Frustration

This was the night of frustration. Kat coxed and George coached. We were missing Matt, Allan and Rich (and Sikander, which wasn’t much of a loss), so we all moved up two seats, so the boat looked like this:

Stroke – Liz

7 – Zak

6 – Martin

5 – Ashley

4 – me

3 – Fran

2 – Claire (sub)

Bow – Ewan

There was unbelievable traffic on the river. There were crews and scullers everywhere. There were no incidents this time, but we were quite held up at one stage. Zak’s seat came off about 5 times, which made me angry at the boat – some of the riggers have started making ominous groaning sounds too. I wonder how much pressure would make them break.

We warmed up, then did sixes all the way up to the lock (might have done eights for a time). It was going fairly well, and then we stopped and spun and George gave us some feedback. He said that I was looking fine and that I was setting a great rhythm for the others to follow. He had the idea of us trying outside hand only, which I’d been wanting to try. It was to think about the function of the outside hand without the distraction of feathering, and to use the other hand to test how the slide is happening. The stern four tried it first and didn’t do it terribly well – there were blades skidding all over the place. Then the bow four tried it and we kicked arse. I had no trouble controlling the blade, but had to consciously add the fast arms away and body over before the slide. In the end I think I successfully linked the exercise with my normal rowing action. It was good practise for me to get my tap-down for the finish better.

We did a few starts from frontstops and rowed all eight all the way back. The balance was ok at times, but there were a few quite unforgivable violent lurches. We did one section of firm pressure rowing (I think Kat was saying ‘firm’ – it sounded like ‘half’ to me. Maybe it was ‘hard’) and the balance was very good and the boat was moving quite fast. Then in the very last section, Liz’s rhythm went completely barmy. She was going so fast that no one could follow her – I kept shaking my head and Fran was laughing at me.

So there were good things about this session, but on the whole I was just frustrated. Kat told me my squaring was too late or non-existent but when there’s water directly below my blade for the whole recovery there’s not a lot I can do.

This night was the first night I felt the motion of the boat while lying in bed. I suspect it won’t be the last.

Destruction and poor rowing

Brian coxed this session and Maggie coached.

The whole thing started well when Matt’s seat broke after about 10 strokes. Maggie rode back to get another one and the bow four took over.

Allan had to go early and so we only went as far as the Plough, witnessing a nasty incident on the way where a sculler tried to dart through the gap between us and another eight. One of the rowers on the other eight had to pull her blade in so far that the handle ended up in the air and the spoon under the boat, resulting in the blade snapping with a nasty crunch. To balance that, we heard a kid on the bank call out ‘the one in the bow’s gorgeous’. Go Fran!

I didn’t row too well in this session - I was horrified to realise that I’d rowed about 3/4 of the session without sitting up properly. And I ended up very tired with messy feathering probably because I didn’t eat anything before the session. The balance was quite bad and I was a bit embarrassed that Brian didn’t see us at our best.

Maggie went around and said perceptive things about everyone afterwards. Funnily, she said that Fran needed more confidence (again!). She got to me and all she could say was I needed to get my hands away quicker (which I already knew). She again used me as the example of the height differences in the boat, and so I asked her how I should be making up for the fact that my drive and reach are shorter than everyone else’s. She said that it’s better to get the catch and finish together with everyone and perhaps not push as hard.

Euphoric hard slog

Ashley emailed us with our seating positions for this outing, with a view to keeping them, so we were sort of organised. The boat looks like this:

Stroke – Matt

7 – Allan

6 – Rich

5 – Zak

4 – Martin

3 – Ashley

2 – me

Bow – Fran

Fran likes being in bow because then no one can see anything stupid she does. She did one session in 7 in front of Rich and he kept asking her to slide further forward to get out of his way. With me in 2, it looks like I’ve become a strokesider, which I don’t mind at all. I set out to be ambidextrous. Kat wanted me to be in front of Fran because she thinks I’m good to follow.

Kat was coxing and George coached. Someone had pointed out that we had to race the time trial in exactly a week, and so Ashley and George decided that we would go all the way up to the lock, which is apparently about 2.6 km each way.

