Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi there. I'm Sarah, and welcome back to the Midlife Happiness Project. Today I have two wonderful guests that are doing something super, super cool.
I'd like to introduce you to Erin and John. Erin and John, thank you so much for coming today.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Absolutely, My pleasure.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Okay, so let's get right to it.
What is your thing? This thing that you've discovered that's really been exciting and added happiness to your life?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: So we rose skulls on Lake Tahoe.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Crazy.
Wow.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: It started during the pandemic with a friend of mine who's actually happens to be my contractor. Sort of like a Murphy Brown permanent contractor type situation because we have these really rustic cabins. And he called me one day and he said, there's this boat, this sort of like, it's been on the lake on this beach for several months. It's just sitting there. I'm gonna bring it to you. And I'm like, what do you mean you're bringing me a boat? And then a couple days later, he showed up with this long, skinny boat on top of his truck. And he said, okay, Erin, here you go.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: And you had never shown any interest in this?
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Well, no, no. I mean, I had a kayak and I didn't really think much of it. And I don't even know. I've never asked him what gave him the idea that I needed a skull. But it was also autumn of 2020.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: There were wildfires raging.
My father was dying. We were sort of. It was before we had the vaccines. Like, it was a very weird time.
And a bunch of us were up at Tahoe much more than we would normally be. This is a summer community, and this was in the autumn, and we'd all sort of lingered because everything was remote. And maybe he just recognized that I was a complete stress bag. I don't know.
But he brought me a boat. And then I looked at this boat and I thought, oh, wasn't John a crew coach when we were at Davis?
And I literally just, like, called John and I said, john, I'm going to send you pictures of this thing. I think it's. I think it's one of those crew boats, right, John?
[00:02:40] Speaker C: This is true. It was a Baycraft 19.
They don't. The company doesn't even exist anymore.
I went over to look at it. I rode my bike over to look at it, and I thought, oh, whoa, this is a lot of work. This is a open water.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: It was beat up.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: It totally beat up. I mean, it had been abandoned on ski beach for the last year, and it was Delaminating the seat was completely shot. But I mean not just. It wasn't just a boat, it was a boat and two skulls, two oars, fairly new concept, two hatchet blades which are worth more than the boat itself completely. So we had a boat, we had something that looked like about 15 hours later of fiberglass repair. Somewhat maladroit I might confess, as I was learning as I was going and I ordered a seat from a guy in Philadelphia that I, that I saw online that because it was a strange, it's a strange configuration. It's, it's not like any sculling boat that I'd ever seen, but it's beamy. It was a wary, it's called, it's like a wary. It's very, very hard to tip over. It's super stable but it rows like a boat. It's got a moving seed, it's got oar, logs and so on. So, so it's basically a real boat that was in terrible shape, had no skeg, no fin. So I ordered a stand up paddleboard fin and sort of slapped that on there in some kludgy way.
And then with great trepidation I took it out on the water. I thought, okay, let's see where this thing actually floats because you know, I put all this work in without finding out that it actually floated and it did, although it ships water. And even though I, you know, I actually filled it with water and got underneath it when it was on slings and tried to determine where the leaks were and patch them, etc, didn't matter, got out on the water, thought, fantastic. I'm rowing again and I have to say Aaron's right that I, I had a 20 some year, 28 year gap in my rowing career. I started rowing as a grad student in England in fact.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: He's a legit rower.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: You are.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: I was a legit rower. This was college rowing. This is, this is not, this is not elite rowing. But I was a decent, decent horseman back, you know, 40 some years ago.
But I done some sculling in, in grad school. I coached, as Erin said, I coached women's crew at Davis for a year. I had some background in sculling and rowing but I had given it up, moved to the Bay Area. Hadn't really been interested in rowing in any of the clubs here because it would require driving a half an hour through horrible Bay Area traffic and then driving back another half an hour through horrible Bay Area traffic. They said, you know, I had my rowing machine, you know, I didn't I didn't really miss the water that much. And until I saw this boat got out on the water, I went, oh, my gosh, how come I haven't been doing this? And my lovely wife said, you need to get a real boat immediately. I mean, as soon as she saw, basically.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: So basically you get this boat, Erin, and then it ends up sparking this renewed interest for you. So this was meant to be in some weird cosmic way, you were meant to get this.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: I absolutely agree. And it goes beyond that. It makes me a little teary because it created a community around it, because one of my best friends lives next door to me in this, in our little community at Tahoe. And she had a skull, but she hadn't rode it in almost 15 years. So that same week, we like, went into the, like, the depths of her shed and we're like moving, you know, old lawn furniture out and all of this in order to unearth her boat.
