The rowing technique used in Venice is quite different from the others, it is a special way to drive a boat and the one applied by the gondolier on the gondola is even more special; watching it go by one gets the feeling that the motion started by the ‘pope’, that's how the gondolier is amiably called, is seconded rather than produced; as a matter of fact, it is not as easy as it might seem, since the oarsman must match two operations: first, pushing the boat, second, keeping the course because, there being no rudder on a gondola, it is the oar which has to play its function.
The Venetian rowing terminology can be summed up in the conjugation of three vers: ‘prémare’, that is pressing, ‘stagŕre’, that is standing, and ‘sciare’, that is brakink. The rowing ‘prémando’ (through pressing) is the simplest: the gondolier dips the blade obliquely (‘de tajo’ to say in dialect) into the water, then he pushes on the oar but, to prevent the gondola from turning round and round, he turns the oar slightly on the ‘forcola’, (crutch) so that the blade, still dipped, get an opposite motion, counterbalancing the starting push, thus the boat can go on straight. The second movement of the gondolier, ‘stagŕre’, it's sort of resting phase of the oar which gets back to its push position. To stop the gondola, the oarsman lets the oar bounce in front of the ‘forcola’ so as to exploit it as a lever for exerting a counterforce to the traction: that is the ‘sciata’. Obviously it takes come years' training to be able to perform these actions properly, since the body motion, too, must be synchronized to go along with the rowing; if we consider the rather cramped placing of the gondolier, the great influence of time and wind directions, the extremely limited width and busy traffic of many canals in Venice, it is easy to understand the difficulties to practise what is often defined an art, rather than a simple trade.