Walking this fine line is one of the trickiest things about teaching rowing. When river guides teach rowing they generally start with pushing. I think this is due to them memorizing rivers and generally working on Class III rivers that don’t need much pulling.
Yes pushing works great much of the time and is a great way to work with the river instead of against it.
The problem is that if there is a hazard like a tree, sieve, rock, etc your default reacting should be pulling. Also when you advance to more difficult rivers like the Tuolumne, Selway, or Illinois you’ll need to pull many of the rapids.
I feel that we need to have our foundation of rowing be pulling. When we’re nervous we should default to pulling since it’s slowing things down, using our more powerful muscles, and if you make a mistake you hit the hazard with your bow instead of sideways.
Pushing is certainly an important part of rowing but when you’re learning to row you should start with pushing and prove that you can make important moves with pulling. Then start playing with pushing knowing that you have pulling in your back pocket when you need it.
I agree. Pull before push. A hill I will die on. I’ve yet to meet a beginning rower who said: “Let’s make things go faster.” And before you entertain me with a counter-argument, answer this question: “If you are pushing a move and you realize you’re not making it, what is your solution/recovery?”
Obviously I’m a big fan of a defensive minded rowing mentality when it comes to beginning rowing instruction. Defensive boat angles (pivoting) to the current leading to danger, particularly using the upstream oar to initiate. Pulling as needed. Downstream ferrying. Letting the water do the work, as Peter would say. Progressing to appropriate pushing to maintain speed in waves, vertical current, etc. Having the “defensive” skills built into your muscle memory takes practice and time.
Here’s a quote on the subject of pushing or pulling from Lorenzo Alvarez Roos, former captain of team America and owner of Bio Bio Expeditions Patagonia on the Futaleufú:
"Are you talking about loaded gear boats or play boats? One day or multi-day trips? High water or low water trips? Steep rocky creeks or big water rivers? Experienced rowers or beginners?
“It depends.”
If this conversation is talking about teaching beginners, I find myself firmly in the camp of pulling first. A beginning rower can’t learn anything else about a river until they can get a boat under some degree of control. First that takes proper mechanics— using your whole body not your arms—and second it is easist to start with the stronger body mechanics of the pulling stroke. All students are different. Some pick it up in the first five minutes, for others it can take five days. After they can move a boat around with their oars, for me the next step is right away catching eddies. Catching eddies is fundamental to stopping for camp, scouting, re-grouping, communicating, or just taking a deep breath. The techniques involved with catching eddies are fundamental to all rowing: oar work, choosing proper angles, maintaining angles, timing, momentum, team boating, and that water in a river moves upstream as well as downstream.
Add all of those things together and pulling into eddies builds a quick foundation of skills. The majority of students are able to get a raft under reasonable control within the first one or two days of instruction. At that point, depending on the student, they may start to grasp the advantages of pushing.
I started out rowing in 1980 when pulling was the dominant rowing technique. I transitioned to mostly pushing for the next thirty something years. Now I personally use whatever stroke seems easiest, most appropriate, or most fun at any given moment. When teaching, I begin with pulling.
I’m a 2x student of NWRC. That’s my foundation and I teach the same techniques to inexperienced rowers who have not taken the class yet. While I am relatively new to this sport, I’ve jumped in pretty deep. My observation while attending the two rowing schools is that push vs pull comes down to ones comfort level going backwards and not being able to see everything. The students who were more aware of their surroundings and had a higher comfort level going backwards were the ones who adopted pulling techniques with less resistance. The students who were highly aware of the surroundings and the feel of the current progressed to more aggressive downstream ferrying quickly and comfortably. The students who need to see where they’re going at all times are more resistant to pulling.
I also suspect western rivers vs eastern rivers influence the techniques that people adopt; but this is still a working theory in my mind.
I got to see this in action earlier this month when I floated Hells Canyon with some friends from back east. I was second to go down Wild Sheep to help set safety for the last three boats. The first boat down was rowed by an experienced eastern river boater. He pushed the move and ended up sideways at the lateral at the bottom. He ended up swimming a short distance after getting knocked out. The rest of the boats pulled the move and were able to tee up to the lateral at the bottom. In this case, he was comfortable pulling; but I think he was used to pushing on the eastern rivers. (Incidentally, boat 2, 3, and 4 were all rowed by former NWRC students. Boat 5 was rowed by someone who’s been down the Grand Canyon twice.)
That swim taught me that we need to discuss ferry angles when scouting bigger rapids rather than simpler terms like, “get past that rock, then move right”. We should be saying something like, “enter from the green tongue on the left side of the guard rock with a ferry angle of about 45 degrees towards river left. Then once you’re past the hydraulic, ferry towards the center, and be ready to tee up to the lateral at the bottom also towards river left.”
Brent - when I use the term “pulling” I am facing downstream so I can still see where I am going.
When I am pulling downstream and turned around backwards I call that a downstream ferry.
There are 3 main things we can do
“Push” - push on the oars facing downstream and moving faster than the current
“Pull” - pull on the oars upstream while facing downstream and moving slower that the current
“Downstream Ferry” - pull on the oars facing upstream and moving faster than the current
Are you using the same terminology? This comment “My observation while attending the two rowing schools is that push vs pull comes down to ones comfort level going backwards and not being able to see everything” has me thinking you are using the term pull differently.
I tend to blend Pull with Downstream Ferry more than I should. I will adjust my terminology.
I think it’s somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees to the current that people get uncomfortable. Up to that point, its still a pull move. It’s also in that range that visibility starts to wane.
in the rowing school, it was pointed out that most students do not really understand their angle to the current. At a 45 degree, upstream pull, many students think they’re at a 90. I would hypothesize that’s the point when they start getting uncomfortable with going backwards, even if they’re not really backwards (downstream ferry) yet.
Pulling is my personal default because it makes sense to me…possibly to a fault. When going through a wave train, I tend to pull to correct my positioning. Frankly, I don’t know if this is right or wrong, but sometimes I feel like I should be pushing to correct.