And now, you know, fast forward four or five years and there are probably 10 of us that row regularly.
Between us, we probably have nine boats.
And this is a multi generational community. Everyone, you know, so the grand, like children and then grandchildren are all going there and we are teaching our peers, people in their 50s, 60s and 70s, to row. And the younger generation is learning to row. And it sort of, you know, we all, we cook meals together, we hang out together.
It just created this space for us all to come together and none of us, I mean, I didn't know anything. I mean, I flirted with boys who rode boats. Like, come on. I didn't know anything about this.
[00:07:34] Speaker C: I should note that Aaron actually interviewed me in the late 80s because she was taking a class in anthropology and was doing a project on the folklore of rowing. And so when I finally.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Wait, that's how we met.
[00:07:47] Speaker C: When Aaron came up to me at Tahoe Meadows 20 some years later and said, I know you. And I was like, john Stencil, what.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: Are you doing here?
[00:07:57] Speaker C: It's crazy. Crazy because I had not seen.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: I had not seen you had married Amelie.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: I had married my wife, Emily, who had been coming up there since she was a little girl. I want to say, by the way, the biggest attraction for me when you talk, you know, focusing back on happiness for me. I'm a retired teacher, a retired lecturer. I also love, I love teaching. And one of the things that was really fantastic for me was to reestablish this connection with teaching and with coaching and sharing this sport that I love and sharing this meditation that I love. And one of the things that I think is the most important for me is that it's a way to share in, in, in ways that make this sport accessible. You, you had said earlier to have super intense type A personalities, you know.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: Sweating and yeah, you know, Ivy League clenched jaw types. And that is a significant part of the elite level of rowing.
And it is unfortunately one of the aspects of rowing that leads many, many rowers to never touch the sport again after they, after they finished college.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: So burnt out from 13 workouts a week and all this for maybe an hour and a half of rowing racing in a season.
It's a completely crazy sport. And when I did it competitively, I didn't do it at the highest level.
It was sort of intramural level. It was high level for certain, in certain ways. But it was wonderful in that I learned the joy of rowing. I also had great coaching. I had a great coach. Bill Perry was a scholar himself. He rode competitively, but he was a great teacher and he could pinpoint. You could watch an eight go by and then in 20 seconds later, he would stop the boat and go down the boat and say, stroke. You need to seven seat. You might want to raise your hands just a half an inch, maybe six and five. You're both rushing a little bit. It was just bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.
And it was always useful. It was almost never just chit chat. The other thing was it demanded not only a physical aspect, but the mental aspect of concentration about rowing is so profound. It's unlike any sport I've ever done. It's, it rewards concentration, it rewards relaxation, it rewards a clear mind.
For me, and I think for Aaron as well, getting out on the water is the best part of the day.
And when we're out there on Lake Tahoe, we are blessed to be on this lake and to be with this fluid rhythmical motion propelling ourselves without any noise, without any wake, without any carbon monoxide, any smog coming out. I mean, one of the most amazing things about Lake Tahoe is that for maybe an hour in the morning, it's our lake.
That's the other thing that Aaron hasn't mentioned is that the rest of the time you're sharing the lake with wind power boats, jet skis, there's actually these diabolical things called wake surfing boats that are designed to make giant wakes that can turn, you know, for a skier. You know, whenever I tell people, I.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: Say they'll flip our skull.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean you can actually roll the skull if you get Waked by one of these things because it's two and a half feet trough to crest. So you have to be fairly aware of where these boats are. But you know, in the shoulder season, either in the spring or in the fall, it's our lake. There's much less in the way of other traffic. That said, what I love and what gives me the greatest joy is sharing the sport with many, many people. Because when we started rowing, people came out of the woodwork. They would see us. I mean, Aaron did. And Leslie, our neighbor down the way. Yeah. Next door neighbors, people visiting. I've always wanted to try that. You know, it just seems so cool. And then we take them out in tubby, which was this, this unsinkable wary.
