#42 - Thinking Outside the Box with Tom Jost - FOGOLF

In this episode of Last Stroke Counts, we’re excited to sit down with Tom Jost, the Director of Rowing at Claire’s Court School. Known as Josty around the circuit, he’s not just a respected figure in UK rowing, but also a brilliant coach whose guidance has led to Henley Royal Regatta victories for both boy’s and girl’s crews at Claire’s Court in 2016 & 2022.

Tom shares his journey in the rowing world, competing for GB as a junior, and developing his unique coaching style. Tom consistently helps athletes develop through the ranks and adds speed to any crew that he leads. We dive deep into his diverse methods and approach to training, exploring how layering rowing techniques can effectively lead to remarkable success on the water.

From discussing biomechanics, force application and improving boat speed, Josty provides invaluable insights that he’s garnered over his extensive career, where he’s coached many GB crews at international regattas but also athletes like Jack Beaumont and Phil Clapp.

Josty’s infectious enthusiasm, deep knowledge, and positive approach to the sport make this episode a great listen. His anecdotes, coupled with humour & wisdom, provide a glimpse into what makes a great coach and how to nurture winning teams.

So, tune in & join us as we remind ourselves all that competitive rowing is not just about physical strength, but also about thinking outside the box, where every last stroke counts.

You know they’re all like doctors and big money City Boys I was like I haven’t got anything that you guys so I just thought all right well I’ll explain rowing to them and they asked these questions I was like oh yeah no that’s so then it made me like completely think differently about It hey what is up welcome to last TR counts we have the director of rowing at Claire’s cold School uh Tom J in the house and personally I used to call him the leander’s nightmare back in the day we had some good hand dingers with the

Clair cour Cruz uh during my fall years but yeah please welcome Tom to the podcast hello hello thanks for coming on man I think it’s a name that a lot of people will know uh definitely sort of in the junior circuit you’ve you’ve made bit of a name for yourself and for cla’s

Court I think um you certainly been there quite a long time I think I looked like 15 16 years now uh yeah I was ahead of it as of 2012 but I’ve been there prior to that P time as well yeah yeah yeah so a long time like a lot of

Coaches have bounced around a lot of different jobs so I think that’ll be an interesting one because also you’re at Maiden head for quite a while as well yeah 10 years all in the same same area yeah yeah have yeah cool um definitely be interesting G into but like as we

Start with everyone uh I think really interested to see how you got into run yourself in the first place uh so I um my cousin was uh he was quite bright and he got a scholarship to latima school in London uh and so I’m not this like we’re

Not R family at all um but then when he was there he got into row and absolutely loved it so when and he’s 11 years older than me um so when I was young we used to go and watching race so we went and watching race in the tideway and a few

Different regat and then uh I remember watching him was 1989 we went to watch him at heny Royal and they got to the Saturday which I just you know I just thought was quite normal you know so uh I remember where I was watching I watched that uh and that

Was the first race actually I hadn’t had seen him where he hadn’t been winning so because he’ just won everything we’d gone to see uh so yeah so then off the back of that I basically just wanted to row straight away um and I think my

Parents Tri to see if we could go and do some R main Rowing Club and they said I wasn’t allowed to till I was 13 so I was 13 on the Tuesday and on the Thursday was the first time I could row and I went down I rode on the Thursday night

And then just that was it I would never stopped that was in 96 so i’ have been yeah so yeah 13 and then carried on through since then really pretty Keen yeah yeah I wasn’t one of these people that kind of we were talking earlier about people that kind of fell into it

Weren’t really that interested I was obsessed from the word go well even before the word go yeah I was always wanted to do I love that we’ve had a few Olympians who were like yeah I did rowing to like get out of cross country or like it was I didn’t want to do

Something else like and now you’re like the best in the world at this absolutely Mentor yeah yeah and I was complete opposite of that I wanted to do it from the word go what what what did you like about it just Freedom being yeah I guess there’s an element of that

I don’t really it’s weird because I have got zero attention span apart from but I’m really obsessive as well probably like some sort I know somebody could dissect it but I’ve got um it’s it’s the fact that you know each session leads on to the next one so that

If you learn a skill you know you take that into the next session then you learn more and you take it into the next session and then training kind of ties it through I don’t know I think it was kind of the fact that I could you know

It’s not necessarily fun at the time but it’s certainly fun later like you always talk about type one and type two fun you heard of this yeah delayed yeah yeah like a lot of rowing is horrific at the time of doing it but but you get home

And it’s like ah you you know they have that absolute love for it the endorphins I like asking people like what do you love about raring and I remember when people would ask me what do you love about wearing they’ be like well it’s not the early mornings it’s not the rain

It’s not the cold it’s not the horrible sessions it’s not the OS it’s not being tired it’s not having my hands it’s not having my hands knackered and bleeding uh it’s not any of these things and you think but for some reason I keep going back so yeah it’s a

Combination I think the thing I kind of I think quite recently in my head is like fun every season not fun every day yeah but nothing’s fun every day no it doesn’t matter what job you have nothing’s fun every day you know like I always think with when coaching now we

Can make training really fun by getting some footballs out and kicking about or playing crab football or you know like whatever it might be but they won’t take it home with them so it’s kind of like I like with Ry often you take it home with

You and I’m a big Daydreamer so I like having something to daydream about so um yeah so that was really it and I think I kind of obviously being on the the river on your own and like when you can get out a single and you have got that

Freedom I guess it’s like when you first learned to drive a car and then that first time you go out in your car on your own he like you know um and I remember yeah being on the single you know being in Maiden head and right up

And down my single as a junior and just thinking like just it was just like heaven um yeah so really from that then that kind of I was very kind of obsessive about my training then uh not about my training it’s about the sport really and as a part of it training but

Yeah it’s kind of then led into what’s come since then really so like have you watched at the Olympics like have you like seen the Barcelona and Atlanta games to like SP you on to like yeah so I don’t really remember 88 because I was would have been whatever I would been

Five then I don’t know whether we watched it or not now but I do remember um the cell Brothers race in ’92 and I remember being downstairs everyone in my house I don’t know whether it was early mornings or whether it was a replay or something I can’t remember um but I

Remember being downstairs at my house and watching that race and obviously it’s like the most amazing race ever yeah um probably another thing that kind of stoked the fire because it was still four years before I was able to row um watching that race and then running

Upstairs and putting it on my in my parents little black and white TV in their bedroom so that we would watch you know they had the replay of them rowing through in the last bit um yeah so that one I remember a lot 96 well that was

Only a few months after I started run so that was a really big one and I had you know a video that would chuck in and press record on as soon as you know it came on the Telly um so yeah so 92 96

Were big ones for me and like as far as watching is concerned um and they always seem to be in the school holidays so it was like you know you’d come down in the morning and I don’t know I’m I love the Olympics so much so when you put it on

In the morning and they have like usually some amazing music um that comes on then to introduce what’s happened overnight or you know the day before or whatever yeah so it’s kind of then yeah then 2000 um was another one that just kind of happened at the right time for

Me it was in the beginning of my final year of being a junior so yeah November of my j18 season yeah when things are like heating up when especially like when just before you like exed being in junior like you start to get a bit more

Serious like the scores get a big big like people are getting close to Six Minutes that kind of thing yeah yeah yeah and then it was like Gold Fever hit at the right time as well yeah so it was kind of I had a few things which were

Like obsessor I mean I’m genuinely must have watched gold V like a hundred times on probably in that one year just on repeat just watching you know um so did they used to did they used to like um was it a genuine TV series that like aired every week or something I think

They did one a week a BBC series yeah yeah and then I recorded it and then they did a follow-up one after the Olympics as well which I saw that one yeah yeah oh you did yeah yeah yeah after after we recorded Tim’s episode someone was like oh if you watch Gold

Fever this was amazing I was like actually I never have I need to do it so as soon as we finish recording yeah when we were getting through I said we was talking about right Tim we’ve got to talk about the Hat the yeah okay and

Then P like what’s this I like you what you don’t know about the hand in the window no no I didn’t obviously as a junior who was in Poland so it was a bit probably not as interested so then literally as soon as we finished

Recording like I just sat in my car and just watched the whole thing like the whole Gold Fever was brilliant oh so good and you can imagine that hitting at the right age as well it was like double whammy I’m just I’m just Ed that I

Didn’t watch it when I was at leand would have so loved it oh yeah that would have been brilliant and also just that crew because that I mean I don’t know there’s been obviously big Crews and big names and row since then but it was like they kind of went beyond rowing

There was like I remember when there was a regasa magazine that had front cover and it was uh like pinca stroke red grave at Bell and it was the the comment was like seats for not seats for Rio seats for Sydney or something like that was it was like 96

97 um and I think my my cousin actually got me that as a like a Christmas present one year he got it delivered and then he gave it to me as a Christmas present I remember reading that one like back to back and then that first world

Championships in a berlet when they won in the four like still now that world world championships was amazing that fours race and then you had Jamie koven in the single I don’t know if you remember that so Jamie koven won the single that year um and it was just like

