The Rhythm Of The Rowing Stroke

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--> They are not at all nice gumdrops like your picture was, more jagged and less rounded and with the funny jerk at the start. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Ah. It sounds as though you might be slamming down with your legs, perhaps without good compression at the catch, and then neglecting your back and arms, or having a hard time sequencing them smoothly. The peak of the stroke should be in the center on the semicircle, not at the catch. This is just what a metrical/rhythmic delivery of your stroke might help, I think.<br /><br />What drag do you row at? <br /><br />BTW, if you have a spike in your force curve at the catch, it might be exactly because you are thinking of the start of the legs as the downbeat of the stroke. This is a mistake! The legs prepare for the back and the back (and continuing acceleration and then finish with the legs) delivers the cumulative force to the downbeat that arrives with the arms.<br /><br />I am not at all not telling you where the downbeat is, at least as I row. The downbeat is on the arm pull.<br /><br />Yes, measures are usually equally timed in music. But in other things (such as meter in poetry and language more generally), this doesn't need to be the case at all. I think that this doesn't need to be the case at all in many other metrical responses, either. You are conflating musical meter with metrical perception more generally. Metrical perception is a much larger phenomenon. Musical meter (i.e., a metrical response to music) is just a special instance of metrical perception. In order to represent and explain meter, there is very little need to invoke timing. Meter is a force curve, like the rowing stroke, and has its own perceptual preferences, which, with just one exception (the timing of the tactus), have nothing to do with exact timing. <br /><br />ranger<br />