What's that?
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah, the boat we've taught everyone using that one boat. We've all gone on to buy boats. We now have fancy fast or narrower.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: I mean, they're all open water racing skills. They're not 28ft, you know, tiny little things that are built only for speed. These are boats that can take a little bit of wake, they can take a little bit of waves, they're durable. They're not these persnickety Ferraris that you have to keep tuned all the time. So we are not racing, we are not rowing at an elite level. But that said, we're going with a lot of joy. And that's something that I really wanted to emphasize is that for people who wanted to get into this, there are lots and lots of rowing clubs out there. And what you do have to do is find some that, that emphasize the joy of it rather than, okay, well, we want to have a competitive crew and we want to do this. And we're attracting people who have rode before and you already know how to row, et cetera, et cetera. There's lots and lots of clubs that have a good mindset. There's also some that you would want to run the other way from if you, if you aren't a competitive rower. So for us, it's about teaching, sharing and then rowing together. And you know, Aaron, you and I, we don't compete, you know, in the sense that, you know, we're not, we're not trying to beat each other, but we'll do pieces together. We'll say, okay, let's bring it up for 20, let's bring it up for 30. And just the joy of rowing next to each other and feeling the groove of hitting those strokes together unlike anything I can think of. Yeah.
[00:13:59] Speaker A: And it sounds to me also, yeah, Go on.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: I was just going to say the point that John raised about it being it is. There's so many different things that you're thinking about when you're rowing a boat. You're thinking about the placement of your hands. You're thinking about the speed with which you recover and come up the slide to start the stroke again. You're thinking about moving both of your oars in unison. You're thinking, thinking about the relationship of your hands to one another because the oars cross. You're thinking about the conditions of the water. You're thinking about whether or not that wakeboarder over there is going to run you over. You're wondering where the buoys are because you're going backwards and you can't see where you're going. All these things you're thinking about, none of those things are my work, my relationships with my family members, what's going on with the world, what's going on in politics.
You are completely zeroed in at this microcosm of what you're doing and the fine, very fine tuned adjustments that you're making with your body. And it stops everything else.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: What you're saying is. I was just about to say, John, when you were saying. And then of course, you're mirroring it. Aaron, what I'm hearing from you guys is it truly is an exercise where you are present in the moment.
[00:15:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: You have to be.
Or you're in the lake.
[00:15:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Or you're in the lake. That's true. I think the other thing.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Or you're in the lake, which wouldn't be so bad. We swim in the lake all the time.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: I think the other, the other thing to keep in mind is. Go ahead, go ahead. No, I was just going to say that the other thing is that rowing really attracts people who might not have been talented at ball sports. A lot of people that I've taught to row, who've loved, who love rowing, say, oh, you know, I just don't think of myself as an athlete because they weren't into ball sports. And what I noticed as a rowing coach, women's rowing, is that all these women thought, oh, I'm not an athlete because they, you know, they were big. They, you know, they didn't want to play basketball, they don't want to play volleyball, they weren't very good at it. They got into a boat. I was like, fantastic. Here's this thing I can do. The water doesn't move, I don't have to hit, you know, this, this thing. And I Don't have to run and whatever. And they were animals once they, once they found the sport, they were like, okay, this is my sport. Same thing here. The biggest, fastest growing demographic is masters athletes, especially women. And I can hear somebody who even. Hi, Emily, who is an athlete in other ways and a skier and a mountain climber and a hiker all her life took to this sport in a way that I've never seen her take this kind of enthusiasm and joy from learning a new thing. And some people would say, well, that's a recipe for couple. You know, this is an odd kind of couples therapy to teach your spouse a new sport. She hasn't yet taught me how to dance, for example. I was born without the dancing gene, but, you know, I can, I can conceive of it now. So, Em, what is your. What, what brings you joy in this sport?
[00:17:38] Speaker D: Being on the water. And it's cognitively challenging at first. It's really.
[00:17:48] Speaker C: This is a piano teacher too, by the way, who is very, very coordinated with her hands, but found that, oh.