There’s footage of him just side on he just banging little rhythm and I watched that one over and over again as well um and then the the fours race they go off the start and on the BBC the commentary didn’t work for like the first 500

Meters so but you could hear the boats and I just remember that like that sweet Rhythm like Pinson with Foster behind them and just watching it in the stern was just like you know when you get the water flicking up off the stair and I

Was oh God yeah so that one um I watched that and repeat about bazillion times ever as well and then the um K the Coen race was the one that Greg s got Bronze in remember that and Andre billm the second um yeah just a great race so yeah

That that kind of that period of racing well I was just obsessed about all of it it was great that’s also back like I look at now like Co kids we coached and they have access to You YouTube and they can just watch every race from the

Olympics all day every day all the time and I explained that back like when I was wearing like there was like a DVD in my school with like it had the affin final on oh yeah yeah it had the was it the um 2003 boat race when the guy

Collapsed you know super close finish and there was like one other race and this and that’s like oh you had yeah yeah like that I mean I guess we’re talking about 202 2001 when I started no 2003 when I started R 2001 when I started secondary school so like there

Was stuff on the internet but it like you didn’t just have access to it that much which is quite lucky CU I would have just I would yeah I that as well I had a video I remember I used to have the video which I would leave at at the

Point for which I could record again in case anything came on you know like trans World sport on a Sunday morning or something if they did like a random bit about a random crew you know you could just Chuck the video and press record

And watch it back so yeah um yeah so it was for me I had like a stack of videos which I actually tried to find the other day at my parents and no idea what that 20 years later then still on VHS yeah yeah I don’t know where they’ve gone

Though they’ll be somewhere they’ll probably be in the loft or something but um um I wouldn’t also be surprising if they’ gone I don’t have a video record I don’t think anyone does now yeah yeah yeah yeah I sort of found the same way like I think I remember at school just

Being like I wish I could like row as my subject cuz like all my subjects is boring but rowing I just like can’t eat up enough of it like getting books out of the library and talking to everyone and going over it and video analysis and it’s just like yeah that subject it’s

Kind of hit but then I don’t know if you had it where if I had a teacher like in English if they were like right right about rowing suddenly I would be the most focused man on the planet or in art if I could draw or paint a picture of

Somebody rowing so there was hooks that they could use for it yeah um yeah definitely for me so my school had a six form so we could go six form but there was like a level certain level of grades you had to get Behavior the naughty kids

W ask back things like that so yeah all of a sudden this thing that I hatte was like but if you want to keep rowing like you got to get the yeah yeah yeah and yeah I think that’s a really powerful thing like it’s massive you can turn

Anything into how does it help my yeah yeah and then also kind of you have to be kind of you have to be organiz irrespective of school if you’re not particularly kind of academic or whatever like you’ve got to be organized with your diet and recovery and all

These other things so it’s kind of again it hooks School into that because like we got to be on top of these things otherwise you’re going to know you know so it’s kind of we I started try I started trying to uh in six form we started trying to just get our teachers

Used to the fact that we just turn up in sports kit out all the time and some of them like didn’t on the table just cuz we would because we try and train before school and then comeing to school and then we try and train at L let’s just

Try and train all the time and a lot of the teachers were happy with it but I remember my politics teacher Mr Lee was just like no go and get go and get you uni4 months like ah it’s not worked yeah the plan was just can we just live in

Wearing Ki yeah yeah yeah and get checked that’s pretty gross I don’t know why yeah but the the only ones are quite comfy so yeah yeah yeah yeah track in the jump whatever whatever it was well when I when I I remember when I first

Like wore a JL lra like that was good it was like nice and comfy and padded and it was like like Kevlar or something JL L Cruz I’ve got L Cruz from JL that are like 25 years old that look brand new I don’t know where they still make that I

Just know that you’re going to have to wait four months for them to turn up so yeah I just Mone little PSA announcement I’ll have to cut this out because we’re not promoting rival K on this podcast oh right so no no I’m just kidding Everyone likes a classic J that’s what

We’re talking about the classic kit yeah classic kit none of this new stuff so yeah so after you fall into fell into it was there a good sort of good Junior setup at Maiden head so uh it was me and two of my old oldest Pals I was at toddlers with actually that

Started together so um mate of mine called Woody another M of mine un called Paul um and kind of we all went down together on the same day first started together um and then we kind of got the ball rolling and we were only I think we were

The only juniors in the whole club this was when Maiden head was on the other side of the river you know next to the bridge there’s like a little garden there it used to be yeah we were we were we were shown that like it was like on

The other side of the bridge back in the day before they build a new B house so that’s where it was when I first started yeah um and three of us kind of got the ball kind of rolling we you know we kind of really got into it and then um we

Needed obviously a fourth person to make up a quad and there was a lad from school um a friend of just another friend of mine called Tom Raymond um and then he kind of I don’t know whether he came down or whether we invited him down I don’t really remember

How it worked um so he came down and then he was just like freakishly strong um really small but freakishly strong so we were like brilliant so we had a quad and there was four of us um and yeah and that was the that was the squad and we C

Coached by there was loads of different coaches down at maidenhead that kind of got involved at one time or another um but there was a chat called Derek cook who was um had now since passed away a couple of years back um but he was like

He was kind of he sort of took the lead on looking after us um and he was like he done loads of stuff in rowing so he was one of the lead first people to sort of um push through bringing together composite Crews for the junior team

Prior to that it was just like the national champions became the junior crew and he handed me this paper a few years back of like that he’d written up a kind of a sort of your first sort of selection plan to as to how to bring a

Crew together um I can’t remember what year would have been like late 70s early 80s or something like that um but yeah so he just happened to be a maiden head and he was kind of the first person up until that point he was always a you know Sports is something you do

And like a little hobby he was the first person that kind of made me they feel they mattered which I wasn’t particularly academic and anything like that um but so he finally kind of gave me sort of something to build my confidence on really like a path to

Follow yeah yeah yeah I remember we were at one of our first in fact it was our first ever race um and me and apal were in the double and we lost in like the semi-final um and his granddad said oh you know don’t worry boys it’s a taking

Part of the counts and Derek kind of went quiet and he went that’s not what I tell him actually and I was like I’ve never heard somebody disagree with that before uh and I mean at the end of the day it doesn’t matter it’s only Sport and all

The rest of it but as far as kind of you know somebody something for a young person to build their confidence around uh it was massive yeah so he he he made such a difference for me um yeah and so like we kind of then rode together J 14

15 16 and 17 and then a couple of them um kind of went to took it a bit easier in Upper six um and um so yeah then I sort of rode on my own in my last year Junior um and so that was kind of almost

Like my first year of coaching as well because I kind of I always feel that I got loads and loads of coaching up until that age and then I had like a year where I could just process it and so I had enough time to go out and just work

On something at my own speed and all the rest of it um so yeah so that’s what I did when in 202 2001 um I didn’t really have a a coach or a squads rad with that year so it took up a lot of motivation I

Always feel that I used up a good few years worth of motivation in the space of 10 months um just because yeah I was Lely sport in the yeah yeah do you think that was a lot to do with why you then moved into coaching or do you think that

Was something you always like the idea of or I I always say that it was something I sort of fell into but then I looked back and I don’t know if I did because like I remember um we were talking about Nigel wi I had a meeting with him with my parents

Um about how to get into coaching so well why would I have had I must I must have always wanted to co go into coaching um and then kind of off the back of that I then went into in my Gap year started doing some coaching and

Then kind of that snowball off the back of that um but yeah yeah no I I think I had sort of always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to go into it um but I think it was just being something involved in rowing still I also wanted

To go into boat building that was another thing my work experience was was at EA and racing boats um when I was like 14 or whatever and that was two weeks of work it was like heaven just stood there making Ry boats all day long it was great um with Andy cross actually

Who’s still at Eaton and Eric Sims who’s obviously now yes R yeah great DAV Jones yeah so made H who’s he still works there doesn’t he uh yes so he’s still there yeah yeah he wasn’t there then because he’s a bit yeah before you but

Yeah so he was in my 08 temps oh was he oh were you in that one that won yeah oh blinding okay yeah yeah yeah so there was like seven us seven of us monkeys run like absolute raring like idiots and there’s DAV J honestly there’s some video

Footage when they they took out the uh the launch that we’re filming from behind yeah and David is just balancing the whole way he’s he’s he worked out his job was just like keep this boat level for these monkeys and we’ll do well and he’s just he’s later back just getting the job

Done yeah I know yeah so he was the first person I coached actually oh yeah Maiden head so after I finished Junior then I went into coaching him just happened to be a maiden and I started coaching him so it was kind of work that very well actually yeah yeah coaching

Like comes from also like having the obsession to make the bat go fast but not necessarily like wanting to do it yourself C point I felt that I saw I saw something the other day was like um they was talking about coaching uh from like an athletes perspective and they’re like

Uh is your coach interested in like longevity and and one of the other things he like are they obsessed yeah cuz it’s all right for you to be obsessed but have you is that coach obsessed and I was like oh that’s kind of something I’ve not really thought