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But the point is that the 3 beat and 4 beat were pretty much the same </td></tr></table><br /><br />Hey! That's to be expected. Rome wasn't built in a day. A proper rhythmicization of your stroke should help you correct it and then deliver it smoothly and unconsciously once you have corrected it. Correcting a stroke is no easy matter, though. It took me about 3 years to correct mine, after I had been rowing incorrected for about 3 years.<br /><br />So, trying out a proper rhythmicization of your stroke, you are disappointed at the results and take it as a refutation of what I am claiming that your stroke was not corrected in 5 seconds?<br /><br />Hmm.<br /><br />Patience!<br /><br />These things take time.<br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The phrasing has more to do with the musical expression and of course crosses the bar lines of the measures. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Exactly.<br /><br />What I am claiming is that, in rowing, the phrasing is the sequenced gestures that go into the drive of the rowing stroke. This gesturing exactly "crosses the bar lines of the measures" and is the oarsmanship, the rowing expression. PaulS (and most others?) are "timing" the stroke by following the phrasing, the expressive gesturing. But this conflates phrasing and meter and in doing so misses the meter, the bar lines. The metrical organization of the rowing stroke is very important, though, as it is in music. Rowing is supremely physical. Meter is the rhythmic component that responds most forcefully to physicality. Phrasing is more emotional. Prolongation is more volitional. Theme is more cognitive/conceptual/memorial/reflective.<br /><br />One of the most distinctive preferences of metrical perception is a build-up of energy that is released on the downbeat. This is why spondees (two juxtaposed stresses) and trochees (a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, syncopated against the meter) are so common in poetry at the beginning of poetic lines, i.e., before the delivery of the downbeat on the second syllable.<br /><br />POOR soul, the center of my sinful earth,<br />LORD of these rebel powers that thee array,<br />WHY dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,<br />PAINTing thy outward walls so costly gay?<br />WHY so large cost, having so short a lease,<br />Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?<br />Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,<br />EAT up thy charge? Is this thy body's end?<br />THEN, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,<br />And let that pine to aggravate thy store;<br />BUY terms divine in selling hours of dross;<br />Within be fed, without be rich no more.<br /> SO shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men,<br /> And death once dead, there's no more dying then.<br /><br />--William Shakespeare, Sonnet #146<br /><br />Nice stroke, Billy! Good acceleration through the drive, buildilng up energy for the arm pull! You need to work on a few of those strokes, though. At times, your force curves can get a bit ditsy!<br /><br /> <br /><br />BTW, iambic pentameter, as illustrated here in this Shapespearean sonnet, is nicely metrical, but has nothing to do with exact timing between tactical beats, much less the exact timing of syllables or of lines, stanzas, etc. The meter follows the felt force curves of the language, not the clicking of a metronome. <br /><br />As in the rowing stroke, the meter of a sonnet would be invisible to an erg monitor (or any other external, mechanical or quasi-mechanical measuring of clock time regularities). An erg monitor would conclude that all iambic pentameter is ametrical. That would be quite a claim, given that over half of the metrical poetry in English is pentameter. This would even be worse that claiming that rowing, done in a nice 4-beat meter ("Row, row, row your boat"), is really metrically triple, tracking the beat of a Bavarian polka: OOM-pah-pah!<br /><br />Note that the downbeat in the pentameter line (the second syllable), like the arm pull in the rowing stroke, also has nothing to do with its being the strongest syllable in the line prosodically (or in any other way, really). Meter and phrasing are two different things entirely. The strongest syllable in a poetic line tends to be the last syllable, in the pentameter, the 10th syllable. The downbeat in a pentameter line is almost always the second syllable. That is, in terms of force contours, as in the rowing stroke, meter and phrasing are diametrically _opposed_. They aren't the same thing at all. <br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->In order to represent and explain meter, there is very little need to invoke timing. Meter is a force curve, like the rowing stroke, and has its own perceptual preferences, which, with just one exception (the timing of the tactus), have nothing to do with exact timing. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Like those who row ametrically to the rhythmic phrasing of the stroke with a Bavarian OOM-pah-pah, once you get the hang of the actual 4-beat meter of the rowing stroke, rowing in your head to any four-beat ditty, like "Row, row, row your boat" (or any rock or folk song of your choosing) will do for any pace and rate except perhaps a mad dash at the start or finish of a 2K or a 500m trial. <br /><br />Exactly because meter is _not_ a matter of exactly equal timing (or exact time) but a subjective response to the curves of effort in a gesturing like the rowing stroke, you can just slow down the ditty to get lower rates and slower paces and speed up the ditty to get higher rates and paces. I have been doing that today. Works great if you are rowing locked into the meter, with the metrical positioning of each and every gesture that you make coming at the same point in the meter of the ditty/song.<br /><br />Meter is independent of tempo (exact time/duration of the pace of an action as a whole) and timing (isochrony, equal timing between beats).<br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So, when I was rowing at 4 beats, and ended up with a drive and recovery that are equal, is that what you are actually doing? </td></tr></table><br /><br />Exactly not. You need to prepare for the arm pull (with the legs and back) on beat 4; then deliver the downbeat on beat 1 (and recover your hands on the next pulse) before starting the recovery of your body up the slide. If you do this, you spend a full 4 pulses (one tactical beat) on preparing for the downbeat (with the legs and back) and then two pulses (one half of a tactical beat) on the arm pull and the recovery of the hands. This makes 6 pulses in all for the drive: 4 + 2. In a 4-beat measure, there are 16 pulses. So if you are doing this correctly, you are driving for 3/8 of the time and recovering for 5/8 of the time and the recovery-to-drive ratio is 1.67.<br /><br />I am also claiming that you can break down the preparation by the legs and back for the delivery of the arm pull and recovery of the hands so that these gestures can also be put exactly on the subordinate beats in the metrical space between beats 4 and 1 of the stroke cycle. This preparation has four gestures: (1) the initial drive off the balls of the feet when your body is at full compression at the catch, (2) the setting of the heels and initial lift with the back, (3) the additional thrust at the peak of the stroke with the back and legs when these two biggest levers are working together at top speed and maximal force, and (4) the finish with the legs, when you push hard with your heels and extend the legs straight out so that they are flat and parallel to the rail. <br /><br />I am also claiming that, if you have a fast recovery with the hands, this can be made metrical, too, by putting this gesture on the subordinate pulse right after the arm pull downbeat (1) in the stroke cycle. <br /><br />ranger

[[old] seat5]