[00:17:57] Speaker D: It'S really hard at first because there's so many, like Erin was saying so many things you have to keep track of and it's so subtle. It's like Pilates on the water. You know, is it that muscle or this muscle? Is it down a quarter inch, down three quarters of an inch, whatever? It's just very detailed. And so I like that and I like what, you know, both of you have been saying about the concentration. It's a meditation. Sometimes I just sort of sit there and zone out and look around and it's so peaceful. And so it's. But then just recently, I'm trying to have little breakthroughs so that we can go. We now have a double and do some more couples therapy on the Devil. No, it was really fun. I've done it twice. It was really fun. And, you know, he gets me out of myself. He'll say, okay, you know, push really hard and go for 10. And then when somebody's doing that, you kind of don't think about anything else and you just, you know. And so I, on my own, I don't necessarily do 10 hard strokes or 20 hard strokes, but if he's telling me to do it, then I think, oh, okay. And then it feels great. And then I am because my stroke is getting more fine tuned. I'm. It's easier to go faster. So that's what I'm looking forward to, is more speed, but with good technique.
[00:19:25] Speaker C: So more speed, good technique. No, the other thing I want to say too is, you know, with all these, all this minutia we've been talking about, you don't have to row well to have a good time. But as you row, as you learn to row well, you eliminate noise in your head and in your. And in the whole system. And as I say, one of the things my. Another great source of joy is teaching and analyzing and trying to figure out what the secret for this particular person is. So as an example, one of our neighbors, Maggie, is a former professional dancer, but she says, oh, I'm not an athlete. Like you are a professional dancer, right? You know you are an athlete.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah, you are.
[00:20:08] Speaker C: And you know, please don't give me this, you know, this is amazing. But I remember teaching her in Tubby and I said something about, well, just pull your hands as if they're on the table. You know, just, you know, the boat is balanced and if you raise your hands or lower your hands, you're actually adding noise to the boat. Just keep them on the table. She's, well, I know about the table. There's the table plane and then there's the. I can't remember what the door plane. I mean, it was a term in dancing that they used likewise with our friend Leslie, who was an equestrian. And I said, well, keep your hands quiet. She said, well, yeah, that's just like when you're on a horse, you keep your hands quiet. You let you feel what the animal is giving you. And it's the same thing in rowing is like it. One of the things that I find so interesting is that the. Some of the coaching that I had and some of the coaching that I've seen is very brute force. It's not talking about attuning yourself to whatever it is. It's like, well, we're just going to row hard. You know, there's a lot of that stuff in rowing that's that type A personality. I think where we have really moved in a different direction is, hey, let's feel for the balance. Let the boat tell us what's balanced, and then we work within that. And that's part of the meditation for me. I also have to say, you know, forgetting the rest of your life. For me, I haven't put a name on my boat yet, but I'm going to. And it's going to be Patronus, which is the thing you conjure from Harry Potter, right? From book three of Harry Potter, the dementors come and are swooping around you and they're going to suck the happiness out of you. And you conjure your patronus, good thoughts. The things that give you joy and that chases the dementors. Can't stand it. If you have a strong patronus. And this boat is my patronus.
[00:22:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: And I think it's the same for a lot of people on the water.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
I think one of the things. I mean, I have an erg machine here in San Francisco. It's gathering dust.
Part of what we're. The experience that we have and when we are doing this at Tahoe is we are doing it on this lake. And we are doing it sort of in a community, in a place that many of us colloquially and literally refer to as our happy place. It's where we've gone since we were children. It's a community where we've known people for a really long time.
But it's a very new way to experience something that I've known my whole life. I mean, I've been going to Tahoe since I was a little girl, since I was 7, 8 years old, or going to Tahoe to this community since I was 7 or 8 years old. But I'm going to Tahoe my whole life. And to be out on the water in this boat very early in the morning, right. We're out 6, 6:30 in the morning, and the lake is flat and still and maybe it's misty. And you pay all this attention to the wind and the smells and the clouds and it's like glass. And you're out there doing this thing. And once the sort of. All of the mental coaching and all that concentration that you're doing to get your hands right and balance right and do all those things, you get into the groove, literally into the groove on the sliding track of the sliding seat on the boat. And it is mystical and magical.
[00:23:50] Speaker C: I. I listened to one of your other. One of your other contributions.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: I'm really selling it. I can. I can honestly say I'm getting this beautiful, like, mental picture.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: Well, I. I listen to it one another.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Oh, sorry.