About yeah yeah but is important yeah yeah I remember somebody talking about Ira Perry one somebody that she coached and they said they really liked that she was on a mission yeah I was like oh they’ve never thought about that actually from an athletes point of view

But looking back probably the coaches I had that were on a mission wanted to do it well were the ones I really gone well with um yeah yeah so it is weird isn’t it that you have that kind of you don’t think as an athlete that the coach kind

Of is obsessed with it yeah but then obviously and now being a coach I like probably more obsessed Than I Was An Athlete yeah yeah I feel having coaches I like as a athlete I felt like I had my own uh sort of ambition and nerves and

Never worry but only ever mine and then as a like now I’m s of worried about everyone else’s yeah it feels like a lot more intense at times yeah plus there’s so many like moving Parts you have control oversight over like so many more things so if if you get bored of one

Thing then there’s like a million other stuff you can focus on on test days or regatas you might have a group do really well and then a group do not so well and it’s really easy as a coach to kind of forget oh we’ve actually done really

Well and just obsess about well how do we figure this you know so they I don’t know yeah it’s kind of um yeah it’s a difficult one to get your head round as to how you kind of yeah nerves from a Coach position you don’t think about

That as an athlete I know and actually on my I’ve had it twice where my Watchers told me like too high weird heart rate or whatever you know and it starts buzzing at you and both of them have been sat or stood on the start

Waiting for a race to start as a coach like not as an athlete yeah so very weird which are the races that get you most hyped up what is like nut schs H uh driving around the end of the island in that coaching launch at heny that was

Just horrific like I remember there was somebody who’s talking about do you remember jez Mo from oh yeah yeah psychologist yeah yeah was they were s because so he coached me in 2001 no way yeah yeah um small work and he uh somebody who he was coaching maybe like

Dan tipney or something like that said that they remember on the final of their FY him the boat coming round and just seeing him stood over the side being sick whether that was a true story or not I don’t know but just that I think as an athlete very quickly there’s a

Release or you can just kind of Hit the boow growl whatever as a coach you would to be there like Whispering quiet you know oh my God yeah yeah that’s yeah horrific Plus on once the buzzer goes like you’re in the flow state right you’re just focusing on a job versus as

A coach you’re like oh what how are they going to do no crabs please yeah well like what Cox has have said cuz obviously they’re in the race they get all the adrenaline all the hype but they don’t actually get out any energy so then the race and they’re like yeah

But there in that nuts though you like was it it might have been um Rory was saying that they’d put heart rate Strokes on them and they get to almost maximum heart rate it’s like has that’s so but it’s it’s interesting how much your mind pays apart and trying to keep

Your heart rate down during a race because you can easily reach maximum heart without actually moving so yeah yeah very weird um yes Henley probably the worst um but I can’t I guess it’s any kind of big race when you stood there on the start it’s quiet that’s

Horrible I have to kind of talk and shout and laugh to kind of get all their emotions out so when you’re in a position where you can’t do that it’s yeah specifically Henley like you know you’re in that um launch and then you have to sit still can’t move can’t make

A peep nothing at least if you’re on a bike or Dy or something you like send that Henley launch it’s just like everything that they can do to make it more nerve-wracking they’re done and you just oh god I’ve not been on it yet I I

Really want to go nice yeah yeah over I have but I don’t prefer it I just freak like don’t like I just think that I will shout or I would like make it yeah yeah yeah well I had it once I got shouted at by Fred smallbone CU I just had my hand

Resting on the edge leaning out the boat and he thought I was signaling to the crew yeah so he turned around and shouted at me and it’s one of those situ it was just a very weird situation getting shouted out in the middle of a race and somebody you can’t say anything

Too you just got to kind of take it yeah that was pretty weird but um uh yeah no not nice very weird and I’m pretty sure I’ve near keeled over a few times those launes and actually if it wasn’t for the fact that you kind of need to see the

Race as a coach i’ very much prefer to just not be in there um yeah just watch it watch it on the Telly yeah the big screen yeah but then and then if you kind of get to a final right well I don’t need to be in there but then you

Feel you sort of should be in there so it’s very weird well yeah the athletes would want you to be there for them no the coaches where’s he gone yeah but I know a lot of coaches just don’t go they’ll stand there and just listen to the what it would have been the

Commentary in the past but I guess you can watch yeah yeah yeah um so just before you went into into coaching fulltime you did you did make the Junior Team uh yes so I made the junior team in 01 in sweep so uh I was a scholar I

Always have been a scholar I le as a skull and all my racing was in skulling um but then me and a lad from winds a boy School uh Chu called am IO Hernandez um got together in a pair and then that went okay and we kind of got ourselves

Through enough of the stages to kind of get into um the trials process and then just miss out going to Munich and then made it into the junior worlds team um but we were in a coxless 4 but we were the bottom boat because they hadn’t sent

A coxas 4 in years and they wanted to start getting into the routine of doing that again so they sent one as like a trial four so we didn’t do very well which is actually yeah it’s pretty weird because obviously for me at that time like doing it like you know doing

Anything like that was such a massive deal getting into the British team it was like all my dreams come true and then we’re kind of in like the sea final go flow next to mova you know I mean it was just kind of like a very weird very weird situation where it’s

Kind of um and if you speak to Richard Bolton about it he always has a good laugh about it but I you know I care it was like my yeah it was my big thing is he still Bryon I think so yeah yeah yeah still got the Vesta yeah exactly yeah

And it was a big deal and actually it was another one of those things that kind of gave me confidence to think that if I put my mind to something I can go on and do something big with it um or not big with it I can just succeed in in

Life in general really because I kind of um yeah it was something I put a lot of work into um so yeah so that was out in duberg so it’s a good World Champ actually a lot of people so Matt that was where Matt langid won his Junior

Gold yeah so that was quite cool to watch that one um uh and there was a load of people at that world Champs that went on and did a lot of big stuff so it was uh it was a good one to be at um and just like amazing experience obviously coming off

The back on gold feet and I wasn’t at school or a club where like training camps were a thing so I was I found it so bizarre and Gold Fever that they were like on these camps all over the place so then to kind of come in going to um

Like a world Champs like camp in Chester and then moving down to dney at that point where you know um that was great it was like like living out you know living like a proper person like a proper athlete for a few weeks um yeah

It’s great so um yeah no that was uh 2001 and I had kind of hoped to go on and do more in that but I um then kind of because I went into coaching that sort of then took over more and kind of my efforts went in that

Direction which has kind of ended up being a career so I kind of I suppose it’s quite good good thing that I did that because I was been a while have gone into it’s pretty tough to do both and certainly to do both well I think if

You’re going to coach and put everything into it and then try to find Space to sessions in yeah yeah yeah yeah like the shape I’m in when I’m coaching is not that’s not because I think you kind of you come off the back of sessions and it feels

Like you’ve done the session mentally yeah and you’ve not done anything I’ve probably sat there eating probably you know uh yeah so as a consequence like generally when I’ve been at my kind of bigger races as a coach I’ve generally been quite a lot bigger yeah I’ve another thing like when

I finish wearing I was like okay I’ve gone from training 16 times a week to like three or four for fun I have so much more time and energy but then you you you put that into work even if you just sit a laptop all day yeah it’s

Still like that mental drain it’s different yeah really yeah much so like I would always think like mentally I’m as tired whereas when I was training fulltime like you actually just switch your head off yeah you almost just like switch off sit on the yo just go and

Actually now kind of as with what I’m doing at cla’s court one of the things I’m always like the coaches to do is to make sure they keep up training yeah because I don’t actually think it’s if you train I don’t I think you’d probably be in better place mentally than than

Not so it’s kind of yeah and and especially when you get to like those high pressure at times I always think if it’s a good sign if you’ve got like a coach doing a run up the bank at heny re so you know what I mean something like

That um yeah so I think it’s kind of but it’s difficult because it’s the last thing you want to do but actually it’s probably the number one thing you need to do well it’s like that release we saying there’s no other way to just get yeah yeah yeah exactly so uh but yeah

Yeah it’s easier said than done and as much as I tell other people to do it I never did it I I think it’s still good that like you know you’re instilling that and then your coaches will then move that over to other coaches and hopefully they’ll Al

Don’t think it’s a very good example now looking back on it I don’t think it’s a very good example for me to be like 17 Stone stressed as anything um when I’m coaching a crew because they don’t want to see a coach like that you know they

Want they want the coach that’s kind of on top of things and all the rest of it which I I think I was but certainly yeah being kind of in a in a better mental state are you because because you being able to just go for a run or s go bike

Ride yeah I thought I thought you were going to say is not going to be a good image for you to be 17 Stone telling other coaches to go for a run oh yeah no well yeah yeah I think it’s important like definitely um having done some coaching

Um when I coached at Leander I was like assistant I had K readed and he was awesome and helped me out coaching this idiot but yeah s of step out on your own running programs and stuff it gets incredibly stressful and there’s no the other thing I didn’t realize is um