We did our warm up in fours and then rolling sixes all the way to the lock, stopping for traffic a few times. George swears that when we passed the 3rd men’s City crew going the other way, their coach on the bank told him that we looked better than them. Not sure I believe him. Just as we got to the lock, the battery in the cox box gave up, and so Kat was shouting, but Fran and I still couldn’t hear her. Kat was shouting so much that she didn’t hear an 8 crew behind her asking to pass. George got stuck into her about that.

Anyway, we did a few starts from frontstops which felt pretty good, and rowed all the way back all 8. It was a very hard slog, but SO beneficial. Perhaps it was useful not hearing Kat, because I found that I was tuned in more to what the other rowers were doing (on strokeside at least). We were catching together, and we even starting squaring together. This had a major impact on the balance – it was fantastic and everyone was a bit euphoric. I felt very good after the session – not tired really – and I jogged home.

George had some very constructive comments. He said that Zak is too tall for the rest of the crew, with a phenomenal reach, and that he had to sit up straighter and not to reach those extra few inches. He said that Rich’s height wasn’t as much of a problem, but he can also help to compensate by not leaning back as far at the finish. He used me as an example of the extreme height difference in the crew. He gave us three words to think about for the next few sessions: one of them was control and I can’t remember the other two.

My thought at the end of this session was relief that we wouldn’t look like idiots at the bumps, but we would probably still get bumped pretty quickly.

In stroke

Danielle coxed this session and Kat coached.

I had been silly enough to suggest to Ashley that it would be interesting for me to try stroke. So he of course remembered this and said it was now or never. So I did. It meant that I was on strokeside again and that I could consolidate my right hand feathering.

I felt much more comfortable than I had done in 4 leading the bow four, though the timing was out for much of the session – I was taking my time on the recovery, but the bow side was catching before I was ready. Kat told me to hold my ground (and to swear at them) but the problem was that the balance heeled over to strokeside as soon as the bow side caught, which propelled my blade into the water before I was ready to catch. By the end, it was better, but it was very frustrating. Ashley was in my ear most of the time telling me to relax and to ‘follow the music’. He’s funny.

On the way back from the reach, Danielle was giving me a few muttered suggestions on my technique which were very helpful (ie hands away early). She also said that I was moving my left hand mid-recovery. I was baffled until I realised that the balance meant I was coming dangerously close to jamming my fingers between the blade and the gunwale.

Kat gave us some feedback at the end and she said that I had good technique and rhythm and that my back was fine now. She said that the main thing was for us to move together – catch together, finish together, slide together, and I saw the absolute wisdom in this.

Straight ergs

Four of us were down at the boathouse at 7am for an erg session. It hurt to be there. Kat gave me good advice to work on sitting up straighter.

Footloose

A guy called Mark coxed this session and I think George coached.

We had a long email exchange in the afternoon of this day about the fact that we had to rotate the three girls in some of our remaining training sessions, and Liz’s email had been bouncing and so I never heard from her before I left work for the day. Liz agreed to go for a run in this session to let me and Fran have a go. That meant that we were one strokesider short and so I went into 4. That meant that when we were warming up in 4s that I was setting the stroke for the bow 4.  As if that wasn’t enough of a disadvantage, going back to stroke was hard since I had rowed on bowside for the previous 4 or so sessions. So I was desperately trying to train my right hand to feather again AND try and set a regular and follow-able stroke. It was hard and I didn’t feel very comfortable. My left hand snuck in and feathered a few times.  It’s the one aspect of muscle memory I’ve retained consistently, and it’s the one I don’t want!!

We went into rolling sixes down to the reach and then rowed all 8 on the way back. The balance was fairly screwy, but I don’t remember a great deal else because halfway back one of my shoes came away from the footplate so I was effectively rowing with one leg. Not pretty and the rest of the outing was a dead waste for me except for pure survival techniques. The cox was calling for me to fix my catch and I was bellowing back at him that my foot was loose.

Hopeless

Nine of us showed up and we decided that I would ride Liz’s bike along the towpath on the way down the river and then row the way back up, swapping with Fran.

As I watched them take off, my overwhelming feeling was hopelessness. I couldn’t imagine in my wildest dreams how such a crew could ever hold our heads up at the bumps or avoid getting bumped immediately. They were looking much better by the time they got down to the reach, and they spun the boat and I got in, which was interesting off a high grassy bank.

