Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing [Hardcover]

Craig Lambert (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 1998

In this wise and thrilling book, Craig Lambert turns rowing--personal discipline, modern Olympic sport, grand collegiate tradition, and fitness pursuit for thousands of men and women--into a metaphor for a vigorous and satisfying life. Skimming the plane where sky and water meet, rowers must fully inhabit the present moment, whether facing their demons in a single scull or discovering the paradoxes of teamwork and commitment in a crew shell. This is a book about balance, attaining consistency and speed, independence and cooperation, joy and creative powers. Filled with humor and imagination, Mind Over Water speaks to rowers and non-rowers alike. "Like Einstein, we wish to know God's thoughts. We shall attempt to pry them loose with an oar. The raw elements of the sport are our teachers: the wind and the water, the boat and its oars, our own bodies and minds."--from Mind Over Water

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Some sports--the solitary ones, in particular--are simply more prone to mysticism and mystery than others. Golf, certainly. Long-distance running, of course. Fishing. Climbing. Each has a literature that confronts the essence of its lonely pursuit and explores the way the solitude and self-discipline these sports demand grow the spirit and fill the competitor. Lambert's graceful reflection on rowing is a lovely addition to the genre, part memoir, part narrative, part celebration of a relatively arcane endeavor, and utterly provocative. The superficial journey here is over water; the real one is internal. "Like Einstein," he writes, "we wish to know God's thoughts. We shall attempt to pry them loose with an oar. The raw elements of the sport are our teacher: the wind and the water, the boat and its oars, our own bodies and minds." Given those elements, it's no surprise that the education is a profound one. The surprise is how accessible and appealing it turns out to be. --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly

Although fishing has had many advocates who see it as a metaphor for life, Lambert, a staff writer and editor at Harvard magazine, draws many comparisons between rowing and life. The first such deals with the importance of steering and finding one's way. The second, "Equinox," relates to balance, as both rowing and life are difficult, if not impossible, without it. The last section, "The Powerhouse Stretch," involves the endgame and giving your all, and "never taking no for an answer"?familiar tropes from any comparison of sport and life, sport and business, sport and love. This is not a "how to" manual, by any means, although there is quite a bit of description about the mechanics of rowing. Mostly, Lambert's aim is to mesh his philosophy on life and rowing, and, on occasion, on other pursuits, such as electronic engineering and gardening: "To gain greater effect as athletes, we do not necessarily have to do more. The secret may be to do less, to suppress noise.... The skilled athlete eliminates motions that do not serve the desired result. Our tomato plants thrive when we weed the garden." As in this example, much of the writing is exceedingly earnest and many of the metaphors exceedingly forced. Although rowers will no doubt be hooked, others will likely head back to their Izaak Walton.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 184 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (October 17, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395857163
• ISBN-13: 978-0395857168
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,449,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars as much about self-discovery as about rowing, September 25, 2004

By 

Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing (Paperback)

A book that aspires to describe perfection better start with a sentence that aspires to perfection.

This is how Mind Over Water begins: "In the darkness, deep in silence, the lights --- green, red, a few of white --- surge ahead, in the rhythm of breathing."

If this were a class, Butler could riff for 10 minutes on that line. For now, let's leave it at this: You're in a long, narrow boat, with a skin that's just one-sixteenth of an inch thick and oars that extend fifteen feet. It's 5:45 a.m. on an October morning in Boston. It's chilly. And you are about to begin a race that is the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. On a Tuesday morning. Before work. Just for fun.

Okay, Craig Lambert, a veteran oarsman and a stylish writer, is a little bit crazy. Well, so are the best rowers. And so is Harry Parker, the Harvard crew coach whose exploits first got Lambert, a gifted amateur, interested in writing professionally about the sport.

You never heard of Harry Parker? He'd be thrilled. Recognition is the least thing he cares about. He's single-minded about something else: winning. And win he does. He became Harvard's crew coach in 1963, when he was just 27. For the next 6 years, Harvard did not lose a single intercollegiate race. His crews won 18 consecutive races against Yale. His winning percentage from 1963 to 1997 is .806 --- he is, very probably, the most successful coach in any sport in the whole and entire world.

