15 March 2008 - sunshine after the rains...

After many days of showers, the sunny island of Singapore was finally blessed with agreeable weather on this Saturday morning. How nice!

Everyone reached on time today, and after a quick warm-up, it was time for Papillon to hit the water!

(Folks - in future please arrive earlier at 7:45am to do our own warm-up so that once Coach arrives we can jump right into the action. Need to maximize the use of precious water time, yea?)

The boat was noticeably lighter with the absence of a few key members - Ben, Pierre, Christy, Desmond and Yen Nee. (Un)Fortunately, THE key person was back - yes, PATRICK RETURNS.

During the warm-up row, eagle-eyed Coach constantly checked if we were executing the new stroke correctly. Apparently not - so we were brought to Cosy Bay for pair-by-pair rowing where he could sit closer with a cane and 'soot' us if our arms were slightly out. Nah, just kidding. It was in fact a very effective session for us to finetune the newly-learnt technique.

Just to recap the stroke:
With arms positioned 'one-fist' distance out from the gunwale, throw your weight forward aiming for the front seat, dip the blade straight down (perpendicular to the water surface) and pull your torso back into upright position, bringing the blade along (maintain perpendicular) until mid thigh - blade out and pause - then repeat (throw weight forward... ...)

A few choice quotes of the day:

1. Coach: "Tired must practise until not tired."

2. Coach: “容易的东西都是不好的。”
Literal translation: "Easy things are all not good."
Polished translation: "Good things don't come easy."

3. Coach: "You need to control your weight." - Too brutal...

4. Dennis wisecracks: "Haha, eh - stop throwing your weight around ah."
- So punny it's funny.

After all pairs enjoyed a dose of personal attention from Coach, Papillon once again loaded up and rowed away from the 'billions of blistering barnacles'-infested steps of Cosy Bay.

We moved towards Sheares bridge, then back towards the pontoon - doesn't sound like much, but the difficulty rating was up a few notches as Coach called for an increase in stroke rate after every couple of minutes. By the end of the session, we were totally pooped-de-pooped.

In conclusion:
Much work to be done on fitness to keep up with the high stroke rate.
The new stroke is actually more energy-efficient once correct technique is mastered.
Need to consciously pay attention to own stroke to make sure you don't lapse into the ingrained old style - in other words, keep finetuning!

Have a good weekend everyone - and stretch those muscles! (Will teach y'all how to stretch your backs properly the next training.)

= Chief Editor signing off =