You’re there with everyone but you’re not part of the gang you’re the coach so that that relief of chatting and messing about and that all that kind of other stuff you you kind of don’t do cuz you you know other side so you don’t you have a different

Relationship you quite off on your own talking the other thing I didn’t realize you start talking to a group of athletes for like 5 minutes and they say nothing and they will just stare at you and you’re like am I talking English yep does that make sense I need to hear a

Yeah yeah oh yeah yeah and then 5 minutes later they completely lost the block I think it can be quite a lot more lonely than people think oh yeah coach he’s around he’s you know yeah yeah we see him we have a laugh with him whatever but yeah is it’s stressful yeah

And because you I really struggle to like get out of the athlete mentality and not constantly kind of be putting myself in their position be oh my god I’ve got to cut them or you know or or we need to do seat racing and someone’s going to lose and all this like stress

That is the horrible part of it is when you kind of cuz you think like being a coach oh yeah great you can help people’s dreams come true and all of it but then it’s kind of like you’ve also got kills some people’s dreams and

That’s kind of like oh oh yeah I hate that I still haven’t got used to it now I to do it no so so yeah so from 2001 2011 so 10 years at Maiden head and like you said you were kind of the start of the maiden

Head Junior Squad but I guess from that point on that actually become you know quite well-renowned as a as a decent Junior program yeah um yeah so 2001 um by that point that was when project awesome had happened okay so they had like a bit of a a younger Junior group

There um so then you had Ali Brooks Louise en twistle Dave Jones you had like a group there um like the ball was rolling with a junior program there uh and so I started then doing um some coaching with Dave Jones in my Gap year

Just as kind of you know to to do a bit coaching um and he was like ridiculously good good so it was quite it’s quite a good one to start with um and then I remember halfway through the season I was like is there anyone your age that’s kind of a similar

Sort of standard and he goes oh yeah there’s one lad uh called Sam Ashburn I was like well where does where does he wrow he goes oh you know Maiden head so there was another boy at the club that I had no idea about that actually was also

Very very good so then he came into the group the group then then I started coaching both of them um and they were j4s at that point um and they just like two it was like it was like two amazing athletes um and so started coaching them

That year and then I I can’t remember what they did they definitely won national schools in the double I think that year and then following year I went to Brooks for like a term I did a bit there uh uh no so I started at Brooks as my my

Plan was to go back into rowing again and I did about 6 weeks and then I was like the stupid thing I did was I took a year off cuz I’d kind of seen like none of none of my pals really are rowers they’re all you know my pals from school

So I lived like normal people for a little while um and then tried to go back into rowing um and I found it tough because I wasn’t living with rowers either so I’d kind of um go training and then come back on a Saturday and it would be like 2 2:30 in

The afternoon or something and my housemates would just be getting up or still be asleep yeah and I was so I just living on a very different kind of so I did it for about six weeks um and then yeah I was a s I just I need to have a

Break from it um so did so knocked it on the head yeah um and then was it uni uh probably I can’t remember how that was not not the whole year and then came back at the end of that year and started coaching um Dave and Sam again and they

Were j15s at that point and then um they then did the double and got the GB France slot as j15s ni so yeah and I think at National schools Sam Ashner won J5 single and Dave Jones got silver in j16 single this is where the singles was

Still National schools and then yeah jub France SLO and then off the back of that the following year I was then back in Maiden head so I started coaching those two plus another two Lads um that kind of then we sort of had a little group all very young um and the

Other two Lads both made the single of j15 final so again really good standard um and then that Year’s j6s Dave and Sam both um made it into the CP team uh out in Rena Rena 2004 um and then the following year um what was it 2005 what happened in

2005 oh no D it was when the cop was in in Dorney um uh yeah and then we just had like a a good a really good little group so it was a little group um uh but yeah just very successful and as a consequence everyone kind of turned

Up got stuck in every night um and then the following year Phil clap came into that so Phil clap was at cla’s court and then I had just a good little stalling group and so he came joined that skulling group um to begin with he was

Still rowing on the cla’s court and then in the end started rowing on the maiden head um and then C Delaney remember C Delany so hean came into that as well so had like it was just a great little group great little atmosphere and environment and very successful for

Those few years so you were just kind of attracting people were like seeing it seeing successful or enjoyable I don’t know what it was I think obviously you know we’d had some successes and um with Dave and Sam being so successful that such young ages and still having a few

Years so you know what I mean like they were J1 16s both made the national team and then had two more years so it’s quite then you know people then want to come to it but it’s I mean the only person well obviously we had KL come over from

Wallingford um but that wasn’t for very long I think that was only part of his last year because he was at um with Tony over at wenford uh and then yeah uh Phil started with us as a j15 um and he was already 69 or

Something like that as a j wow yeah um and then he uh as a j16 so then at Spring trials in j16 the coupe quad not Coupe quad the Munich quad was C Delaney Dave Jones and up until the very last race of uh the spring trials was Phil clap as well so

There like three from Maiden head in it and then Phil kind of I think he lost the seat race to steo or something I can’t remember um uh and then I was like okay yeah this will be my first opportunity to coach and then they bought in Tim Foster to

Coach it I was like I can’t even argue with that one uh so but then I got to work with Tim and it was amazing it was like a football again to like coach with David Beckham it was you know somebody I’d obsessed over like watched him so much

To see what he was doing and then there was little things like there was a really like really geeky rowing things and I was just kind of had to ask these I didn’t have to but I did ask these stupid questions so in 8 Burl out in 200

Seven um that was just after princess died died and on the medal pontin I realiz this is such a stupid thing so all of them had their world championship Allin ones and it said like 8 berlet 997 blah BL blah but he didn’t he just had a world championship order one with just

The GB flag on it and so I I said why why was that did he not he did he said oh yeah they just the was the wrong size order one so I got given a spare order it so weird that I asked him that I been the

Same thing so cuz he he did a a postgrad at at Keo College coaching Keb college and he’s friends with the with one of the guys who’s putting money in so he used to come in for the last five weeks so he’d come on our on our Easter

Training camp and then coached on men’s on first so yeah for two or three years like I sort of got to work with him which is wild and then when I became the director of rowing yeah but he was still involved and like sit down at the start

Of term and and Tim’s just like however I can help you you know you’re in charge it’s like am I am I am I leading a coaching team which involves Tim like what the hell is going on but he gave me so much confidence I guess in my a lot

Of imposter Sy start to hear you know he would say oh what what do you think about this and sort of give my opinion he’s like yeah that’s how I do it yeah yeah oh wow like I’m not like I’m not faking this yeah yeah and then he come

Out with some great little CU obviously I don’t know he say his job at that point was he worked for like the Olympic Association or something and he traveled the world looking at how different count in different sports trained which sounds like the most amazing job you could ever

Have so he had like different things that the Danish were doing and different you know so he kind of bought these different training ideas um which was great and really interesting to listen to um and yeah so I got to coach with him for a couple of months and then they

Didn’t send a quad to the world Champs that year calan got glandula fever uh Dave Jones um got unexplained over training or whatever it is unexplained underperformance syndrome um so yeah he kind of um I think he made the CP team but then I think he was the

Spare or I can’t remember exactly how it worked out but he didn’t end up doing it uh and so then that summer I coached Phil clap in the single at uh coup and also because he was only a j16 they gave him the um GB France

Slot so it’s great like he won the time trial at the beginning of final trials and Thuss was just like right it’s jub France this weekend you want to go just like sweet so packed our bags and went off to that and then did the coupe a few

Weeks later in wherever it was car remember that oh V I think yeah yeah yeah did you have anyone come up and be like this kid is not 16 like no way that reminds me of two 2009 in the end of 23 I was in the menate and then

We saw the Polish menate I was like they all look 40 I’m sorry is this definitely under 23 this funny like my neighbor was stroking that eight and he’s the guy who ultimately like got me into R oh really yeah and Tom Tom raced him in 2009 yeah i’ also

Um previously have would would credit Dave Jones with the um one of the reasons why we turned it around and beat the tiway schols in that TS Cup race because he refused to like drink or eat any anything in Spain because he thought he was going to get ill oh yeah and then

Just wasn’t drinking enough first two days got like heat stroke then had to take a couple days out the oh yeah yeah yeah we didn’t have any other spares so Ben Lewis comes and sit in the bow seat and I was at two yeah and then Ben Lewis

Just tears me a new one for like two days like do think that’s a catch get no I’m not even kidding like we’ve spoken this before but we’d be at the top end of Bolis and just me rowing in Donuts everyone in the eight doing nothing and just Ben being like get your

Blade in yeah yeah yeah now and like it made a big obviously had huge impact dve jump back just in general like having Ben sit in the boat and just pull out a few things we just lost a schols at uh what was it not Maro met so

We were like had the bit between our teeth and so yeah in a weird way da Dave getting ill was this is this is the fun thing about coaching though like you can see certain things but until you sit in the boat like there’s also s like so

