SPORT REPORT : Row, Row, Row Your Boat ...

The sight of sculls slicing through water, the oarsmen rhythmically rowing through morning mist, always seemed to me poetic. But for someone who prefers to wear water wings in the Jacuzzi, the sports-risk factor was too damn high. Then I saw a “Learn to Row” ad for classes taught by Buz Tarlow, a former Harvard sculling coach. Tarlow assured me that only one in 100 beginning rowers take a swim. I was sold.

Tarlow, 36, brought sculling to the common man and woman last year. He bought nine shells, started the California Boat Club in Marina del Rey, put ads in the L.A. Weekly and the L.A. Reader and began to teach.

Waiters, truck drivers and the newly unemployed, along with doctors, lawyers and film producers, women and men, showed up, all seeking a social outlet and exercise away from noisy gyms. It doesn’t matter how or where you make your money when stumbling into a racing scull for a 5:30 a.m. lesson in the channels of the marina.

I learned this after a month of lessons, Tarlow chasing me and my fellow scullers around in his motorized raft, barking orders to “feather your oars. Lean back, keep your legs straight and push off.” We were in pursuit of a “Zen row” as Tarlow calls it, a thing that has little to do with arms and all to do with intellect and leg, back and lung power. The goal was to master a jumble of stroke techniques that when performed sequentially, would produce a seamless stroke.

One day, after doing a “blind row,” eyes closed to help focus on fluid strikes, I began to surrender to Zen-master Buz and his theories. My strokes suddenly seemed to emanate from within.

Turn off your muscles. Let your mind row. I’ve tossed out my waters wings, even after tipping my scull when I collided with a catamaran. I’ve mastered a glide that Hollywood could build a movie around. When the student is ready, Buz tells me, the teacher always appears.