<!--QuoteBegin-ranger+Jan 2 2006, 06:57 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(ranger @ Jan 2 2006, 06:57 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--> They are not at all nice gumdrops like your picture was, more jagged and less rounded and with the funny jerk at the start. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Ah. It sounds as though you might be slamming down with your legs, perhaps without good compression at the catch, and then neglecting your back and arms, or having a hard time sequencing them smoothly. The peak of the stroke should be in the center on the semicircle, not at the catch. This is just what a metrical/rhythmic delivery of your stroke might help, I think.<br /><br />What drag do you row at? <br /><br />BTW, if you have a spike in your force curve at the catch, it might be exactly because you are thinking of the start of the legs as the downbeat of the stroke. This is a mistake! The legs prepare for the back and the back (and continuing acceleration and then finish with the legs) delivers the cumulative force to the downbeat that arrives with the arms.<br /><br />I am not at all not telling you where the downbeat is, at least as I row. The downbeat is on the arm pull.<br /><br />Yes, measures are usually equally timed in music. But in other things (such as meter in poetry and language more generally), this doesn't need to be the case at all. I think that this doesn't need to be the case at all in many other metrical responses, either. You are conflating musical meter with metrical perception more generally. Metrical perception is a much larger phenomenon. Musical meter (i.e., a metrical response to music) is just a special instance of metrical perception. In order to represent and explain meter, there is very little need to invoke timing. Meter is a force curve, like the rowing stroke, and has its own perceptual preferences, which, with just one exception (the timing of the tactus), have nothing to do with exact timing. <br /><br />ranger <br /> </td></tr></table><br /><br /><br />The peak, the highest point of the force curve, is at about the center. The jagged little jerk at the beginning is only about 1/8 the height of the eventual peak. It goes up in a sudden short little bump, very narrow, and then up in a semi circle (not a high one like yours, a shallow one like a soup bowl.)<br /><br />I row at 117 drag. No particular reason, just being moderate. I never move it higher or lower. I should check it and see if it's still at 117 or if I should adjust it for how dirty the fan is. (Heaven forbid I should clean the fan!)<br /><br />Just so I can understand better: If the tactical beats are equal in their timing, and there are 4 per measure, I can't understand how you are saying that you don't need to invoke timing. The sort of meter you are using to try to explain the rowing stroke is the musical sort, that requires that the measures take the same amount of time as each other and the tactical beats are equal. Of course you can speed this up and slow it down by changing the tempo but for each tempo (stroke rate) the measures take the same amount of time. You are losing me on all this other information about meter that is not musical, which I assume you know from your years of study in your field.

[[old] seat5]

<!--QuoteBegin-ranger+Jan 2 2006, 07:01 AM--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE(ranger @ Jan 2 2006, 07:01 AM)</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->But the point is that the 3 beat and 4 beat were pretty much the same </td></tr></table><br /><br />Hey! That's to be expected. Rome wasn't built in a day. A proper rhythmicization of your stroke should help you correct it and then deliver it smoothly and unconsciously once you have corrected it. Correcting a stroke is no easy matter, though. It took me about 3 years to correct mine, after I had been rowing incorrected for about 3 years.<br /><br />So, trying out a proper rhythmicization of your stroke, you are disappointed at the results and take it as a refutation of what I am claiming that your stroke was not corrected in 5 seconds?<br /><br />Hmm.<br /><br />Patience!<br /><br />These things take time.<br /><br />ranger <br /> </td></tr></table><br />No, I'm not disappointed that I haven't changed something I've been doing for a few years in 5 seconds, that would be assinine. What I'm saying is that this experiment of just comparing the force curves that result from the 2 different ways of counting had results that were very similar.<br /><br />From what you have said in other responses, it's evident that while I was counting to 4 instead of 3, I still wasn't timing the parts of the stroke properly within the counting, because when you do it in 4, you say you drive for 3/8 and recover for 5/8, which is a drive/recovery ration of 3/5. When I did it, it was coming out 1:1.<br /><br />It surprised me to find that the force curves looked so similar when rowing 1:1 (in the attempt to do the 4 beats) as it did when I rowed to 3 beats and with a 1:2 ratio.<br /><br />Can you do this experiment on your end and post what happens?<br />1)row your 4 beat, 3:5 stroke<br />2)row your old ?beat, 1:1 stroke at the same pace<br />3)row in a 3 beat, 1:3 stroke at the same pace<br /><br />and compare the force curves? I wonder if yours come out the same as each other.