That you can gain out of like feeling it it’s like oh we actually the timing of this b or like the balance or like you see certain things that like you cannot see from outside it is weird like even now if I hop in Bo I was going to say

Usually there’ll be things I’m working on the bank that will I’ll just be like forget about that and you’ll just feel completely different things will you still jump in then it’s just like more now like five years ago when I was 17 Stone Tom um probably not so much yeah

Yeah um but yeah nowadays I do jump in from time to time and I actually quite like it but yeah I generally will pick up on different things um and stuff like that I always just like it with um do you know Felipe salani or Sal sabani

So he was he coached Matt langd in 2001 and he now works with Shawn Bowen over at o I think he still does anyway um and so he was in 2001 he was there and I remember amelo my peirs partner being sat at um lunch and he was like so

What makes you such a good coach and he was like I know it sounds really weird but I can feel when the boats go well and I was always I thought that was a really weird answer and then since I got into coaching it’s like there’s a lot in

That but then we’re sorry we’re talking about something completely different but I think as far as the feel of a boat going well there’s you know as a coach you can you suddenly have that like that moment you oh yeah yeah well Ben Le said like but AIDS and boats like either move

Or they don’t like when it comes to like Marlo and Wallingford like you can tell if a crew is going to be like a ladies plate Contender but like looking at it goes like you’re not going to find like magic in the last like five weeks or

Something if you’ve had all year on that really I think you definitely can but that if not I’ve got nothing yeah I think it’s it’s uh everything else can be a distraction when you actually focus on is it is it are we going fast yeah yeah yeah look pretty or

You might not be exactly run the way like Ben wbr was sort talking about coaching what’s in front of you like cuz he people were saying at he oh yeah you’ve got this thing you do you know you’re quite upright aren’t you he I don’t I’m not trying to be it’s just

I’ve got athletes with limited flexibility so I’m just kind of work with what I’ve got and then that’s almost like people have been like oh you’re doing it different he’s like I’m just kind of getting the best out what’s in front of me yeah yeah yeah no is

Weird but um because then you also have a lot of coaches who are like they know how GB decided you want a row and they’re just kind of they’re not reacting to anything that’s going on they’re like you should be doing this this this and this but it’s weird I

Think a lot of people like that yeah and it was only really so I was taught and for like 20 years of rowing did like Fast spin the hands let it run over the toes which is what everyone yeah that’s like that’s what he did yeah and then I

Watched that um Drew Jin pod you know the the like the talk will it make the boat go fast have you seen that yeah I watched that oh yeah and I was just like oh you know thought nothing of it and then we went on a training camp to Long

Ridge so we used to do a training CL Court training camp at Long Ridge which is like five miles away but it was cuz we could do it residential so you know if people were there would always be reasons why people couldn’t get to training through the holiday so we put a

Residential cam on like 5 miles from where we wrote um but I remember beginning one of those camps we were like let’s just try it and then if it doesn’t work we’re where we are now if it works then we might have found something and we tried it through that

Camp and that all went well um and kind of since then but well since then I’ve completely changed again like my coaching but it was that thing that suddenly I questioned yeah what I’d always thought was just that’s just how you do it and then suddenly you kind of

Think oh so what actually what does make the boat go faster and then it’s kind of um yeah and then you start kind of actually thinking for yourself yeah which is which I hadn’t done probably before I was like this is what you got to do spin

The hands let it run over the toes and it’s kind of like you got to sit here at this rate and do that and all yeah it’s kind of yeah there was lots of things that um i’ never really sort of uh questioned that suddenly you’re like oh

Well maybe maybe that’s not right you know yeah yeah starts you get into sort of like biomechanics and hyrams and those kind of things and like the actual my dad’s always been sort of quite mechanical scientific noise like I remember telling him oh we got we got a fast time this

And that or something or whoever’s coming over to Henley is just post Prince and have just posted an insane time yeah but it’s really hot water over there and he was like what do you mean it’s really hot water and I was like well yeah I don’t actually know how to

Explain it but apparently everyone goes faster in hot water yeah and he kind of sort of sat down and worked it out was like oh okay yeah no that makes sense oh really I like oh there’s actually well obviously obviously there is something to it yeah just these things

You get told and you’re you just don’t question it I think molecules move faster or like higher heat let’s go with that yeah are you on camera are you willing are you going to hang your hat on this do you actually know not not not a scientist but uh this is Bro Science

Oh right yeah don’t worry neither we well I don’t know you might be but I’m no why’ you think I became AA yeah ro ro science yeah that’s so then yeah so I guess through Maiden head like you said this is the kind of time you’re starting to crush your stuff actually

Think about what you’re doing well Maiden head probably didn’t Maiden head was probably the whole time I was at Maiden head um it was probably just quite uh so like Derek the chapu coach me he was quite um a Taskmaster you know would would be considered everyone still

Like refers was old school and but even though even when it was considered old school people are still doing it now you know it just like we did a lot of hard work yeah um used to do 6500s like twice a week like flat out and he would have

Times and books for years and years and years like right we have to hit this speed if we want to do this I me it was great um but as a consequence we were just we were nails like this little crew just four Pals that just were just rinsing up and down every

Single day um and then I remember in the summer holidays he said if you can do 50 miles in a single in the day you can come and use he had this amazing snooker room at his house like the most phenomenal house you’ve ever seen um and

It was he would say if you if you do 50 miles in a day you can come and play snooker on my snooker table we were like sweet like that was it that we were going to try and do it and none of us

Did I mean 50 mil is so far in a single when we were like 14 years old that’s 80k yeah yeah lone yeah wow that’s nuts I think but I think my power got quite close he did like 60 70k I mean he’s still like barmy but

That was in the summer holidays not even in the middle of the season um and then since then I got invited over he did like a Christmas party used to a Christmas party every year like a snooker party I remember the first time I got invited it was how much of a

Privilege it was to play snooker on this table uh why did I even start talking about that what we used to do yeah yeah so um so we he used to be like a real Taskmaster and we used to do loads of hard work um and so and then I kind of

Took that into what I was doing at Maiden head and then you kind of pinch things from what people are doing I remember everyone used to talk about Brooks used to do 202020 and I was like sweet we’ll do that you know so we used

To a 20- minute Ergo a 5K run 20 I mean the most horrific session ever um so that was what Jack ban used to do um and and I like that session they still do it now but it was just just born out of like we don’t have enough oh right well

I mean it makes sense yeah we just split into three groups and then so they do 20 minutes I think well it used to be 20 minute urg 20 minute run 20 minute Ur yeah I think they still do that right or I mean I don’t know they’ve got the

Bikes now so maybe they’ll do like urg run bike but yeah it was just a way of getting everyone on the a it’s now become quite an Infamous and as a coach I was like right they I mean if somebody told me to do that now just like no be

Horrific but yeah so we used to have uh 20 it would be 10 minutes between the end of the urg and the start of the run and then it would be 10 minute between 10 minutes between the last person arriving back in the start of the next

Urg and the second urg they had to be within 150 MERS of their first urg I don’t know why that was just like a thing but yeah I mean yeah we just do that all the time horrific absolutely but as a consequence we just had these Lads that were just again just really

Tough Lads so um yeah um so yeah we we BAS basically used to run row in quite a kind of what would probably now be considered quite an oldfashioned style but there’s still lots of Crews and have starting to kind of go back that way again sort of spin

In the hands they run over the toes um doing that uh but yeah know we had a quite a successful little group there so like obviously Dave and Sam did very well uh in those years and we had Phil Clap car Delaney Max Gerard and then I

Went traveling so I wanted to kind of um like loads of people Lo of my pal went traveling my cousin you know the one who got me into rowing who was kind of like my idol he uh went traveling for a few years and I always wanted to do it but I

Also didn’t want to just do traveling for the sake of traveling so um in 2006 I got a job working for new wave at the world Champs when it was Dy cool and um when coaches so I got the job in the in the athlete area and whenever any coach

Came up with like a New Zealand or an Australian badge I would always say because it was about a week before I flew out and started traveling I’d always say you know I’m going to be out over this period would you mind if I came and

Jumped in with you and whatever you know and then um a lady who got me the job Karen Phillips from main club she was she knew all these people and she kind of ended up introducing me to all of them so I got introduced to n Donaldson

I didn’t know who n Donaldson was um and he was the head of Australian row so I kind of thought he must be quite a big deal um and said oh you know I’m kind of be out and he said oh well we got camp in December why don’t you just come on

That and I was like okay I mean you know we were nothing that would ever happen I don’t know whether it would still happen there nowadays which certainly wouldn’t happen here nowadays so I went to CRA for two weeks in December um and just went on this camera and I jumped in with

Loads of different coaches um nick uh what was the name of that really good scumming a really good scumming coach Nick grait Nick Nick Garrett Nick Garrett um jumped in with him jumped with loads of different people and just sat there just talking and then I was in

A launch with null doing timing when they were doing this like pairs Matrix or doubles Matrix for a few days just chatting away and all the rest of it and then we got to the end of it and he said oh we’re having a barbecue at the like

