Category: Masters Athletes

OM MOKSHA RITAM or Let It Blow.

When life gives you lemons, drop those suckers in some hot tea and put on your comfy pants.

Seriously, I planned for 2 head races this year and I was denied both by tropical depressions. Hurricane Ian canceled the High Point Rowing Festival and Hurricane Nicole shut down Head of the South. To say that I was disappointed is a bit of an understatement.

Rowers know the trials and tribulations of the weather. Mother Nature frequently thwarts our plans. It is one thing when it is practice but race day…ah c’mon…really. And 2 of them? Why!? Anyway, with practices, we learn to adjust and find other workouts to do while waiting for the weather to clear. This year, I learned to accept that all that training and practice I have done to test my improvement in the shell will just have to be continued building toward whatever future awaits. C’est la vie. *sniff*

I must recenter. Daily meditation became an essential part of my life while I was caring for my mother. As we slowly watched her health decline and her spirit depart, I found comfort in simply sitting quietly and thinking of nothing but my breath. That grief and despair associated with the things that come with living with the loss of a loved one is inevitable in life. It is as inevitable as breathing. Breath is a true constant in life. Taking some time to just sit and feel my breath and to let go of thought, emotions, and sensations for 10-20 minutes each day became a kind of lifeline.

I also found that the mind body connection also connected with my awareness on the water. I could connect my breath to each stroke a little better. You likely know that realization of when you are practicing (or driving your car) and you set into the familiar motion and the mind drifts off. We start thinking about various to do lists. We think about conversations or events both past and future. We disconnect with the present moment. We trust the autopilot a little too much until the coach or cox calls your seat. Oh right….right…..pause drill…got it. Jerked back into the present moment by a bull horn. (Or if you are in your car, the guy that wonders why you didn’t stomp the gas when the light turned green.)

What I have learned since adding mindfulness to my practice is that I do a better job of setting those distracting thoughts aside and focus on my practice. The port oar was a little deep on that one. My right leg is a little stiff on the recovery. Yup, my shoulders are visiting my ears again. These thoughts are much more productive in practice. Oh, the other things still pop up, but I can recognize the distraction and set it aside more quickly. The point is that there is little value in thinking about a grocery list or that last performance review at work while we are on the water. I replace breathe in and breathe out with blades in and blades out. I have learned a lot this year and I was ready to test my new skills. Could I use them to shut down those mind games that come up in a race?

Enter the regatta killing hurricanes of 2022. All those intentions for each practice and all those scenarios rehearsed in my mind are vaporized, never to be realized.

Saturday morning, when I should have been waking up in Augusta, Ga., I awoke here on Frog Pond Farm and headed to town for a consolation row. Our coach was calling it, Nape of the Cape. She set some boats and we rowed around our little island and celebrated all the practice we had put in for HOTS. It is what rowers do. When you cannot do what you planned to do, then you find a way to do something else that will suffice for now. Oh and someone brought fresh baked bread. I loved being with the club as I always do, but just as the remnant clouds of Nicole hung over our boathouse, so hung my hopes for the weekend.

Sunday morning, I was debating how I wanted to set up the coming week. How do I reset after a disappointing end of the season. Winter is coming which will bring more indoor workouts. I have to maintain some optimism. I opened my Insight app and was presented with a meditation for dealing with regret. I didn’t really feel like I was regretting anything, but I was feeling a little let down. I opened up that selection and took to the meditation cushion.

The meditation starts with the usual prompts. Sit comfortably. Take a deep breath in. Let it go. Drift closed the eyes. Another deep breath in. Let it go. Then the guide starts talking about things in our life that are holding us back. What will you let go of today? My answer came quick. Disappointment.

Then he introduced the mantra. OM MOKSHA RITAM. I spell it here as pronounced in Vedic teaching. Almost everyone knows OM. It is a cliche for most meditation joke punch lines. And I will admit, I am a little self conscious, in my own home, that our dogs and my husband will roll their eyes and shake their heads when the hear me chanting ah-OMMMMMMMM in my sunroom/study/home gym. I do it anyway.

Om is really the meditative tone meant connect us to universal energy and vibration. The tone creates a vibration on the back of the throat or base of the skull. Maybe it is the Vedic feather duster for the mind? There is a reason it is used so frequently in meditation. It is comforting and simple.

Moksha is emotional freedom and release. It is your liberation. Maybe Elsa could have sang Moksha in the Disney film Frozen, but that does not rhyme with snow. Let it go is better in that case. Maybe a meditator could replace Moksha with let it go. But the word is kind of fun. It has the ring of a Klingon battle cry. I like it. Moksha! Qapla’!

Ritam is the rhythm of the universe. Ritam IS rowing. Whenever we think of rowing, we rarely leave out discussing rhythm. That is universal.

You can try it right now if you like. Pull your shoulders up to your ears, hold them for 3 seconds, and let them fall. Take a deep breath in through the nose and then out through the nose. When you close your eyes and take another breath begin to repeat the mantra at least 3 times, silently to yourself. OM MOKSHA RITAM. Okay, close your eyes.

