I did well when I did not. And not looking for somebody who wants an athletic performance, because I am nine years out of shape and cheerful about it.