Adam Harrison-Trent W/W/H

   For my DSP, I wanted to look at my involvement in rowing. Rowing itself is a sport that, obviously involves rowers, a boat, and the goal to move across the finish line as fast as possible and beat your competitors in other boats. This is a grossly simplified version of what happens, as it is a challenge that involves both sheer strength as well as finesse, technique, and rhythm in order to effectively and efficiently get the boat moving quickly, as well as being able to sustain the intense physical work that is required. Prior to coming to Emory, I had never “done” sports before, and particularly had never even heard of rowing before. One of the first things I learned, though, was that it isn't called “rowing”, that was a pedestrian term; in college we call it Crew. Especially since I had never been very athletically minded, I struggled a lot in my first year, both physically, trying to become more physically fit and learn the sport, as well as mentally, as I had to adapt to the new challenges the sport presented, as well as adapt to my team mates and learn to work with them towards our common goal. In the year and a half since I started, though, I've grown to love both the sport and my team. Looking back, it would have been very easy in the beginning to have quit and spared myself the rigorous workouts and gained a substantial amount of my free time back. I've come to realize that not only is it my desire to improve and to get faster that keeps me coming back, if it were solely physical then there are far easier sports to produce results; but it is also how rowing has completely changed my outlook not only on myself, but life as a whole. Prior to rowing, not only was I vastly out of shape, but was fairly unhappy with myself. I wasn’t doing anything that really made me happy, as clichéd as it sounds. In rowing, I found the bridge between the physical and mental challenge, and through this connection, I found something that was fulfilling and, I believe, worth the struggle. In much the same way rowing can bridge the physical-mental gap, I think it also is possible that it bridges the realm of the Social and Private. For Arendt, the distinction between the two is based primarily on the nature of what is done there, where the necessary work is done in the private, while the social contains that which is free and relating to society. I contend that rowing has elements that involve both realm. The private is where training occurs. It is usually contained, somewhat like a household, and it is a necessary element of the sport that can, in its level of intensity, be considered violent. Conversely, there are also competitions, scrimmages, conferences, and parties, all of which are far more pleasurable and are more public spectacles which constitute the social realm as it relates to rowing. It is my contention that because rowing is able to bridge both realms that I personally find it so fulfilling, as opposed to any other activity that only encompasses one realm or the other.