Harry Parker has some voodoo wisdom that Craig Lambert has absorbed. And then there are the home truths Lambert's picked up himself along the way. Some samples:

"Speed demands that we risk our balance. Velocity comes with volatility... That which is stable is slow."

"Being part of a crew makes the individual shine; in rowing you pull harder and longer that you could ever alone because everyone else in the boat is depending on you."

"My years of rowing in eights [eight-man boats] convinced me that to succeed in this world we must be willing to do whatever is required despite what our mind says."

"Sometimes the best response to stormy weather is to unleash your own tempest. It is one way to restore equilibrium."

"Grabbing an early lead costs energy, an expense that may later haunt the front-runner... In practice, Parker would remind his rowers that when opponents jump out in front, you must make them pay the price."

"To build a winning crew, select the right athletes, place them in the proper seats, and allow for the freedom to create. In other words, hire the right people for the right jobs and manage with a long, loose leash."

If you're employed in almost any organization Butler can imagine, he'll bet that last idea is one you'd like to print out and slip under the boss's door. That's light years away from the sport of rowing --- and yet it's not New Age, hippy-dippy sloganeering. What it is, Butler submits, is writing at a level we're not used to seeing very often: prose that yokes close observation of the real world with deep wisdom about the world inside.

"We are out here in the darkness to reveal ourselves, to discover who we are," Lambert writes. "With the oars, we attempt things that we cannot do, we confront that which is beyond our capacities. Mind over water. The shells transport us into the unknown."

It almost makes you want to get out there some early morning and see how far, how fast, how smoothly you could make a boat --- or, really, your life --- go.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gaack! Just when I'd given up highlighting my books. . ., January 30, 2005

By 

Robin Wolfson "Reliza" (Cameron Park, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing (Paperback)

"Mind Over Water" falls into the category of the memoir, highly personal and considered memories and musings. It's about rowing and, as the subtitle states: "Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing." If you don't like this kind of book, steer clear. You also won't like "Green Thoughts: A Writer in The Garden." On the other hand, if you do like this kind of book, "Green Thoughts" is also recommended.

"Mind over Water" is about rowing internalized, what it means to row and race and how these lessons can be applied to life. As such, its primary goal is not so much instruction as translation. And translations, of course, are never exact, which may account for some of the animosity of other reviewers.

So what is "Mind Over Water" really about? It's not so much about rowing as it is about what rowing means to the author. As such, you can't really fault it for not being the book you might write about rowing or for not being an instruction manual. It has humbler ambitions. Think of it as an off-water musing.

In any case, I liked it. And, yes, I had to get to get out the highlighter. Among those who like the book, everyone is going to have favorite passages, as some of these reviews attest. Here are some of mine:

"Edges form outlines. If our boundaries determine our identities, then we learn who we are by finding our limits."

"Sliding between dark and shadow, between sunlight and the obscure, is the region of discovery."

"Staying on course limits your attention to the boat and its rowers, who are, after all, the motor that takes you there. The goal does not disclose itself until it is attained."

"Mistakes shine a spotlight on our model of reality and show us its flaws. Unexpected outcomes help us refine our picture of nature."

"Tall smokestacks rise from the powerhouse and waft plumes of smoke into the sky, the epitaph of fuel burned into power."

If this kind of writing disturbs or bores you, look elsewhere. If not, you might find "Mind Over Water" as enjoyable as I did.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars seductive sports saga, October 25, 2003

By 

ciz (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mind Over Water: Lessons on Life from the Art of Rowing (Paperback)

I had fun with this book. As a rower who has been on national teams and medaled at the Olympic Games,I resonated with this saga of rowing and what it means to those who do it. Some sports books I have read take the perspective of the outsider, the spectator. In sharp contrast, this one comes from someone who has really "been there," who has experienced training, racing, winning and losing. This is the real thing. The author extrapolates down-to-earth, practical experiences to worldly, spiritual, and even cosmic insights. Highly recommended.