Competitive rowing is an undertaking of extraordinary beauty preceded by brutal punishment.

One of the first admonitions of a good rowing coach, after the fundamentals are over, is “pull your own weight,” and the young oarsman does just that when he finds out that the boat goes better when he does. There is certainly a social implication here. -George Yeoman Pocock

There is a thing that sometimes happens in rowing that is hard to achieve and hard to define. Many crews, even winning crews, never really find it. Others find it but can't sustain it. It's called “swing.” It only happens when all eight oarsmen are rowing in such perfect unison that no single action by any one is out of synch with those of all the others. . . . Rowing then becomes a kind of perfect language. Poetry, that's what a good swing feels like.

...he found that shaping cedar resonated with him in an elusive but elemental way--it satisfied him down in his core, and gave him peace...He liked the way that the wood murmured to him before it parted, almost as if it was alive, and when it finally gave way under his hands he liked the way it invariably revealed itself in lovely and unpredictable patterns of color--streaks of orange and burgundy and cream. At the same moment, as the wood opened up, it always perfumed the air...There seemed to Joe to be some kind of connection between what he was doing here among a pile of freshly split shakes, what Pocock was doing in his shop, and what he was trying to do himself in the racing shells Pocock built--something about the deliberate application of strength, the careful coordination of mind and muscle, the sudden unfolding of mystery and beauty. (p.127)

to Pocock, this unflagging resilience--this readiness to bounce back, to keep coming, to persist in the face of resistance--was the magic in cedar, the unseen force that imparted life to the shell. (p.139)