Not much to say about my rowing in this session, because it literally took the whole way back just for me to feel happy with what I was doing. I was in bow.

Episode VI: Restoration of peace

There was thankfully no rain in sight, though Fran said that had been the best part about Tuesday. The college bumps were happening downstream, and so the river was closed until about 8pm. The plan was for the crew to meet and go down to the bumps at 6.30 to watch though only a couple of us got there (Liz and Richard). So we met as a group at 8pm at the boathouse and watched the first of the college boats come back just after. Kat the coach had injured her back and so we had Matt’s wife Maggie to coach but no cox. Ashley put his persuasion skills to use again and got Greg the resident Kiwi with beer in hand to cox for us.

There was an extra guy called Martin (I think) who turned up this time – he was the short guy in stroke in a previous episode. Also, Ewan showed up, though he had made it clear he won’t be here for the actual races. I asked Richard what he’d seen of the bumps and he told me. We had a good chat here, and I found out that he’s from Western Australia and is in agriculture. He’s here on a 2 year working holiday but is finding the salaries too low. He has quite a broad accent and so when I asked whether he was from inland he admitted that he’d lived and worked in the country for 3 years. He asked about my situation. He seems like a very nice, intelligent person. ‘Down-to-earth’ as Fran puts it. He asked me if I was going to novices on Saturday, and when I said it wasn’t on and I was going to watch the college bumps with Fran he said he’d come along.

Maggie injected some sense after the last free-for-all session and had us on the ergs in pairs to check our technique. Shame Sikander wasn’t there....  Richard and I started off on the ergs. She had some advice for him but couldn’t seem to find anything wrong with me. The other pairs had a go and then we got the boat out under Greg’s tutelage.

We had pretty much the same boat setup except Fran and I swapped – after someone suggested (possibly incorrectly) that shorter people were better nearer the bow of the boat, but certainly that it was better to have people of like sizes in pairs. Fran is much taller than me, so it made sense and I was eager to head off the problems I’d had on Tuesday before they happened. Martin took Sikander’s stroke seat and Ewan and Allan did half a session each in 7.

S – Martin

7 – Ewan/Allan

6 – Richard

5 - Fran

4 - Liz

3 - me

2 - Matt

B – Ashley

Greg is well-built though not terribly bulky but he swore ferociously into the cox box when he tried to fit his backside into the compact cox’s seat. It was hilarious, particularly with his silly vowels. I moved my foot stretchers, checked the band-aids on my thumbs and had a chat to Liz. Once we’d numbered off we pulled out behind a huge barge and the stern four started rowing (I was now in the bow four). Greg had them do the drill of arms, then bodies then gradual slides. Then the same with the bow four. That part of the river is very windy and we had a bit of a clash of blades with another crew, then got a little close to the barges tied to the bank (I don’t think it was all down to Greg’s drunk driving). We stopped here and Maggie gave us some really sensible, constructive criticism. Then we caught up with the barge which had just stopped in the middle of the river. We crossed to the other side and got around to find a woman on the front of the barge roundly abusing someone on the shore. Greg gave us a muttered commentary and suggested that they work on their boating skills, finding some choice names for them. Very amusing.

We set off again but with the stern six this time. Martin’s stroke was fairly good in pace, but Greg zeroed in immediately on the slide. He had us all thinking about controlling it and slowing it down. He had a system of counting – one (catch), two (finish), three (arms out, bodies over), four (slide). That was even too fast for my liking, but it was still worlds better than Sikander and certainly got the crew thinking along the same lines. It was a glorious still night with no traffic on the river that late, and it was so satisfying to not be rowing like the clappers and having everyone in tune much more. Greg had a great way of swapping pairs in and out so there were always six people rowing and there was continuous movement but we were getting rests. I was using my legs, so my back wasn’t sore, I wasn’t out of breath, I had time to get my hands out and to square my blade and I could concentrate on my feathering and got a really good snap happening with it like the college crews do. As a result I didn’t have to look at my blade to see if was squared, because I could feel it (that’s just a result of practice I’m sure).