As you open your eyes take a brief moment to feel your breath and take in your surroundings. Maybe place your hand on your heart or throat to help feel the breath. Sometimes just a brief moment like that can help recenter our focus. Get our minds back into the rhythm of daily progress.

The idea is when you use the mantra Om Moksha Ritam, you are attuning to your best self. Letting go of what you no longer need and feeling the rhythm of nature.

Just as when you are in your shell you are attuned to the balance, the freedom of the glide when you release the blades from the water after the drive and then the return to the catch. The rowing stroke becomes it’s own mantra.

So let the hurricanes blow where they will. A rowers rhythm will not be denied. We go on to the next stroke. OM MOKSHA RITAM. Be free of the disappointments that are inevitable in life. Breathe deep the joy of your movement. Let go of the unmet expectations. It is time to find a new rhythm and start a new plan because 2023 is coming. Another chance to dream of a shining season.

OM MOKSHA RITAM

Namaste baby!

This Boat Floats

Here comes Fall! I am not talking about the official calendar date that says “First Day of Autumn.” This Fall is that time of year when you step out and the first decision you have to make is if you need a jacket. This Fall is also that time of year that you walk through your local department store that greets you with the cosmic alignment of a snaggle toothed Jack-O-Latern, then a cartoon turkey, then Christmas lights on plastic trees. Add to the fun, this year we find our TV ads in severe retrograde with campaign ads trying to sell us the most acceptable candidate.

We forgive the calendar for not getting the date right. We work through the commercial conflagration of 3 holidays under the smoke of burning autumn leaves. We hold our nose as the TV and radio ads burn our brains. Rowers can’t be bothered by those things because it is Fall and there are Head Races coming!

This coming weekend the rowing posts on social media swarm around The Head of the Charles Regatta, HOCR. Many of my friends are going to volunteer and take in the atmosphere. It is a tremendous event. I wish safe travels for all the competitors and volunteers.

My rowing focus is on my club getting ready for Head of The South, HOTS. This is a fun event too. Maybe I feel good about this venue because my very first head race with my club was at this event. We rented an 8 and paid a college kid to cox us. The boat we raced did not have speakers that worked so no one ever heard the cox with the exception of the stern pair. I remember our discussion with the vendor that rented us this boat and the gentleman that was trying to sell it. He spoke with a slavic accent. “You do not need to worry. This boat, she floats. You love this boat. You race, she floats.” So we raced. I got a fond memory for my lack of medals collection.

“This boat, she floats” has become a kind of mantra I repeat when life is not exactly what I want it to be. When life is not the way I want it to be, I remind myself that my boat still floats.

Early voting and midterm elections are upon us. And the last 2 years are begging if we have learned anything. I watched the news. I watched repeated replays of some very confused people storm our capitol because they believed a story. I have watched the hearings about that tragic day. Right now, not just our nation, but many nations of the world are immersed in a strange alignment of truth and belief. The talking heads call it Nationalism, Supremacy, or Fascism, but I just call it Hate. When hate takes over it burns a huge hole in the soul. Hope floats all boats but hate sets them on fire. A boat filled with hate will not float for long.

We can still make this race work. Our boat still floats only if we make our choice and vote. Our boat still floats if we seek truth and make our decisions thoughtfully. The Big Box Mart might not know what season it is, but I know it is time to step into an ugly beat up boat and feel the beauty of moving in unison with my crew and cross the finish line with pride. Our boat she floats because we love our crew; but it is up to us to row it to the finish line. And next year, we come to the race with a new boat and a renewed spirit. Citizen, you are on the course.

Grievance or Gratitude or Be Grumpy or Be Blessed

There are countless articles and TED Talks about how gratitude is the key to a happier life or even a longer life. Basically, we can be grumpy or we can be blessed.

Yesterday, I went to practice in my single scull. The wind was from the southwest and that was against the tide. The wind was not strong but being against the tide it was not my favorite. I thought, maybe I should just go to the gym. NOPE! Life ain’t perfect and the water isn’t always going to be either. I decided to take a bumpy ride in my single.

I launched my little shell under a blue Carolina sky and I set my intention to appreciate the less than perfect conditions of my practice. The gulls were laughing and the fish were jumping. They gave no thought to my concerns. In a few few strokes, I had fewer concerns. I rowed with the outgoing tide. That part was fun. I was moving fast.

At the end of our practice cove, I made my turn. My long skinny boat would have preferred to keep going with the current. The blades and boat argued with me about my choice to turn around. The wind picked up a bit. However once I got turned, the boat settled into the familiar water. Rowing with the wind and against the turning tide, I found the rhythm in appreciation that I could change direction and keep moving. The pace was not fast. I just kept moving. Also, if I had not kept moving, the water would have taken me where we didn’t want to go.

The row back was harder. The water really wanted me to go out to sea, but I knew the way home. My legs pressed the boat past the blades against the tide over and over. Finally, the dock was in view. One lap was better than no lap at all. I decided to call that my practice.