[00:24:04] Speaker C: No, no. I just.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: We'll be out there and we say we're so fortunate. We're so fortunate out in the middle of the lake.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: Like, I'm so grateful I have to share with you. You've got to look back. In some of our earlier episodes, we had a gentleman who was a professor at usc and he talks about at length about mindfulness.
And mindfulness is a tricky thing because it's kind of a buzzword now. People throw it around. I think it's used in a way that really isn't what mindfulness is all about. But the way he was talking about it was, and how this connects to happiness is that it isn't the end result of something that makes you happy. When you're truly, truly happy is when you have a moment of doing something, being in the process of something, and you almost forget what it is that you're doing. You describe it as being in the zone.
And just as an example. And I just think this is really profound that I wanted to share. And he was saying how he was with this Buddhist monk, and he had made a comment about how looking at this beautiful sunset was so spectacular, and this monk stopped him and said, well, no, it's not the sunset that's spectacular.
It's you appreciating the sunset in this moment that's giving you this feeling. It's a very abstract thing to wrap your head around, but at the same time, it makes complete sense. I'm a runner, personally. I know what you're saying. It's different. It's when you think, oh, one foot in front of the other, and you're like, how much longer is this gonna be? It's cold outside. There's too many cars on the road. All those things have a way of trying to penetrate through and kind of ruin the experience. But when you're really in the zone and you're present in that moment, doing it, there is nothing else. Yeah, that is, to me, happiness.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a true.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: And it sounds like you guys can relate to that.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's really true. And the thing about the rowing is we will never. I will never be good at it. I will all. It's a practice. I will always be practicing and getting better and better and better. And there, you know, we'll go out in row, you know, an hour, hour and 15 minutes, something like that. And I bet there were probably 10, maybe 10 strokes in that entire hour and 15 minutes that were perfect. The rest of it is just.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: But, Eric, this is. But I love what I love about what you're saying, and I think is so inspiring for me and everybody else is that. And we're all guilty of this. You had commented, John, earlier about people saying, well, I can't do it or I won't be any good at it. Who gives a shit, right? I mean, let's just say you can. I think people, they make this relationship between. I won't be happy at something, in doing something unless I have a shot of being really good. And maybe this is because this is how we think of ourselves in a professional sense. But you absolutely can love doing something without being great. My son loves playing guitar. He has literally no intention of ever joining a band, which is very strange for some people to understand. Why would he put the time in if he has no intention of playing in front of people? He does it for himself.
So. And whether he's good, of course, he'd like to be as good as he possibly can be, but whether he's good at it or not, it isn't going to hinder him, you know, from doing it. And I think this is a really interesting thing because once you wrap your head around the idea, hey, if it interests you, just do it. Like, what do you have to lose? And especially as we get older, like, yes, get over yourself.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: Get over yourself and get out of the judgment. Get out of the judgment. So that you. So that you.
I think. I think one thing that ties into what you were saying earlier, and it's an insight that I got years ago from a book, I think, by Alexander Lowen. I think he talks about the difference between fun and pleasure.
And fun is distraction. It makes the time go by.
[00:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:01] Speaker C: And. But pleasure is something you work at, and pleasure requires commitment.
[00:29:07] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:29:08] Speaker C: And, you know, you can go to a movie and say, oh, it's fun. You know, it's fun to go to a movie. And then when you take pleasure in something, it's. It's investing more. It's not passive, it's active. And it's something you can work at. And I think rowing. Erin's selling herself short. She can really move the boat. She quickly got to a point where it's like, okay, she's moving the boat, she's at home in the boat. And now it's fine tuning this and this and this. And, you know, I have many examples in my life. You know, my wife. Really good musicians do the same thing. They're chasing an elusive perfection, but they're not endlessly disappointed when they don't find it. But the joy comes from easing into this place where the product is satisfactory, but their process is what they really love. And my brother is a professional cellist.
He lives in Belgium. Every morning that he's at home, he plays a Bach suite from memory, and that's his meditation. He always, you know, whenever he is at home, that's what he does. And he has got all these things in his hands, in his head, and he takes joy from that. He settles his brain, et cetera, et cetera. He's also really good, which is Helpful. He spent a lifetime doing this, and it's inspired me in part by watching him play. I realize there's an illusion that you have that his hand is just following his bow and his fingers are just his left hand. Excuse me. His fingers are just falling onto the strings where they're supposed to fall. And I try to conjure that when I'm in a skull, my hands are where they're supposed to be.