We got to the same point in the river that we’d turned on Tuesday, turned and pulled in to the bank so Maggie could talk to us. She gave individual feedback on the stern four, but didn’t really see us in the bow. I think of that as encouraging, because if we’d been doing something really bad she would have noticed. Ashley had been early with his catches which really jolts the boat, but I think he improved by the end. In fact with a perfect crew, the motion of the boat would probably be constant, with no jolt at all with the catch (which I’m well used to by now). Allan jumped out, Ewan jumped in, Greg was handed another beer and we set off again. We rowed with all eight all the way back. Our start from backstops was really messy again, and so we tried again and it was better. In balance terms, after every finish there would be blades skimming the surface and any leaning on the boat seemed to favour the bow side. I found that my blade was catching accidentally when I squared, but I worked around this. The lean went to stroke a few times though – the leaning movement was regular and slow but obviously still not ideal. Greg kept on about slowing the slide down and the balance got better. He could actually feel tension in the boat and told us that we had to relax and expect the balance to go a bit wonky. The effect this had on the balance was quite magical. Every time he said the word relax, something changed. In addition, he asked us to add ‘two pips’ to the slide, then ‘three pips’ and finally as we were nearing the home stretch, there were about three isolated strokes when there were no blades skimming the surface after the finish, meaning the balance was perfect. The first one of those was an exciting moment, and I think everyone felt it.

It was about 9.30 when we pulled back into the boathouse and we pulled the boat out, then swung it to heads and it was so much easier because no one was exhausted!! Someone hosed the boat off and Richard and I wiped it down, having a bit of post mortem. We put the boat away then all had a chat in the boathouse. Maggie reiterated that we need to slide together and that we need to square early. She said you should watch the person in front of you but keep stroke’s blade in the corner of your eye.

I came out of this session quite euphoric. I decided there was nothing more satisfying than completing a stroke as a crew and hearing blissful silence on the recovery. There’s an appeal for me with this medium similar to playing in tune in an orchestra. I’m hoping that everyone has learnt something from Greg and his session and will keep Sikander in check if he stays in the stroke position. It’s vital. I’m sure that Greg would have got stuck into him had he been there.

Episode V: Struggle for survival

After numerous exchanges of emails, the fledgling City boat crew finally met at the City boathouse at 7.15. Ashley had done his best to include me in all communications until now, though I considered myself on the periphery – particularly when there were lots of people in the ‘to’ box of the emails who I didn’t know and assumed were much better than me.

Ashley had used his best persuasion skills to get a girl called Danielle from the club to cox for us, because even though there were plenty of crew around, coxes are always a valuable commodity. We had a girl called Kat from the Cantabrigian Boat Club (henceforth Cantabs) to coach us from the bank. Danielle was running late getting home from London, and so we found the right blades and seats for the boat. The weather had been unsettled and a thunderstorm had been forecast for Sunday, then Monday, but the rumbles only materialised by about 6pm on Tuesday. The weather was looking fairly dicey by 7.15 but we were all still keen to go out (I had my spray jacket).

We started by standing in a circle in the boathouse and introducing ourselves. I was surprised to find a few familiar faces that I now had names for. A woman called Liz who works in the Judge Business School at the uni had been at a couple of novice sessions, Sikander had never been at novices but had always been around, a Scottish guy called Allan who lived in Sydney for three years had been at one novice session (and was really subbing), a guy called Matt I’d never seen, Ashley, Fran, me, AND....................guess who? David Beckham!! His name is actually Richard. I was pleased to find that there really wasn’t that much more experience than I had had. Ashley did a bit of a speech, and announced that of all the names that had been floating around, there were only eight who had committed 100% to the project and were available for enough sessions. I suddenly realised that I was one of them.