Back at the dock, as I was just getting my hands on to step out, a boat sped out of the nearby marina. The wake it created was like a tsunami coming to wash me and my shell over the dock. I braced my self to the boat and the dock. I held on. Will I get washed on to the dock? Will I get shoved under the dock? Will I fall out of the boat? The wake settled my shell grazed the side of the dock a little harder that I would have liked but no damage was done. I felt like I just went 8 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu.

Grievances were aplenty that day. But they were all about things that I had no control over once I decided to put my boat in the water. The gratitude that I felt was more. I am braver than I once was. I have learned where I can push my limitations and I know that there is more to push. I sculled suspended between sky and water. I chose my direction. And when the tsunami wake came, I stayed calm and I found a way to protect myself and my equipment.

This is life. Am I right? We stare at the decisions that we must make. We navigate through the consequences of those decisions and then we can be grateful for the rewards. We might have some grievances with some aspects of the journey, but we must always be ready to be grateful for the rewards. That is why we push through the things that are hard.

The rewards that bring gratitude can include, joy, relief, accomplishment and forgiveness.

I found joy in the blue sky. I felt relief with the boat safely turning in the agitated current. I felt accomplishment when I averted disaster at the dock. And I gave forgiveness for the boat driver that had not given any thought to the consequence of motoring out of the marina at full throttle.

There is no choice in life that will not bring us a little grief, but the most important choice we make is to find gratitude in the grievance. Seek your blessings and you will be blessed. Indulge your grievance and you will find grief. Be grumpy or be blessed. I recommend being consciously motivated to be blessed.

WE GOT YOU!

Fired up in lane 4
Fired up in Lane 4

Sprint season is over. My record is unburdened by a medal count. My heart is not broken by this; nor is my spirit. Each loss had within it a personal victory.

My first race, I stayed in my lane despite a terrible crosswind. Later that day I raced with my new Quad crew. We got off to a good start that was interrupted when the stroke seat’s riggers separated from the boat. We were heartbroken but got right back on the water the following week.

My 2nd race, I didn’t even put my boat in the water. The conditions were hazardous and I was watching other boats capsize and frigid rowers brought ashore. Hypothermia was not in my race plan and the conditions were beyond my skill level. I scratched.

My 3rd race, I stayed with the pack well over the 1st 500 meters. I was ready to do my final 250 when I realized in 2 strokes I was out of my lane. I did what I had to do to get out of the buoys. I was glad to not hit any. I started my sprint again but heard the finish horn toot twice. I was easily in 3rd place in the 4 boat race.

My final sprint race of the year is a tale of woe and wisdom. My club was there for that one. I would get to race my single and the Quad. I arrived at the venue early. I rigged my boat. When the rest of the club showed up and we rigged the quad and other boats. I set about doing my part to set up the team table and helping the crews that needed help. Finally, my time to launch approached. When I set the boat in the water, I stood completely bewildered at the dock. I had rigged my boat backwards. I snatched the boat out of the water with the help of my ground crew….AKA my husband. We moved with haste up the river bank and back to the slings. My club was there. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t hold the tools. They took the tools from my hands and set about correcting the rigging. A club friend stood by me as my eyes welled up and I was cussing my stupidity. “Glenda, you got this” she said. “Breathe, we got you”

BREATHE, WE GOT YOU. This is what it means to be part of something special. A team. A club. People who become friends for life. I watched as my husband and teammates fixed my mistake. I won’t say that I got immediately calm. But I did feel a little spark reignite my optimism.

The correction made, we returned to the dock. I sprinted to the start, I got to the line with less than 30 seconds to spare. They called the start. The race was against the river current and against a 14mph wind. In the first 250, I thought, “This is stupid. You should have just scratched.” BREATHE, WE GOT YOU. The Adrenaline was exhausted from the effort to just get to the start line. BREATHE, WE GOT YOU. Another stroke. Another push against the wind and current. I started counting by 5s, not 10. I just had to find the next stroke. Winning would once again be out of the cards for me. I just wanted my friends, my husband, and my ego to see me across the line.

If I had run the 1st 500 as well as I ran the 2nd, maybe I wouldn’t have finished that race in last place. But the victory was in finishing. Finishing surrounded by people who will say “WE GOT YOU.”

A few hours later, our Quad finally got to cross the finish line. Again no medal, but the riggers held and the crew crossed the finish with the race plan executed as planned. We were happy.

What I have found is the ego is not always a friend. The ego never says “Breathe, I have you.” The ego prefers to manage expectations. Motivation comes from another place. The motivation to improve, test, compete, and strive to improve again, that, must come from the heart. And when the ego tries to manage the heart, motivation must spark from those who value you and remind you to just breathe. There is something special about being surrounded by people, family, and words that are supportive. This is where I learn to be a better sculler and maybe even a better person.

Defeat is not when you finish last. Defeat is giving up.

So, when is the first Head Race?