The timing is where it's supposed to be. I don't have to think about it in a sort of judgment, oh, I'm doing this wrong. It's just you're trying to visualize a state where you're working hard but you're not working and your mind is empty and full at the same time. I don't know. I think that's part of it. The runner's high is like that, where, you know, you. You have to start, right? You have. You've had that experience where you're. Oh, man, I'm. You know, I'm sore, blah, blah, blah. And then suddenly at the end of the run, you're like, wow, I'm flying. This is fantastic. And, yeah, I agree. That's what we're. That's what we're out there for.
[00:31:37] Speaker B: And I think if you are trying too hard, rowing, it won't work because it's such a. I mean, the boat is so lightweight. It's like as wide as my butt and 24ft long and only weighs like 35 pounds. Right. This is a very tippy thing, and you can't force it. Like, herky jerky, forceful movements are going to destabilize the boat. It's all about being very, very smooth and that. It is literally a rhythmic, methodical, meditative thing. And I find myself getting out there and I count. I'll say, okay, I'm going to do a hundred strokes.
A hundred strokes. I'm going to do a hundred strokes. And I'm. And I'm totally freeing my mind and I'm just counting the strokes and I'm doing them, and I know I have to go slow up the strokes, up the slide. And I know it's just sort of.
It's so you can't. You can't try too hard because it won't work.
It's a really beautiful thing.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Kind of like this, right? Yeah, yeah. You just have to let. Let you. At some point, you kind of. There's muscles have memory, the. You know, and.
But if you overthink it.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: No, yeah, it doesn't work.
And There's a. Go ahead.
[00:33:14] Speaker C: No, I was gonna say tying back with, with a throwing. One of the things, one of the earliest things that I learned was somebody said if you're, if you're standing out, you're doing it wrong. If you're a star, you're doing it wrong. Your, your, your goal in an eight, in a team boat is to be a piston and to be as much like the others as possible. It's a partnership. And I think in a single, each, each or so because you have two ors in a, in an eight or in a four, you know, each person has one or and that's, that's their responsibility. With, with a, with a sculling setup, with each person having two Rs to deal with. It's the same collaboration between your sides. And I think if anything is pulling too hard or if it's asymmetrical or anything, you'll know it very quickly. The feedback is immediate.
[00:34:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I think picking up on that comment about not being a sporty person or I can't catch to save my life, I am not an athlete. I used to joke and say, like, you know, smoking is aerobic activity for me now. It's been a long time since I quit, but when, when John met me, I was, you know, that was the life I was living long ago. But this, it, the. There's something about like being 50 something years old and learning something new that is physical, not mental, but physical. And then the intricacy, the profoundness, the adjustments that you're making when you're rowing are almost imperceptible. If someone was looking at you like it's, it's about shifting your weight, pressing your feet a certain way, holding your hands a certain way, and you're concentrating so hard and you realize I've never even like that kinesthetic awareness of where my body is in space. I don't think about it in any other context.
And it's such an interesting weird way to perceive yourself. Like, I never think about how I move my right arm versus my left arm.
It's, it's such, it just really removes you from your day to day normal existence and puts you in a very different place. But then simultaneously, it only really becomes deeply pleasurable when you stop thinking about it.
And in the course of, you know, one excursion on the boat, you go in and out of the sort of flow state and then back to mechanics and then flow and then mechanics and then flow and then mechanics.
That's just the way it sounds to.
[00:36:12] Speaker A: Me like you guys. Also, one of the compelling things about this is it's not something you learn to do, and then you just keep doing that. You're constantly learning.
[00:36:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: And evolving. Yes.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:36:23] Speaker C: And you're learning how to learn.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: That in itself.
[00:36:26] Speaker C: You're learning how to learn. You're learning what works, I think, remembering how to learn. Right. One of the things that I found interesting about this whole process in the last four years is that I think I'm a better scholar technically than I was in my 30s. I didn't do it much in my 20s. In my late 20s, I started sculling, doing master sculling, and went to competitions.