Danielle arrived and we went to get the Lord Todd out of the CRA boathouse. We got him in the water with no problems. We then had to work out who was going to sit where. Quite a few people expressed a preference for strokeside, mostly due to injuries. Sikander was put in stroke, and the other strokers in the other three stroke seats. That left the rest of us to find a bow seat somewhere. We ended up with a boat like this:

S – Sikander

7 -

6 – Richard

5 - me

4 - Liz

3 - Fran

2 - Matt

B – Ashley

Allan decided to ride up the tow path and watch. We got in, numbered off (you have to call your seat to show you’re ready) and pushed off the bank. The bow four started while the stern four sat the boat. They rowed with arms, then with arms and bodies, then with a quarter slide, half slide and finally full slide. There was probably a fair bit of traffic and so we may have stopped a few times. The stern four then did the same thing – arms, bodies, quarter, half and full slide. It started to rain just after we started rowing. I must say I can’t remember a great deal about the details, except that right from the start I felt uncomfortable. When I went to full slide I realised that I was hitting the end of the rails and still had a little way to go. As a result I probably spent the rest of the session pulling away from the voluminous shoes with my feet in the air. I vowed to adjust the foot stretchers for each and every session in future.

It was getting fairly dark under the clouds by about 8.30, and having Richard blocking almost the whole view in front of me was disorienting. Sikander was setting a very unrealistic stroke rate. It’s like he was trying to race straight away – and no one managed to stop him. He was doing a reasonable speed while his blade was in the water, but his recovery was just as fast if not faster, which is ridiculous. So as a result, it was all I could do to get my hands out, body over and slide before the next catch. The fact that I couldn’t use my legs properly meant that I was doing most of the pulling with my back, and I had no concentration left to give my hands so my catches were all messy and crab-like. So I was out of breath from having to move so fast, my back was hurting and my forearms were starting to seize up from twisting the blade to feather it. With three men in front of me putting quite a lot of strength into the stroke, the boat was moving faster than I had ever gone and I found that my blade just dug in and got dragged along if I didn’t push it ridiculously fast.

Before long the rain reached torrential proportions, and we all realised that leaving our shoes in the bottom of the boat was a REALLY BAD IDEA. Kat was calling some advice from the bank, but wasn’t really being of much help – she’s not forceful enough. We would have rowed in fours only up past the Plough Pub (or was it the Pike and Eel?), but not as far as Baits Bite Lock. We stopped and turned, and I gave up on my glasses completely. Kat said that she’d never had a contact lens actually washed out of her eye by rain before. Someone commented that you weren’t supposed to be that wet INSIDE the boat. Richard lamented that we Aussies weren’t as used to rain as the locals.

On the way back, we rowed with all eight for a while. The start was terrible and we stopped before we’d even got to a second stroke. The second time was better. The balance was still shocking and we stopped a few times after full-scale crabs, but it was good to see that after bad stokes people were mostly recovering to pick up the next one. I heard Danielle tell Sikander to slow his slide down about 4 times, but he never did. Then for the last spell we had back to the boathouse, she asked us to row very slowly back, and it started off very comfortably and I was hopeful. Within about 6 strokes, Sikander was back to his ridiculous pace.

We pulled in on a very swollen river and put everything away without bothering to wash the boat down (it was saturated anyway). So saturated in fact, that when we rolled it up to heads to carry it back, what felt like about 15 litres of water drenched us as it came out of the bottom. Lucky it only caught me from the knees down.

The only comments I heard from other people about this session were centred around the fact that we survived and that we actually physically managed to row as an eight in our first session. There seemed to be no talk of technique at all, and everyone else seemed satisfied on the whole.

I came out of this session knowing that I had to work on two things: pushing my hands/the blade out faster after I had finished my stroke, and squaring my blade sooner before the catch. I had the overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t strong or fit enough to race and an appreciation for the reason for single sex crews. I also had to work out a way of warding off blisters....

Novices, episode IV: The Jedi strikes back

It was another lovely day but with more wind than Episode III and no pikies.

I got down to the boathouse about 5 minutes late after starting to jog but deciding it was too hot. Fran got there a couple of minutes after me. We found a huge group (including Andrea, Ashley and Orlando Bloom, but no David Beckham – must have been in Germany already for the world cup) standing in a circle around one of the coaches demonstrating good technique on the erg. It was very useful for those who hadn’t done it before, and good reinforcement for those who had. She was making a lot of separating the movements like Steve was telling me the week before. It’s reassuring that people are saying the same thing.

The people who hadn’t erged before stayed with the ergs to have a go themselves, and those of us who had been out in the boats went to get the Lord Todd out of the CRA (Cambridge Rowing Association) boathouse [the Lord Todd is the heavy wooden eight I’d been out in before]. Among the first eight people who went out were me in bow (had never been there before), Ashley at 7, Fran at about 5, Andrea at 4 and Orlando at 3.