An end of Camp barbecue at mine if you want to come over and went there and there was like all these like May Akin like all these different coaches I was like this is weird and then walked in and on the wall there was a picture of

The awesome forsome with nol on their shoulders I was just like he awesome forsome what’s he was like Ah that’s a crew I used to coach I was like I’ve been start with this BL for two weeks I had no idea awesome cing so you were doing mostly you were like coaching on

That camp I wasn’t coaching I was just helping him with timing just shadowing other coaches just listening to them uh the ashes was on so I’d keep them up to date on what was going on that although we lost quite heavily so I wasn’t talking about it too much uh and then uh

So that was the second part of my trip so the first part I went to New Zealand and I went to uh West Ro Club in Oakland and Shadow shadowed the chap called was it John White no was name he was basically the chap who first coached Mahi

Dell uh so shadowed him at West End and then I went from there down to Cambridge and shadowed dick Tonks and like just stayed at the I mean it’s all been developed now but there used to be like a dorm there that you could stay on site

I remember I turned up and it was Pitch Black walked into this door freezing cold turned the light on and the whole room was just full of people cuz it was also where there was close by there was um fruit picking so all of the fruit

Pickers stayed in the dorm and I turned up at like 700 in the evening and obviously they work from like 4:00 a.m. so they were all in bed and I turn the light on like trying to lay my stuff out um so yeah spent like a week there and

Jumped in with a load of coaches um and then that was the last person I coached in by I shadowed in New Zealand then went over to Australia after a bit more traveling around New Zealand uh shadowed maybe that was John White from Sydney Rowing Club and then I went up to

Brisbane uh and one of my old coaches sh called Mark Partridge was at nudy College up there so jump in with him for a few sessions chuck with Joe Rodriguez at um university of Queensland who else I jump in with up there few other coaches around that neck of the woods

Then I went down to Cambra went in there uh tried to set up a few things I just basic would call ahead not one person said no literally everyone was just like yeah come on down I mean it was amazing so good and actually I basically had

Like um I had a notebook and I would ask like had set questions I would kind of ask each coach and I’d always because it was certain things I was interested in because when I first started coaching I was really young so I always struggled

To kind of I was always a very similar sort of age to the people I was coaching so that’s really weird to kind of keep that sort of Coach athlete sort of Separation because you know you talk about the same sort of stuff that they

Do and you know and all the rest of it um so I was always interested in that thing and I would always like look doing overriding like what was their style of coaching blah blah blah oh and I coached um Andy Rand I sorry shadowed Andy Randall as well uh who’s obviously now

The women’s Coach here um and he was so good like really really interesting and just a really nice Aura with him and I remember I went to a session with him at King School parata don’t know if you remember like 20 6 they came over and

Won yeah Henley um with a rid do you remember that urg score average oh no it was like sub 610 or so that param that was that was a crew of my school oh really guy he showed us he yeah we had this print out and we had like all of

Their names and it’s like it was insane yeah like six that crew 610 or something it was Savage but that but one of the things that I learned when when Shing him was like just the Simplicity of it so we turned I turned up once well I turned up

To I was only I only shaded him for like two or three sessions one or two at param mat and then one at Sydney Yi because he was sort Regional coach at that point um but this the session at parata was 14k rake 24 piece and so I

Turned up there no one was there the bus turned up with the boys they got off went into the changing room was got changed or maybe they were changed and dumped their bag this was early morning um they went into the boat house boat house had three boats to a rack and then

It had a few racks with just riggers on with quick release riggers so the boys would grab a boat grab a rigger they put the rigger on on the water and they pushed off like what I thought like 30 40 scars just pushed them off onto the

Water uh and I was like oh that’s different you know it was but it was again it was just a really practical way of making it work um and then they basically they had a start order from the finish order from the previous week they had 30 second gaps between everybody um

Nobody had rate meters but the coaches basically just took rates and they would shout it out and blah blah blah they rode up 7K round the bridge back 7K Finish Line was literally like 100 meters from the boat house so they then came in so the whole session would have

Taken them like an hour and five minutes something like that came in while they were on the water some parents had turned up and got breakfast ready they got off the water put their boat away rigger away went and got changed came out had breakfast the bus turned up they

Got on the bus and they drove back to school I was a that’s the most amazing use of tie just such a sounds like every coach’s dream yeah exactly yeah that never happen but then sat there go like yes but then he would also he said like every week

Something will go wrong yeah and uh there was a lad whose foot stretcher had come off and when it came off they kind of just took note of the time fixed it took note of the time again set him off again over 14k he was like every week

Something will happen but we do it every week and there’ll be patterns and the same people will turn and come on come out on top and generally we pretty much select the top eight the second eight off this or or it almost always works

Out that way um I to say such a simple session and such good use of the time that you’ve got um so that was really interesting and then yeah so then off the back of that I then came back so that was 0607 season so I came back in like January February of

07 no I can’t remember 07 um and started coaching Phil again so I kind of kept coaching him remotely and my old coach Derek had been doing some work with him um I’d organized I sort of basically organized his training and it was really good kind of he kind of

Didn’t go and join another club or anything just kept with that um Richard Bolton came down did quite a lot of work with him because he was the junior coach at the time um and then I came back in in the yeah early February went to the

February trial um and then uh yeah he obviously he had a really good year uh and then got into the quad that then went on came sixth in the final but they were they got a ban Jo with about 250 to go so that was him Drew Ford Chris Clark and John

Preston Preston Prescott Preston Preston yeah yeah um so that was four of them and then the following year um uh Phil obviously that was when his back went backed yeah are man that was yeah but it was weird one because him being so to so

Young we kind of knew that he needed to take his time with it so he had um loads of conditioning work over abyssum which is not really kind of very normal for a junior to get um and the physio because he had no signs of like any disc issues

So they were like he’s fine no numbness no pins of needles nothing like that he’s fine he’s fine he’s fine and then uh in fact it was um Matt Taran was talking about it he saido next to him yeah um was it was it a non-amp where

Notting him it wasting him and Phil got to the end of it and they were you know there was I mean there was a physio on the camp and they were saying oh you know he’s got no signs it’s probably just a bit of like a pull muscle or

Something like that he got to the end of that Ergo I don’t even know if he got to the end of it he’s just was in agony um and so if you know he’d had a scan by that point um but had been told he was

You know still good to train uh and then the physio called up and got the results from the scan and obviously it was just like it’s not good um so yeah so then he kind of went into a rehab program and then he didn’t really kind of pick it up

Again until uni after that and then obviously he won national well like National indoors at the weekend yeah yeah um so yeah he’s doing all right like phenomenal a lot of egg stuff yeah crazy yeah which is actually kind of the spring stuff I think is something that the sport needs

To I mean it’s quite exciting and yet as a sport we kind of we’re quite traditional with what we want to do and I think what he’s doing with that is great yeah we saw him at London Ro club uh like last year we were talking about

All that sort of stuff is some interesting things we uh yeah we talking about eggs and like yeah getting into the real specifics of stuff so yeah interesting way to take it talked about like finding 1% cuz like at at those Sprints at that sort of level like they

All matter if you can find two or three one perents that you can improve over the course of a year or something like that could be the difference between having a current world record and coming third yeah yeah yeah yeah no he’s um but I was like that would be like 500 met

That would be one for like the Arnold Classic or you know what I mean like it would be a really different way but wouldn’t that be amazing yeah like breaking Left Right Center you guys would be made up being pushed for by you definitely going to get Yeah well yeah I said to

Welsh R for the indoors I was like yeah we’ll come and do oh yeah just just in case anything breaks yeah yeah but that would be um yeah they it’s kind of weird that we have so many other sports have different distances so okay obviously we

‘ got the difference between 2 and 1500 in the next Olympics where it’s kind of you know it’s not that different um but to have like a you know like in canoeing at the Olympics or kaying whatever it is they have like a Sprint anded middle distance stuff I mean really different

To what we’ve had in the past but it would be really interesting to have that sort of thing they tried to do it with the super Sprints remember super Sprints yeah yeah yeah was that was like sponsored by Jaguar wasn’t it it was like red Graven jaguar and there was

Money there was prize money yeah and it was aame that never really kind of got going but it would be I mean it’s going to be like rowing now it’s not going to be a big money spinner yeah but it would be a really good little thing for the

Sport to have yeah even if you just had a few regatas uh where I don’t know for example in Autumn time all the Juniors would come in and like do a 1K at dney and then like they would double up or triple up in different disciplines like

We have that kind of thing in Poland yeah where you sometimes have races where you race you know your 2K rivals on a 500 me distance is like it is quite fun yeah do it at home countries now oh do they everyone does 2k and then the

The big boats the eight oh yeah of course they do Sprint which is quite fun and obviously yeah different different people tend to win those but you could have like a Sprint day you mean like if you had everyone okay you’ve done the 2000 rata so now in one day you’re going

To have you know the same amount of rounds I mean 500 M just keep it basics you don’t have to put a different marker in 500 M and you just get through the lot and that would be I think it would be really good and it wouldn’t really

