Hello everyone! It is Jack here and I hope everyone is having a good spring break. One of the things that I would like to discuss in this post is Rowing, a new activity which I began doing during my time at UC Irvine. In this post I will go through through the activity, what I think about it and how to get started with it.
When I came to UC Irvine, I originally wanted to compete in a sport. As I was looking for something to compete in, I found club sports. During the first week of the school year there are many opportunities to understand more about the club sports at UC Irvine. The Anteater Involvement Fair and Late Night at the ARC are great opportunities to learn more about club sports and at some of these events there may even be an activity which helps to shower you how the sport is. Most of the club sport teams are competitive and some even accept members who have never played the sport.
I had never rowed before I came to UC Irvine and by the end of Week 0, I was already in my first boat. Throughout the school year I have been able to wake up early most mornings and complete a workout or a row which has prepared me to race. Rowing is one of the interesting club sports as it was formerly an intercollegiate sport, but it now competes as a club team but races some intercollegiate teams. Most of the rowing that we do takes place in Newport Harbor, but there are opportunities to race in other places.
Rowing is a nice activity to get exercise in as some of the team’s members initially joined for that reason, but it is also nice to be able to practice in open water and face some really talented athletes in some of the races. While practices may take place at an early hour in the morning, they are also at a time when the sunrise can be seen.
As for how to be a rower, you could always join your college’s club team or a local club team. UC Irvine rowing usually recruits rowers from September through January and usually at a college club Rowing team they will teach an incoming rower how to row. If you would like to get a feel for the movements of Rowing before going out on the water, one could always practice on a rowing machine, something which is available at the Anteater Recreation Center and many other gyms. Once one would like to try the water, they could row on their own (skulling) or row with one, three or seven others (sweeping). Rowing in the bodies of water around UC Irvine requires a lot of care for the boats, since much of the water is salt water, but the views are excellent. One tip about Rowing would be to do it early in the morning or late at night as it is easier as waters are much calmer at those times of day.
That is it for me for this post and I hope everyone has a great remainder of spring break! Zot Zot Zot!