One of the coach guys got in as cox and luckily the PA system (Tannoy for you locals) was working and we could hear him. We pushed off and headed towards Jesus Lock and the bow four set the boat while the stern four rowed. It took them a little while, but they got quite a good rhythm going and the boat was quite stable. The wind was fairly strong, but blowing behind us in this direction. The cox went through some of his commands which some of the other coaches haven’t bothered doing – except that when he talked about ‘easy there’ they all stopped rowing (which is correct).

We stopped and turned, with the whole of each side either rowing on or backing it down. I wasn’t as frightened doing this as I had been in the four as it was so much more stable in the eight, and by the end there was a really good rhythm going with the cox’s calls. It also helped when the cox told everyone that their blades should be flat on the water when they weren’t stroking. We had to right ourselves with a couple of taps from 2 and 4, and then we started off again with the bow four rowing. This meant that Andrea was setting the stroke, and she didn’t do too badly at all. In fact, cox man had nothing but praise for the bow four, especially since we were rowing into the wind. I felt very comfortable (foot stretchers were already set right back) and the balance was very good thanks to the stern four. I’m now feeling equally confident with stroke side and bow side and it was utter bliss to actually be moving all the way from the lock to the boathouse without stopping all the time. We did go wonky once because the stroke side was pulling harder than the bow side, and I had to push us off one of the narrowboats. A woman stuck her head out of the window and asked us not to scratch the paintwork. I had only touched the black rubbery bit at water level, but I made sure that my second touch was very gentle. We set off again and the cox asked for more pressure on bow side, which was a good incentive for me to work harder and righted the boat straight away.

We pulled in and had some swaps – one guy replaced the woman in stroke and a tall lanky guy replaced Orlando. There was some discussion on where to turn, and they decided to turn right in front of the boathouse as there were no narrowboats on the opposite side and there was little traffic. I don’t know why they didn’t go downstream, because there are some places to turn there (maybe they knew not to try to turn down that end when it’s windy). So we pushed off straight, and started to have stroke side rowing on and bow backing down. It was a complete disaster as we first came dangerously close to the bank (right behind me) and then actually hit the first upstream narrowboat as well. The cox aborted the manoeuvre and turned us back around and took us back in to the boathouse. There was more discussion, and they tried again, this time with a huge push off the bow end of the boat, effectively spinning the boat a half turn. It was successful this time, probably because everyone knew what they were doing now too.

The tall lanky guy in 3 really had no idea what he was doing, so when we took off with the stern four rowing again, he had no idea what to do with his blade to set the boat. I must be more confident than I was because I was telling him what to do. From then on he was really good because he was watching the other blades. We went a bit wonky here and came a bit too close to the branches of a willow tree. It was fine until we reached the bit that had been drooping in the water and we got sprinkled with some lovely rancid river water.

We came right up on the lock and stopped. Here the cox did some really interesting exercises (the wind couldn’t reach us here). He had everyone go to backstops and tall lanky guy had to be helped with that. Then he had us go to frontstops (full slide, hands out) and actually take a stroke as if we were starting a race. That’s very good practise for me if by some chance I end up rowing at the bumps. He had also done the hand height exercise where one side just lifts their hands a tiny bit while at rest. The whole boat dips one way madly. Then he turned us and a couple of people either forgot or didn’t know about the putting your blade flat on the water when not stroking and this made the exercise more scary. We got the turn down however, and cox man had the bow six rowing this time. It was very unstable either because the stern pair weren’t sitting the boat very well or because someone in the six was sliding uncontrollably. It didn’t matter, because I got a brilliant run out of it and was actually able to think only about my technique for the first time and after some adjustments I finally felt completely happy with what I was doing in the boat. Being in bow is hard (as cox man told me later) because you have so many rowers in front of you it can be disorienting if the boat is not together. You just have to follow stroke no matter what the people in between are doing. I was happy because that’s exactly what I had done.

