Is there a word for the action of lifting the mouse to go further?

I always think of this as a kind of circular movement, so I too rather like your ‘rowing’ coinage.

However, I think that to me (being somewhat unaccustomed to the seafaring ways), a more familiar and easily recognisable turn of phrase would be something like pedalling or cycling, both of which are based on similar circular movements used to propel something forward.

Lifting the mouse is perfectly adequate, and is used in the business to describe this exact action. For example, take this excerpt from a magazine review of a mouse:

The ability to tweak lift-off distance is great; we like to lift our mouse a lot, so by setting the M60 to not track at any height, we ended up with solid mousing.

There's also a page by a mouse manufacturer about the related jargon lift-off distance.

It is specific enough because it's about the only reason to lift the mouse.

Could you simply not say that you are reorienting your cursor? Or realigning it?

How about "jumping" or "skipping"?

(I don't really like the latter, but added it so that my answer would be >30 characters)