And I was decent, but I wasn't great. Now I'm a much better technical skuller, partly because of all the coaching I've done, but partly because I'm much more mindful about it. I don't have the anaerobic reserves. I'm not interested in pushing myself to the ultra max. But the other thing that I've noticed is that I'm better at other things. I'm skiing better downhill and telemark and backcountry ski. I'm skiing better than I've ever skied in my life at age 68. Part of it is that I'm listening to my body differently.
I'm not just trying to go, go, go, push, push, push. And I think part of it is having coached and brought many, many people into this world and realize, okay, I can apply that same thing to myself. I can listen to my body. I can listen. I can feel where my balance is on my skis. I can figure out whether my hand position is optimal for this particular slope. And by the way, the women that. That Erin referred to at the top of the show is a fantastic skier. She's in her 70s. She's the smoothest skier I've ever seen. And she inspires me both on the water and on the slope because she's never out of position. She was a ski instructor for about 10 years. I think she can say things to my wife. She can have these subtle, subtle skiing tips that my wife will then integrate in ways that I can't. And she's done the same for me just by being who she is in on the slopes. And for me, that's a wonderful joy to be doing something better than now at this advanced age than I've ever done in my life. Even though physically.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Unless bringing you joy ends up. Exactly, you know, bringing joy to you in other aspects.
[00:38:38] Speaker C: Yes. Yes.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: So, yeah.
[00:38:41] Speaker B: And there's something magical about this group of people.
We're in our 50s, 60s, 70s.
We're all doing something either that we haven't done in a long time and have just re resumed.
And that's for John and Ann and everybody else is completely new to it. John has rediscovered his gift as a coach and we all are so grateful for that instruction, both sort of in life and in on the water that he brings to us and the way that he tailors his guidance for each of us.
And we're all out there to. We don't always. It's very rare that everybody gets to go out. Like our patterns of our lives are such that, you know, once in a while we'll get five of us out on the water at the same time, but usually it's a couple of us at a time and it's sort of staggered but unbelievable joy in seeing. I know that Bob is working on this. I know that Leslie's like. Leslie came to the E buoy for the first time this summer, like just a couple months ago. And she'd never been out that far because it's pretty far out there. And she was like, oh, it's right there. I'm going to do it. And she's like, I'm at the Ebuy. I'm at the Ebuy. And it's just like a place that's way out in the middle of the lake that is a marker. But she has always been a little bit more tentative and closer to door.
[00:40:20] Speaker A: And you're getting joy from watching other people be joyful about it.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: People that I love. Right. This is my community.
[00:40:28] Speaker C: Well, it really is.
The joy of it for me also is all different ages. I mean, I've seen. I've seen people my age. I also coach the daughters of my friend and former student Brian and Dylan and Emerson had never been in a sculling boat and they'd never seen a sculling boat in their lives in this summer. They were up 10 and 12 years old. Oh, they were great and they were amazing. And one of the things you can do with tubby is you can put people in a boat that's basically unsinkable. And I hold them on the. I hold the stern of the boat on the shore. I'm sitting, you know, standing, you know, up to my knees. I'm holding them so they're not scared. It's not tippy. And they can feel where things are. And I say, just row against me. Just row, you know, as if you're trying to pull away from the shore and they start to do this and what. There's always a point. And this is part of the way that I've. I've now, I'm now teaching is I say, okay, now I'm going to let you go at some point, and you're going to just feel the boat run.
And what happens is, you know, they're rowing, and when I feel that they're ready to go, I let them go.
And the look on their faces is incredible. I think it's the same thing with Erin. I was like, whoa. She's like, this is amazing because instead of, you know, working against resistance, suddenly the boat has no hydrodynamic drag at all. And suddenly one stroke takes you 20, 30ft out from the bank. And you're like, wow, that is so cool. And you see, maybe this is somebody who's hooked for life. I don't know.
It's a great feeling.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: So this summer I had some guests that came up in August, a couple teenagers, and they went home and signed up for rowing in their. In their community in Oregon. They're rowing now.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: That must make you so happy. These are young, made such an impression.
[00:42:18] Speaker B: Young kids, right? They're the children of one of my best friends. My best friend's son and his girlfriend were up. They tried it, and they went home and signed up at the local club and are rowing in Oregon, which is so cool. It's so cool.
