The Impact of Rowing 划船运动对我的影响 - Eric Li

This article was written by 3H’s General Committee Member Eric Li and is currently available in English and Chinese. It was originally posted on the 15th of May 2021 through Frank Huang’s Official WeChat Account.

Rowing has been beneficial to my school life and to my health. I started this sport in 2018 as part of my school’s recently launched rowing program. Since then, I have not only gotten fitter but also vastly improved my well-being and organization skills.

划船有益于我的学校生活和个人健康。2018年，我加入了我们学校刚刚启动的“新”的运动项目 -- 划船。从那时起，我不仅变得更加健实，而且极大地提高了我的幸福感和组织能力。

The thing that sets rowing apart from other school sports is that it is a sport that requires discipline, conditioning and mental toughness. Training always is intense, and often takes priority over many things. For me, it usually begins with waking up at 6 am or earlier to train before school starts, or training for hours after-school until late. More often than not, around 20 hours of my week is dedicated to rowing. Although time-consuming and tiring, I always feel a sense of accomplishment after each training session which motivates me to get back into the boat – or on the rowing machine.

划船与其它学校运动项目的不同之处在于它对训练技巧，力量和心理韧性都有很高要求。训练的强度很大，并且需要把训练当作优先之事去合理地规划和执行。我通常要在早上6点之前起床训练一个多小时，或者在下午放学后去训练几个小时。每周我需要花20多个小时。尽管又费时又累人，但每次训练之后我都会有满满的成就感，这种感觉进一步激励着我更想回到船上或划船机上去做更多的训练和运动。

Beyond the personal satisfaction that I gained from it, the social aspect of rowing has also been salient to my experience.  Since the number of crews in my year level was small, I became acquainted with everyone quickly. I rowed in a quad scull –a boat with five people in it, with four rowing and one steering. During this time, the strong friendship I developed with my crew while in the boat has been invaluable, and the importance of teamwork when we row has been highlighted time and time again. The knowledge that there were others that relied on your efforts, guided me to make sacrifices, such as consuming less entertainment, attending fewer events, and using my time effectively so I could fully commit to my crew. Earlier this year, all the gruelling training in the past few years paid off as we won our first medal. Despite it being silver, my crew were all pleased with the result as it felt like our efforts amounted to a great accomplishment.

除了我从中获得的个人满足感之外，赛艇也让我学到很多如何进一步与人交往沟通的经验。由于我所在的年级参与者很少，所以我很快就结识了团队中的所有成员。我划的是一条四人八桨有舵手的小船 - 一条船上有五个人，四个船员外加一个舵手。在这段时间里，我和其他成员们建立起来了深厚的友谊，一次次的训练和比赛都体现出这种友谊和合作是无价的。当理解到我们小团队中的所有人都需要一起努力才能让这条小船奋力向前的时候，我跟其他成员一样，都愿意做出牺牲，例如减少娱乐，少参加些活动以及试图去有效利用我课余的时间等，以便能把更多的精力全心全意地投入到训练中去。今年早些时候，当我们获得第一枚奖牌时，大家都觉得过去几年艰苦的训练得到了回报。尽管它只是一枚银牌，但我们都对结果感到非常的满意。

小小的成功也让我们体会到了：只有不断地努力和付出才有可能达到成功的彼岸。

Later that season, I switched to a more competitive event in rowing – single sculling. As the name suggests, you are the only person on the boat, with no one to steer you. Rowing by myself was a big change as it was hard to find motivation without people to cheer you on. However, I continued on. The last regatta I competed in was the Scotch Mercantile, which was quite an important race - earlier races were cancelled because of the five-day lockdown. I had spent half a year preparing for this race. I rowed well in my heat and was surprised to make it to the finals, where eventually I placed third overall in the 1st division single scull event - a result I am satisfied with considering the competitive nature of the event.

那个赛季的后期，我转向了更具竞争力的项目-单人双桨赛艇。顾名思义，你是船上唯一的人，没有人为你掌舵。单人划跟5人艇最大的不同是没有人为你欢呼和鼓劲而且很难产生内动力。但是，我继续坚持参与训练并鼓励自己前行。我参加的最后一场帆船赛是Scotch Mercantile，这是非常重要的一场比赛-。之前因疫情而封城5天，比赛被迫延期。我花了半年的时间精心为这场比赛做准备。

我在比赛中表现出色，居然意外地闯入了决赛，最终我在第一分组（最快的小组）单人双桨比赛中获得第三名- 考虑到比赛的竞争激烈程度，我对此结果相当的满意。

Although I have heard many say that rowing could affect your studies, this has not happened to me. In fact, rowing has improved my organisation skills and made it possible for me to be more efficient and productive. I firmly believe that rowing is a great chance to commit yourself to something bigger and bring positive change to your lifestyle. It is an opportunity for growth when you rise to the challenge repeatedly through learned discipline and push yourself to your limits mentally and physically - and I do exactly this through rowing. I would highly recommend rowing to those who can participate in it.

尽管我听很多人说划船可能会影响到学业，但我不一定赞同这种说法。相反，因为划船占用了许多时间，迫使我去设法提高自己的组织管理能力，让我在学习中变得更有效率。我坚信划船运动是个难得锻炼自己的好机会，它让我去考虑更大目标，更远的未来，同时带来更加积极向上的生活态度。当你面对挑战而通过不断重复的训练将自己的身心推向极限之时，你给自己创造了成长的机会。我非常高兴划船让我达到了这个目标。我强烈建议有兴趣的中学生试试此项运动。