Cost anything different for the sport just be a completely different sort of Avenue for it to kind of what don’t they are you one day are you advocating for a four day night school 500 Spring minut yeah like a Sprint season Could Happen yeah off the

Back of henle it’ be fun there’s a lot of people talking about trying to get a bit more fun back into R it’s very serious from a very young age um you know a lot of kids like 16 like full yeah four down the line but yeah

It’d be nice to have something a bit more fun yeah yeah maybe one day someone anyone listening F putting it together yeah also like even like on the indoor stuff like for example like er regatas uh is what we call them in Poland like they’re quite a big thing you have like

Probably five or six a year you all go in the 10 to but like in here like I don’t know how many people go to the indoors it’s not like a national trial sort of thing where you see National teamed ago yeah sometimes and it’s picked up a lot recent because of

CrossFit CrossFit that’s what I was going to say like I think hopefully like the indoor staff can maybe lead the way on like the Sprints and like all these other events like a 200 met flat out like what split can you hold down like that that’s that sort of thing like I

Think yeah and it’s I guess on the indoors it’s a lot easier to do those different things as well yeah but yeah I remember the national team us to have like Colin Greenway I remember him with his ponytail on the front of like concept 2 record catalog or like

Magazine or whatever it was yeah and I remember there was a picture of Greg cell in an all-in-one I don’t know if I still got the Allin one it was just a like a Union Jack the whole or was a Union Jack it’s so cool I I’m pretty

Sure I had a paper cut out from I think it’s from the newspaper would have been 0506 or something like that and it was an article from Indoor Range championships yeah and it was like uh it was like something like 13 13 seen British athletes go under six oh right

Oh really at that time like he would not even the whole Squad was going yeah yeah yeah no I know isn’t that weird and then Shep’s now got like 30 sub sixes to pick from you so it’s weird it’s kind of it’s crazy how Direction I think I think even

Like some senior teams like outside of Britain like Senior Team yeah like still now yeah even even now like not everyone got like 38 worth some six minutes or something I mean like yeah that’s crazy I I don’t think the entire poce team is

Under six or if they are then like not a lot of them are under 550 they’ll be only like a very select few people I don’t think the 2008 were all sub6 I think I remember hearing trap more was I don’t know he might say otherwise but

Yeah Ste trapmore I think Andrew Lindsay was another guy about I don’t know whether they were sub six I no care he one it’s not everything what will make the Bir Go how much of it you apply who was it the other day who was saying like you can

Have a 545 but you’re only applying 610 or you can have a 6 minute and apply all of it yeah or you putting down a 545 and then releaseing a 6:30 yeah yeah that I think that was Aldridge yeah yeah yeah yeah he a lot of that so then I guess

Coming like towards Maiden head like the decision to move to CLA cour was that opportunity to be in charge well there’s there’s one more thing that I wanted to touch on that Ma head and that was a young freshly faed chap called Jack bone on oh yeah I wanted to talk about like

How he started rowing and also like he tried I think for the four League quad like when he was like either 12 or 14 yeah yeah yeah so he um he was WR his dad used to write Maiden head and then Jack started run there from a really

Young age um and then I think I started coaching in beginning of it was either end of j14 or yeah it must have been end of j14 beginning of j15 um and he uh he just used to be like everyone I remember him doing an ergo

Just going off like about hell I like just chill chill chill um but still pulling like a ridiculous score for a j14 um and then it would have been the end of j14 yeah and then j15 he kind of came into the group um so who would we be had in the

Group at that time it was a really good it was just a great little Squad so that was kind of a a squad that sort of built up after um so I started working with a chat called John trell who was running a group down there and then I helped him

Along with that um and then um so we had we had you know that about yeah Rob Ashner was in that Jack Bowman uh eron hn was in it for a year I did thre with him as well he did right 2010 in Belarus right was that in the four the Cox 4

Yeah yeah yeah yeah um there was it was a really good little group there um and yeah and Jack was one of them he would that was the 20220 era like it was very kind of old school training but yeah they they were very successful we we won

Schools head National Junior scy we were the that at that point we were very much the group that would do well at the school’s head and then kind of would sort of stay that speed when everyone else s picked up speed um and yeah so he went through

Um trials with us at that time um and yeah as a J5 I think he made it into either our second vat or our top boat yeah like for I think yeah yeah he might have mentioned that like you called him up like not even like that long before

We racing and I was just like you fancy coming down cuz I think he pulled like as a j15 I think he still pulled like a sub6 30 wow something massive um so he came came in there and did some seat racing with us I think he was in the

Second boat um uh and then um did very well and then j16 uh they It Was a Very Good Year again and he went to so that would have been 2010 I think uh so that was when the world Champs was in revena not Rea what’s the one in near Prague rich rich

Yeah yeah um so he was in the quad for that year which I coached at the World Champ as well um and came fourth um and then the following year 2011 he was in the court again um at London oh not London at dney um yeah it was just great great little

Time another really good group so we had uh Rob Rob Ashner Jack bone one there’s another lad called Tom hope do you remember Tom hope I think yeah I think i’ might have like cross passed with him he won he was 5′ n 62 kilos on one champ

Single at National schools like unreal like genuinely the best race I’ve ever watched so it’s him Angus groom um uh Williams from sideway scholar as well there was like a really good group um in the final and it was like so Jack and Rob ashbo in the double in the race

After two races after so Tom went off in the single that race and uh just kind of we just said like just stick in the field stick in the field sticking the field and then it got to like a thousand and him and Angus um sort of like

Started moving away and then he just stuck with Angus stuck with Angus stuck with Angus and then like 250 to go just started kind of creeping creeping creeping and then came through in the last little bit um but phenomenal R obviously Angus has done pretty well

Since um but yeah that was that was amazing like really really cool because he’s just such an amazing bloke Tom um just such a nice chat so for him to do that we were kind of doing C Wheels was brilliant yeah well Jack Jack said just

Even about the era of coaching he said like you basically taught all of them how to just perfectly nail themselves on the orgo leave everything out in the training and then just get like really fast like find your limits and everything yeah it wasn’t very scientific but there was just it was

Just hard training it was kind of what I’d done so it was just kind of doing that again um but there’s a there’s a science well yeah I guess there is yeah yeah and then ultimately that you guys have won Foley in 2012 uh not

2012 so then he uh so that was kind of when so 2012 I then uh took on cla’s Court and then that was when he went uh with Bay he won he won uh heny in 2012 with B oh my mistake so yes sorry so yeah Phil clap won um heny with Henny

Rowan Club in F Chris Clark Drew Ford and Alex Walker in 2007 um and that was yeah so that yeah that was another that was the first kind of Hy win um that I’d been involved with and then yeah so he then he won in 2012 with uh bay yeah starting his nine-year

Winning streak yeah yeah like Madness was that um was Robin D was coaching him uh 2012 would have been Robin yeah yeah yeah so I think that was might have been Robin’s first win as well maybe yeah yeah yeah yeah because then Robin won again in 2014 and 2015

Yes yeah yeah that was right so he had one year off they nearly won in 2013 as well didn’t they oh I think though I think there was like a j16 crew pretty much in the finals yeah and didn’t the ball like the whole ball Squad went on and then

Won Junior yeah everything yeah it was crazy like they were pretty Untouchable in the 2014 2015 season yeah what he was doing was amazing um and actually he was a big help to me kind of later on as well um I had a meeting with him when he

Became Junior head coach and I was just like right I’ll buy you coffee and I satting down I was like right so how are they going so fast and he was brilliant he was just like an open book and just told me everything um and I just made notes and

Just kept on making notes and um a lot of which I still use now so yeah I I heard a lot to him he was great um and a really good P of mine as well so it was very sad obviously once um heard the news I read of him Leander for little

Bit and uh I remember I sat next on the playe to Bolis cam once like man he’s had a serious life he done like so much other stuff he telling me about when he was like working at Wimbledon and all sorts but then I remember we’re talking about back problems cuz I that’s

Probably the first year I’ve had some back problems and he had an issue and he’d rabed at Welsh Institute of sport right and he said he was talking to the doctor and the doctor was like well what what are our aims so I think he’d had an

Injection and he was taking it slow and he’s like I just you know I just want to get back to like an acceptable daily level of backpack pain and the doctor’s like Robin the acceptable level of back pain on a daily basis is no back pain and like oh yeah athlete Minds yeah

I that stuck with me as well for a long time because you know same thing when you say oh as long as it doesn’t hurt too bad and then happen to be like no that’s not good long-term plan yeah yeah yeah yeah no he was uh phenomenal

Amazing that that then that explains the the speed in 2016 which Claire’s called had but we’ll get to that in a minute yeah um yeah so yeah I guess um yeah so moving on to cla’s court like was that the opportunity to kind of take things on I basically started coaching there

2007 just part-time yeah um and I did that alongside um uh alongside coach that maidenhead really um but I wasn’t in charge I was just kind of like a session coach would probably would be called um I think that’s the best kind of coaching no responsibility just get to

