Taper, better.

You love training. You love teamwork. You love competing. You really love crossing the finish line first. Rowing channels our passion for excellence into something beautiful, sustainable, focused, and even community-oriented.

It also helps us with emotional regulation. Some of us are a little hyper-powered and we’re actually more comfortable in the world once we’ve cycled through a couple gears. The mind gets clearer, the nuttiness has burned off a little bit, we’re not itching to pick every fight (metaphorically or not). We’re a little more at ease with the outside world when we’re not stuck hula-hooping around our own narratives.

Taper time interrupts this self-care rhythm. You can’t have enough meters to clear the fog, your temper and temperament feel different, thoughts that would normally have been sweated out are beginning to pile up. Sometimes your blood feels like club soda, or your skin is on too tight, sometimes there’s some stiffness that won’t budge because the volume that would normally work that out is a no-no.

If the goal of your taper is to maximize performance, here are a couple things you should know.

Energy does not have an infinite shelf life. You don’t get to keep it if you just let it sit there. It deteriorates, it can turn into something funky and counter-productive, it loses value and can go quite sour on you. It’s also not a zero-sum situation where if you spend it, it’s gone. Spending a small amount of energy on the right activity can yield a big payday, both physically and psychologically. The right kind, and the right amount, of movement rewards you enormously. The 11-minute practice through this link is a great example of that.

Being in your body is what feels right to you. Rowing feels right. It’s your happy place, it can even be restful, and it’s the thing in your life that makes the most sense. Being with your body makes you feel like yourself. And it’s reciprocal-your body wants you in there! It’s like a dog sitting just inside the door, waiting for you to come home to it every day. You are its steward, and it notices when you’re absent. During taper time, however, you’re supposed to replace that restful, connective, physical time with movies, scrabble, books, all brainy stuff. Anything but coming to rest in the place you feel safest, your own body. Nope, bad idea.

Focus requires consistent practice. When you are working through high volume, in addition to honing skills and increasing aerobic capacity, etc., you are perfecting your ability to focus instantly and on-command. Never in history have we needed to shower our attention spans with love and support the way we do today. During the taper phase your focus can get senioritis. Why not keep that razor sharp gaze in shape while doing a little restorative bending and lengthening?

Adaptation and responsiveness demand a broad but directed awareness. During practice we usually try to control variables and work on doing the exact same thing, recreating the exact same moment, over and over again. It can be easy to zone out. Yoga, however, asks us to drop in. To surf the moment with acuity as it changes under our feet. We concentrate on much more subtle and variable moments when we twist or bend in different ways. Learning how to be relaxed and clever as things are changing around you is only going to make you a fiercer competitor.

So, let’s taper, but let’s uplevel it. With an eye toward the whole picture of why we row and what it does for us, we can rest and prime the body without the yucky psychological drawbacks of being kept away from the thing we love. Let’s take the advantage of the volume decrease without leaving any speed on the table. What is competing if not doing the same thing everyone else is doing, but better? Scroll back up to that link, take eleven minutes (even fewer once your body starts to remember it for you) and work on your ‘you-time’, your focus, take a break from the hamster wheel, drop in.

I love you, I’m in this with you, it’s working, keep going. Xoxo, marina