And they're not doing it to compete. They're doing it for joy because they.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: Contagious is what you're saying. It's contagious.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: It's been really beautiful. I'm going to share one more thing when we're out and it's beautiful, right? You're in one of those moments where it's like, oh, one of the things that John and I have talked about and done is that we will dedicate 10 strokes, 10 hard strokes to someone that we love that's suffering.
And it's our way of praying for them. In a very unusual way, it makes me cry, but, you know, everybody we know has times when they're just having a hard time and you know it and you're empathetic and you know, and you say, okay, I'm gonna go do a set for this person. I'm setting an intention and I'm gonna row really well for 10 strokes or 20 strokes or however long for this person. So it takes the thing that we're doing that's bringing us joy, but we are intentionally gifting it.
And we've done this. It makes me cry.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Wow, this is all very touching.
And here I thought we were just going to talk about rowing a boat.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: There is just rowing a boat, but there's this other dimension.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Absolutely. And how fortunate are you that, I mean, isn't this what everybody wants? Something that gets them up in the morning, in your case, very early in the morning.
[00:44:25] Speaker B: Very early in the morning.
[00:44:27] Speaker A: And this is something you look forward to. You have a sense of community. It's something you can continue to work on.
And then there's this spiritual component to it.
I think this is all really quite something. Certainly nothing. This is not where I thought this conversation was going to go, but this is really, really amazing. And I'm just so delighted that I had the chance to meet and speak with you guys. And I'm sure anybody watching or listening is going to look into this.
It's been an absolute delight talking to you both. And I don't know if I can get my hand.
[00:45:19] Speaker B: Come row with us.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Come up to Tahoe.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: I give it a try.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: Come, come to Tahoe. We'll teach you.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Do you both live in Tahoe?
[00:45:28] Speaker B: No, we don't live in Tahoe.
[00:45:30] Speaker C: I live in Berkeley. Erin lives in San Francisco.
[00:45:33] Speaker B: I live in San Francisco.
[00:45:34] Speaker A: And so are you up on the weekends or just whenever you can get up there? I have.
[00:45:39] Speaker B: I was there.
I got to be there for seven weeks, like, late this autumn. And then now I've been traveling for work. But I'm actually gonna go next week, and I think I may see John and Amelie there.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: I'm leaving right after we finish recording the cars packed.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: You guys are going up right now?
[00:46:00] Speaker C: We're going up for. I've got some work to do. I actually have to move the boat rack closer to the. To the screen fence that I just repaired and get our two boats. Emily actually has her own boat now that was bought as a wreck because it had been stepped on by a bear by a lady up in Elk Point. And she was advertising for a hundred dollars, and I thought, well, okay, I can use it for parts. She said, oh, you know, I could probably fix it up and sell it for a thousand, but I don't. I just don't know whether it's worth it. So I fix it up. So Emily's boat and mine are in our house in the living room, barely.
But the double doesn't fit. It's 30ft long. We don't have a room that's big enough. So we're going up to work And I'm in a row. And one of the great things about being up there in the fall is that in the morning, it's not so damn early. So sometime 8 o'clock is dawn. It's fantastic. And the other thing is.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: And it's not windy.
[00:46:56] Speaker C: Sometimes it's not windy. And so if I'm really lucky, I'll be able to do an evening row and watch the last light on the west from my skull.
[00:47:07] Speaker A: You both do a. You do a heck of a job selling this. It's pretty magical. This is. It really is, I gotta say. Yeah.
[00:47:16] Speaker C: Well, it is different.
[00:47:17] Speaker A: It is.
Amelie. Yeah.
[00:47:21] Speaker B: Thank you for letting us share.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, my God.
[00:47:24] Speaker B: Letting us do it together, because.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: Yes. And I just love. Your enthusiasm. Is just oozing out of your pores. I don't even have to ask you anything. You're just like, take it and run with it, and. No, I think. I love that. I think most people would love a tenth of what you guys have. And I'm delighted that you found each other in all of this, too, which is obviously part of the magic. Right.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: It's been really fun.
[00:47:52] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having us.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: We have a great circle of friends. And thank you. It was a fun conversation, and I'm so glad Emily crashed.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: Loved having you guys. And so look into it. Look into rowing might be your thing.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: On that note, I'm Sarah, and thanks again for joining us on the Midlife Happiness Project.