[[old] seat5]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Exactly not. You need to prepare for the arm pull (with the legs and back) on beat 4; then deliver the downbeat on beat 1 (and recover your hands on the next pulse) before starting the recovery of your body up the slide. If you do this, you spend a full 4 pulses (one tactical beat) on preparing for the downbeat (with the legs and back) and then two pulses (one half of a tactical beat) on the arm pull and the recovery of the hands. This makes 6 pulses in all for the drive: 4 + 2. In a 4-beat measure, there are 16 pulses. So if you are doing this correctly, you are driving for 3/8 of the time and recovering for 5/8 of the time and the recovery-to-drive ratio is 1.67. </td></tr></table> <br /><br />So you count the putting forward of the hands as part of the drive? I always thought of that as part of the recovery.

[[old] remador]

<b>Ranger wrote</b><br /><!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Of course, if we can get at each of these questions, we can then ask how these four forms are integrated. For instance, when grouping/phrasing is out of phase with meter, a rhythmic form becomes syncopated. So we might ask about things like this: Is rowing syncopated or more smoothly in phase? Prolongation is actional, and in something like rowing, which is so dominantly actional, we might expect that this sort or linear motion would be very prominent. But where prolongation is out of phrase with meter and grouping, the latter might be weakened and not very salient. So we might ask about things like this: Are meter and grouping/phrasing very important in rowing, or does action and therefore prolongational movement dominate so fully that they are really insignificant? </td></tr></table><br /><br />I've only had the time to read this first post, so I apologise if I'll be repeating any "argument".<br /><br />Assuming your musical metaphor as a good one - or, in other words, as an intepretation of the rowing movement that can give us new insights about it - I would say - also as a musician - that I think that when you suggest (in your question) that there might be some un-fitting between prolongation and meter and grouping, you aren't centering your thoughts in the best system of reference: the rowing stroke. <br /><br />As a musician again, I would say that prolongation (purpose, finality?) has more to do with the event strategy (race strategy, or its absence) than with any other thing. Admiting we are working in a closed system (no external purposes like "success", etc.), the efficiency (prolongation?) of the rowing stroke <i>which is obtained through good metering and grouping</i> is relative to wider and longer horizons than the rowing stroke itself contains. <br /><br />In this sense, BTW, the distinction bewteen linear and cyclic or vertical patterns gets quite clear and, as far as I can see, it seems quite less contradictory (or, to use another image, far more "adapted"). Also with this perspective very present, we can say that any apparent "negative" phasing in the rowing stroke (the recovery, etc., something as an apparently dissonant interval between notes in a desirably perfect, major chord) only gets its perfect sense when "heard" from a longer period, in which it reveals its place in a larger structure that displaces its initial perceived locus. <br /><br />Being more specific to rowing, the oarsman acts like a musician who wants to play major chords, perfect melodies, but knows that there are necessary and dissonant notes he will have to integrate in his intepretation and, so, he will try to minorize its effects each time they appear, emphasizing the necessity to do so by musically "explaining" that the overall goal is to affect as little as possible the total piece (from his point of view). In other words, he will, almost unconscioulsy, automatically, try to make sure that any listener will know that he is doing what he is doing as he is doing only in order to accomplish further goals. Being more picturesque - and maybe closer to rowing -, we can also say that our musician is someone that will have to play a broken guitar or piano - in any case, something that allways takes too much effort not to compromise his musical intentions. In the first example, we might say that the musician has to deal with a cynical composer, whose dissonant intervals are there to emphasize the beauty of all the others, in a temporal - cynical - discourse; in the second example, we might be closer to rowing, as I said, as we have a musician who has to deal with an instrument that really is the best avaliable, but it's, nevertheless, one that only can be mastered to achieve "good" music by something like a continuous transcendence. The similarity of the latter to rowing might well be stated if we compare a cycling ergometer and a rowing ergometer: our broken-instrument-musician will have to do much more to get a quite less "listenable" effect. <br /><br />Have I heard that there is any motivation flowing from here???<br /><br /> <br /><br />AM