We pulled in again and had three more swaps – Andrea swapped out to try coxing, and I selfishly wanted to stay in. Tall lanky man ended up swapping out. It didn’t really matter, because when we tried to turn the boat again it was a bigger disaster than before. When the cox told us to back it down on bow, the two front rowers in bow were pushing the wrong way (ie rowing normally) so we pretty much went nowhere as I was the only one backing it down properly. The girl who’d swapped in to tall lanky man’s seat literally had no idea what she was doing. She was trying to row with the stern four and was just holding her blade in the air. Again my bossy side came out and I tried to explain what was happening. I think the wind was stronger than before too. We just gave up and struggled our way back in.

That last group put the Lord Todd away and because we’d come from upstream, the bow was facing downstream and so we walked it back upstream, but when we went to turn it around in front of the boathouse there wasn’t enough space. So the cox guy decided to just put it in stern first, so the next people to use it are probably going to be quite mad.

Ashley and I talked about the bumps afterwards – there are some nice little traditions like: the boats who manage to bump have to wear willow wreaths on their heads, and their bank crews get dressed up in silly clothes, and that the boats are attached to chains for the start, and he reminded me that the City team that I’m sort of hanging around will be ranked absolutely last, so there will be no one behind us, so less reason to be stressed out about getting bumped 3 seconds into the race. I will go to their training sessions, because I’m feeling much more confident in myself after Episode IV, but not sure if I’ll ever get to row.

The May Bumps are on next week/weekend (the university version of the city bumps) so novice training isn’t on. I’m going to be there to watch every spare minute because I think it’s going to be fantastic.

Novices, episode III: Revenge of the dark side

This day was the most glorious day weather-wise that I've seen in England ever. Imagine then how many people had flocked to the Strawberry Fair on Midsummer Common. I heard later that this fair is the largest independent, volunteer music festival in the UK, and I would dearly love to know how many people came because it was absolutely packed! There was everyone there from flower children, to wannabe flower children, to heavy metal fans, to neo-Nazis, to families, to pikies, to wannabe pikies, to just plain weird people (like a girl in a bikini top, pigtails, short tutu and heavy boots). There were stalls with jewellery, clothes, food, tarot readings, hemp products, drugs, all manner of alcohol and about three stages set up with bands. I had to negotiate the masses to even get from my house to the river.

It was another slow start for novices - there were only four of us to begin with, and so we had a go on the ergs two at a time. Our coaches this time were Kathryn and Steve and another young guy who was really cluey about technique as the bank coach. Steve said I need to separate my technique on my recovery, which I feel like I've only just integrated successfully. I have to consciously extend my arms, then lean forward, then bend my knees to slide as three separate movements. Also, I'm guilty of overreaching, and bending my back as a result, but I knew that and will have to work on it. I picked Steve's brain about how to hold the blade, and about how to use your feet to push too. It was good to just talk about it.

We had two more raw beginners - one guy from Italy who looks like a shorter, more solid version of Orlando Bloom (Pirates of the Caribbean) and a very small guy with dark skin (not sure where he's from) who arrived late. Fran still wasn't back from Majorca and David Beckham didn't make an appearance. After erging for a while, we went to get Freddie out again and got him down to the river. We found seats and blades, and bank-coach-man worked out where to put people in relation to their experience. Steve went in as cox, Ashley, who is Canadian or American, had done some sculling but hadn't been in a four or eight, so was put in stroke, I was put in 2 (bow side), Orlando Bloom in 3 and other small guy in bow (Andrea sat out to start with). Ashley and I started off by setting the boat and the other two rowed. It felt pretty secure from where we were but of course we couldn't see what they were doing. The coach on the bank was calling out some advice to them and they started moving at a pretty decent pace. Steve asked them to feather and I could just feel the blank looks - that was way too advanced for them.

