For Gloria Rogliani rowing is much more than a sport, it is a way to get to know Venice in its essence. Seeing the city from the water and with the slow pace of rowing allows one to appreciate not only its aesthetic beauty but also the complexity of the system of canals, islands and lagoon in which Venice is embedded.
Also convinced of this now are. Adelina, Noemi, Elly and Sabrina, students of theITS Academy Turismo Veneto, who last Friday were at the Cavana Tintoretto in Cannaregio, Venice, and rowed right along with Gloria Rogliani, president of the ASD Gloria Rogliani association, for which they are carrying out a project within the Upskill Venezia initiative promoted by the Venice Foundation.
At the Cavana Tintoretto (the "garage" on the water where boats are moored) they touched on wooden forks, oars, felze, and went out on a boat ride with Gloria and her young instructors , where they experimented with issues such as leverage, balance, entering the water, oar angles, rowing amplitude, body positioning, and synchrony: "rowing is about legs, not arms," Gloria maintains, one must follow with one's eyes the nearby partner, go in rhythm, concentrate, and be fluid in one's movements.
ITS Tourism Veneto students are these weeks in the process of definition and to better understand the context in which the association operates they have been in Venice with their lecturer Mauro Riva. The design challenge launched by Gloria Rogliani is to keep the number of members and visitors taking part in the association's activities high even during the low season, especially in the winter months. The goal is to devise and communicate innovative formats and activities that combine the values of the sports association with the enhancement of the Venetian heritage.
The Association has been promoting rowing for many years, especially among younger people (it has established two very popular activities, Voga Camp and Laguna Baby), thus handing down the knowledge of an invaluable treasure made of traditions, people, lifestyles, gestures and places that are often forgotten or little visited. It does this through very simple and spontaneous activities, as Gloria Rogliani is keen to point out, moments of conviviality in the Venetian barena, meeting people from Burano and Pellestrina, jumping into the lagoon ("diving into the lagoon is quite another thing than doing it in the pool!" says Gloria) and eating on the boat. The Association has been doing completely sustainable activities forever!
There are few gestures in Venetian rowing: one rows standing upright, with the oar resting on the forcola, making an elegant gesture that involves the whole body, starts with the arms, passes through the wrist, to work the legs more than anything else. The softer you are, the more it works, Gloria tells the ITS students. "The difficulty is anticipating the maneuvers, you have to get to know the water, maneuver fast."
The Association does a lot of work in the summer, but the goal is to raise awareness of the lagoon in the winter as well. "Of course it's cold," admits Gloria, "but why do people quietly continue skiing, while there is still a lot of resistance about the cold in the lagoon? Well-dressed, it is an activity that can be practiced, as early as February. Rowing in February is great: the lagoon is less rough, there is less traffic, you can see the snow-capped mountains in the distance, there is not much wind, the colors are iridescent."
"We have chosen to maintain only wooden boats, and this obviously has a cost: maintenance has to be daily, this is hard work, you get your hands dirty, but for everyone it is more of a passion, than a job." Those who work with me met us through voga camps, and then left us again. They are mostly young people from the mainland, who have found the right freedom in this profession where you are always outdoors, which changes every day, where you meet all kinds of people. "We have been working a lot with schools since March, the children give me a lot of satisfaction."
Upskill Venice is an initiative implemented by the Venice Foundation in collaboration with Upskill 4.0, with the sponsorship of Confindustria Venezia and the Venice Rovigo Chamber of Commerce.