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->As a musician again, I would say that prolongation (purpose, finality?) has more to do with the event strategy (race strategy, or its absence) than with any other thing. Admiting we are working in a closed system (no external purposes like "success", etc.), the efficiency (prolongation?) of the rowing stroke which is obtained through good metering and grouping is relative to wider and longer horizons than the rowing stroke itself contains. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Yes, all of the rhythmic components have larger scopes that I might be considering here. Prolongation can be especially extended.<br /><br />I am not sure I am catching anything specific from your claims, though. To be immediately relevant, you would have to show how some particular claims that I have made about these local structures are modified/transformed/etc. by structures at more global levels. Indeed, this often happens in rhythmic structures, but if it is happening here, I am not sure you have said how.<br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->So you count the putting forward of the hands as part of the drive? I always thought of that as part of the recovery. </td></tr></table><br /><br />I suppose it depends on your perspective again. For me, the recovery of the hands is part of the sequence of gestures in the drive and occurs very rapidly, like the gestures in the drive proper, before I reverse my backward momentum and start to move back forward up the slide. For me, the drive is very quickly toes-heels-back-legs-arms-hands on successive pulses with energy flowing all of the way along the line. Then it is something very different, a relaxation and recovery. The arms pull is very quick, and if the hands are quick, too, the arm pull becomes not just a pull into the body but a quick in-and-out. Therefore, I don't feel that the sequence of movements associated with the drive are over until the sixth gesture, rather than fifth. <br /><br />This inclusion of the hands in the driving gesture works very well for me rhythmically when I am trying to keep my stroke organized, especially at high rates.<br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin--> What I'm saying is that this experiment of just comparing the force curves that result from the 2 different ways of counting had results that were very similar. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Rhythmizing helps you relax by locking whatever gestures you use into a preestablished beat. This eliminates any need to pay attention to the precise sequencing, timing, and articulating of these gestures.<br /><br />However, I don't think different rhythmizations would (instantly) change the gestures that you make in the drive.<br /><br />I think that, over time, different meters do indeed encourage different gestures, but I would assume that any change in gesturing would only come very gradually, over pretty large spans of time. <br /><br />The rowing stroke is pretty complicated. Rhythm is just one aspect of it.<br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->The sort of meter you are using to try to explain the rowing stroke is the musical sort, that requires that the measures take the same amount of time as each other and the tactical beats are equal. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Beating is certainly more isochronous than the events in the other rhythmic components, but I can only underline again that meter need not be isochronous at all, as something like the pentameter of a standard sonnet is not at all isochronous.<br /><br />Poor soul, the center of my sinful earth.<br />---------1-------2------3-------4------5<br /><br />Say this line of verse naturally. The meter doesn't have anything to do with isochrony. You can even stop right in the middle of a beating and continue on without disturbing the meter. <br /><br />Musical meter is a special case.<br /><br />No I am not invoking a specifically musical meter to explore the rhythm of the rowing stroke. I am just invoking rhythm more generally.<br /><br />ranger

[[old] ranger]

<!--QuoteBegin--><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><div class='genmed'><b>QUOTE</b></div></td></tr><tr><td class='quote'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Your poem could just have easily been written:<br /><br />We are cool.<br />We left school.<br />We....<br /><br />1, 2,3, (4)<br />1,2,3, (4)<br />1,2,3, (4) (4) being the 4th unvoiced (rest) beat.<br /><br />I suppose it was written that way just to be odd. Which it is. </td></tr></table><br /><br />Exactly. And we can still do this meter, but it rides (oddly) against the visual form of the poem, producing a kind of visual syncopation. The downbeat comes at the _end_ of the visual line, rather than at the beginning, where you might expect it.<br /><br />I am claiming that the rowing stroke is just like this. <br /><br />--------------1<br />left school. We<br /><br />---------------------------1<br />toes-heels-back-legs-arms-hands <br /><br />I also noted that in a line such as this, _school_ would be a phrasal peak, just as the peak of force in the rowing stroke (what I have labelled "back") precedes, rather than follows, the major downbeat in the meter of the stroke (i.e., the arm pull). <br /><br />----------------1<br />left SCHOOL. We <br /><br />The rowing stroke, as I am experiencing it and describing it, is syncopated and oddly ordered in just this manner.<br /><br />It doesn't go OOM-pah-pah, with meter and phrasing in alignment (as would be expected), with the major downbeat at the beginning of the phrase (as might be expected, too), and (most importantly) in a metrical triple (which seems to be what is happening when viewed from an external perspective or when the time-spans among major events are measured with a clock. <br /><br />ranger<br />

[[old] ranger]

<br />-----------phrasal metrical <br />------------peak---------1<br />toes-heels-BACK-legs-arms-hands<br /><br />ranger