We got to the Victoria Avenue bridge and turned. It was quite stressful because Steve had no one setting the boat while we turned (ie the two on stroke side were rowing and the two on bow side were backing it down). So the boat was very unstable and I was just waiting to hit the water. We didn't, luckily, and ended up pointing in the right direction. Ashley and I had a go in stern now, but the boat had such a dangerous lean to it that it was all I could do to even get my blade out of the water. I soon learned that the only way to get any strokes in was to feather, since the blade was coming out sideways instead of full face. We sort of struggled along with me getting in a half stroke here and there until the motion ended up dying completely. Steve and coach-man tried to explain how the bow pair were supposed to be setting the boat, and we tried again. I don't think it was any more successful, but I think all four tried to join in and it was a complete disaster. The whole thing was made more difficult because the bow pair couldn't hear Steve - the speakers in the boat weren't working even though the cox box (piece of equipment to plug in cox's microphone linking to speakers) was, and the Strawberry Festival was cranking out some very loud music. We turned again at the next pedestrian bridge and Ashley and I set the boat while the other two rowed. Again, the balance was fine when we were setting. I think we pulled in back to the club at this stage.

Small man swapped with Andrea, and Ashley and I chatted with Kathryn about what was going wrong. Meanwhile coach man was trying to help small man and Orlando with how they were supposed to be setting the boat. We took off again, and I was confident that Andrea would fix the balance problems. I think the other two started to row, reasonably successfully. We must have turned at the upstream end again, and Steve asked the other two to watch mine and Ashley's feathering. I muttered that that was all I could do. We moved to backstops, squared our blades, and Steve started us off. We tapped down (lifted blade out of water) and did the slide to catch our first stroke. The boat was leaning so far over, I couldn't even get my first stroke in and we stopped almost immediately. Steve and coach man corrected the hand height of the other two which immediately righted the boat, and so Ashley and I got ready to go again. We did our slide again but the boat immediately leaned again and I couldn't get my blade out at all. Steve stopped us immediately again and got the bow pair to correct their hands again. We were drifting all this time and getting close to various barges, and so Andrea spent a lot of time doing one stroke to right us. Again we started off, but the exact thing happened again where the boat was right but immediately leaned as soon as Ashley and I started sliding. Andrea was getting frustrated by this stage and asked what she was doing wrong. I was starting to wonder whether it was something Ashley and I were doing wrong, since it was our movements that seemed to start the lean. I think we might even have had another go here before we turned. It was a nightmare.

We had one last try and finally, finally, Ashley and I got moving and the boat was fairly straight. We got in about 4 good strokes …. and then we had to go back into the club. It was maddening.

There was a lot of talk as the boat was sitting at the bank about technique that is not apparent on the ergs (talk that I thought should have happened before we even went out). We put the boat away and stood around a bit. Brian (Mr Irishman) finished his session in which they'd rowed an eight downstream to the next locks (about 2.7km down the river) and back. That's my idea of fun instead of this constant turning around and stopping and starting business. He asked me how I'd gone and I couldn't help expressing my frustration. The first thing I asked him was how to get into a crew. He sat me down in the sun and gave me some good advice on how to offer to sub for crews and told me who to speak to, and said I should keep coming to circuits, and sign up for the mailing list on the website. He understood my frustration because he'd been in the same situation a year ago. While we were chatting, some coppers came up and berated us with a ho-ho laugh for being on the bank instead of on the water. We told them we'd worked hard enough in the morning. Thirty seconds later, some filthy desperate-looking pikies went past on our side of the river and the coppers put their stern faces on and asked them if they were going to make trouble. Completely unnecessary I thought, since they were doing nothing wrong. After getting nicely sunburnt, I went on my way.

At circuits on Monday Brian managed to engineer my introduction (of sorts) to a girl who took my name and email address as a possible sub for their crew. Fran was back, and we chatted after the session, dodging boats coming past, as you do. She got involved in a conversation about a crew for the bumps, and I sort of drifted into it with her, before realising I was a ring-in to the plan. I wandered off before butting in to say goodbye to Fran and Ashley. Ashley grabbed me and said to Sikander (the guy who's organising that crew) that he might want another sub or even crew member (because he'd heard me talking about wanting to get into a crew). Fran agreed because she thinks I'm quite good. As a result, Sikander also has my email address, and has included me in the crew email. Now one other member of his crew has dropped out of the bumps. He wants to train three times a week, so I guess I should show up, especially since Brian said that it's useful to just follow a bank coach and listen and watch. I'll keep going to novices because I don't feel confident enough to start race training (even though novices is so frustrating), but at the same time I'm no worse than Fran or Ashley. Hmmm, it's all a bit weird.