Learning to row

I joined a rowing club last September and I have to say that I enjoy every minute of it.
I row in an eight, that is a boat of 8 rowers and a cox. The cox is the member who sits on the stern, facing the bow, steers the boat, and coordinates the effort and rhythm of the rowers by giving them commands and instructions. At first it was pretty tough and difficult, not just because this sport is very technical, and obviously as a beginner I did not know much of it, but also because I was for not being familiarised with the rowing lingo.
My mother tongue is Spanish, and everybody knows in this community of language learners, that it is much easier to identify a word in a speech context. As probably you may have imagined, the commands given by the cox are sometimes just a word and the most of the times very technical, so basically I tried to copy the rest of the rowers. The problem came when the instructions were given just solely to me. I felt awful and ridiculous. I thought that I will never understand it and I felt terrible for the rest of the rowers that had to put up with me. I do not need Needless to say that the rest of the members of the crew were incredibly understandingable and helpful which was really reassuring.
Now it is completely different, I am still a novice, but I am much more confident. I have already taken part in three races, the last one on Sunday, and although there is still a long way to go until till I become a proper rower and even longer until till I get a trophy -if ever get one- I enjoy every outing and love sharing that time with the rest of the crew and the club.
Now we are getting ready for the local bumps (http://www.cucbc.org/bumps) and they will be my first ones indeed.
I hope the weather changes for the better; I am looking forward to seeing a little bit of sun on in a rainy day like today.