Maria
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 for not being familiarise 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 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 to say that the rest of the members of the crew were incredibly understandable and helpful which was really reassuring. Now it is completely different, still a novice, but much confident. I have already taken part in three races, the last one on Sunday, and although there is still a long way till I become a proper rower and even longer 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 change for the better, looking forward to seeing a little bit of sun in a rainy day like today.
May 29, 2015 2:31 PM
Corrections · 2

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 about it, but for  as I was not being familiarise  familiar 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 to me. I felt awful and ridiculous. I thought that I will would never understand it and I felt terrible for the rest of the rowers that had to put up with me. I do not need to say that Needless to say the rest of the members of the crew were incredibly understandable  understanding and helpful which was really reassuring.
Now it is completely different, I am still a novice, but much more confident. I have already taken part in three races, the last one on Sunday, and although there is still a long way till I become a proper rower and even longer 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 it will be my first ones time indeed.
I hope the weather changefor the better, I am looking forward to seeing a little bit of sun in on a rainy day like today.

May 29, 2015
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