Turn up and do the funit yeah yeah turn up see what’s in front of you right goodbye cuz there had actually been a gappy there like years previous what’s a gappy like a Gaia coach oh a year there or maybe not even a whole year might have been two terms there um previously

So I didn’t know the place obviously they were out made it have done you know since they first started really um so yeah 201 uh was January 2012 I started as head of head of rowing there um and it was kind of it was me and

Um uh Chris Clark was coaching there as well and um we kind of saw was sort sort of thought sort of s sort of thought there was a pathway through for it to be successful um so yeah so we then kind of took it on and we saw right you know

Everyone wants to be I don’t know if you remember Alex hwood took on a few different places he took on Pangborn I remember he took it on in like the September and then they won Henley in the July and he was like oh yeah well that must be doable and then but then

Cla’s cour there was just beyond year 10 there was barely anybody rowing it was kind of like year n they started in year seven so year 7 8 9 10 and then kind of by the time they got to the later years it’ either done it for too long or it

Just kind of didn’t really kind of exist Beyond sort of year 11-ish or year 10 really um so then we started with a a great group in the year nine uh of whatever that would have been 2012 they might have even been year 9 in 2011 so

Kind of I think I knew that I was taking over ahead of time so we so started with that year nine group and then we had year 9 and 10 and then year 9 10 11 and we just let it kind of fill the club so

Trickle up the club and the boat club then kind of got bigger and bigger year on year and it was quite weird because kind of taking it on we said it’s it’s completely open to everybody but if you’re coming down you you’re you’re doing the training which is on that day

Which meant to begin with it wasn’t very popular because we come within the school because we lost people because you had people that wanted to come to rowing because they got to go and buy sweets at the the shop or you got people that wanted to just go and do their own

Thing on the water and like you know like everyone is welcome you have to do what’s on the program um so yes we lost I mean it wasn’t many we lost a couple of people to begin with so that was kind of difficult conversations to kind of

Have within the school um and people and quite rightly asking questions because they didn’t know what was to come you know um so then we then found ourselves in a situation where we were kind of recruiting the same amount of people but we stopped losing people so we

Previously had been kind of you know really good recruitment process but there was also a decruitment process where people would kind of come in do the sport just as kind of like to just have a go but not really it wouldn’t really tie you know they wouldn’t take

It home with them you know um so then in 201 12 that summer we got our first kind of national medal for a few years so one of the coaches with us now John reyer so he was there back to when it kind of first was set up years previous um and

Uh so it’s not like we’ve come from nothing so like then the early ’90s it set up in 84 every single badge has got 85 written on it because I asked John what year the boat club started and he said was 1985 so okay sweet so 85 on

Everything and then CD riches you know from Westminster like who chap who’s been in charge of the schools head for a long time done like you name it he’s done it with WR um he happened to be it glaz I didn’t know this and he came over

To me and he looked at my Blazer and he went you know that’s wrong I was just like I was too late now 84 so it’s 85 as far as everything concerned but it’s good little you know boring rowing trivia question yeah that’s going to

Come out in the pub quiz yeah yeah very Niche pub quiz oh we had who was it who said that they we’ve had two athletes who said they Reon or they got recommended to have like the best rowing knowledge oh yeah so we’re going to do a

With Lauren Henry and imaging Grant on like the Roaring keep that that could be like um that could be like the deciding round anyone gets that I’ll be really surprised three people that know it well more well you’ve had an you’ve had answers you just had to listen to the

Episode you know well technically um talk about rewriting history so yeah that was kind of set up by a chat called Peter ja and then uh cidi Richie is obviously in charge or was involved at that time then John R kind of took charge early on um Mark

Partridge and they had um the school didn’t actually have a sixth form early on so there was a chat called Ben Webb who was at the school until sixth form and then there wasn’t a sixth form to for him to go into so then he joined Maiden head and um in

94 uh he won Henley or won the Foley with it was Maiden at R Club winds zorian that was John Ray was coaching that and then um there was another chap who I now rot with called John gelling um who uh won the Foley with Winds of boys um with wiy actually in

Charge no at Windsor oh yeah yeah what you like 2017 uh no Mark Wilkinson oh oh what the win so he won in 97 998 oh sorry yeah yeah yeah but kind of um then it kind of uh was then had a bit of a

Well he had a good good ERA just in different ways really um and then yeah 20 12 we kind of took it on they won its first national medal with j14 quads silver and j14 quads in 2012 which was like our um but it was kind of like that

Was enough to get the ball rolling kind of like the ball the sport was being done well and uh in fact one of the people in that boat was Alex Richardson who was in the 2016 and then is now kind of head head boys coach at the school so

He’s kind of low as quite a um big guy big part of the program um and then 20 so that’s was 2012 2013 we qualified our first non-composite crew for Henley which was a like that was it sound sounds like a nothing result but it was

Massive result kind of got it got the ball rolling as far as um what we’d been saying about what if you do the training this x y and Zed will happen and then obviously people have been to Henley I think we had another crew trying to qualify that didn’t qualify um but you

Know then that kind of Henley Obsession starts within the boat club that’s exactly what Ben wellburn spoke about when he moved to Herford Cathedral School here he he asked kids like what what you know what is her cedal Rome mean to you and he’s like oh

Well we have fun but we lose and then he was like he kind of got hold of these four guys who thought could do something really special so he just invested everything in them gave everyone else to all the other coaches spent a year they

Won I think they won Nat schs and then went on and did some good stuff at Henley yeah and that was the Catalyst for everyone else to be like oh we can we can do this I thought that was a really interesting like you said you

Said oh it’s like a non thing but like in the school it’s just enough to light the fire yeah yeah to then build year after and also it’s a weird one though because people especially being a maiden head like Henry’s on our doorstep so people don’t you know people go there

From all over the world it’s like a massive deal and yet it’s for some people within the school they don’t know rowing it would be like the equivalent was going to you know some of small little local Riata yeah yeah um but yeah so that was kind of enough to get the ball

Rolling and then had a few other National medals at the end of that year um which again was just kind of just kept it the momentum building and then uh 20 so was 2013 2014 qualified again 2015 qualified did round we had Johnny Cameron who’s now with Brooks um you

Know jonno yeah yeah I’ve raced against him he’s been all over yeah yeah so he he’s been to Princeton he was at Boston oh was it Boston he also went to Leander for a bit he was at and then now he’s at Brooks um yeah so

He uh qu he got selected for the coupe team so that was like our first um International like individual we’ had kind of GB France and Anglo French and stuff that was in Hungary wasn’t it 2015 uh yeah it was what was the name of Z

Yeah that was it Z you called it was that wrong no well I don’t know hung I’m I’m not hunger well you know but I know that cuz I I was tring for that Riata oh right really I came third in Poland but he didn’t pick me so oh no still bitter

Oh right yeah yeah um so he qualified that year and that was again it was just another piece of the puzzle but we hadn’t um uh we hadn’t ever got a crew into like a champ standard final like we’d never had a a double single or any oh no

S we had had singles pre previously uh like but in that area we’d been trying to knock on the door of getting into that champ quads fight yeah uh and then 2016 yeah so what happened cuz I from going 2015 to making one round of Henley then four months later under 19 Brit

Chums you guys just just pipped us we yeah oh yeah just pipped us I remember that cuz like in the semi-final we were just ahead and and then in the final I think it came down to like a second or something that was a closest Finish

Leander had that year yeah was B in that no Bal Bal wasn’t in that crew but then he at cla’s cor yeah yeah but then they took me out of the boat and then uh we never got that close again my claim to fa um yeah but you had B yeah yeah yeah

So then he um didn’t stay on at the school for sixth form so which is why he then went to uh leanda yeah um but yeah so that we just had a really good group and um I think at that point it would have been um it wouldn’t have been the whole crew

At that point um Finley Alex and Cosley and Cosley and there’s another lad called Ben Smith who got ill halfway through the year oh okay um so yeah so uh which obviously you know very difficult for him um but he was really good very supportive of the

Group and oh Ben Smith he he does like a load of stuff on social media he’s like they got health coach or something he’s living the life and stuff yeah yeah I I followed him for a while yeah oh right I was like oh he’s done rowing hang on

What year cuz he kind of looks he already been in that boat so he’s done home countries that year as well he did in the four yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I’ve done I’ve done my research um so yeah so then and then we kind of um that was the year actually

Early season when I think it was Robin’s first season as Junior coach and kind of so got some ideas from him there was a loads of different pieces of puzzles well different puzzles that kind of fell into place in that season so as far as kind of I’ve been coaching for 2016 or

15 years by that point and it was just one of those years where just a lot happened in the in the space to 12 months basically um as far as how we approached the season and then we just had you know timing wise we had four

Well five five boys all knocking on the door of that crew um and then yeah so we had that that wi at that point um came third or second at the fors head never won the fors head literally never won it always wanted to especially when it used

To be free bre Brewery presentation afterwards and all rest of it what was it oh no one told yeah uh I’ve won it a couple times cuz I um I have no skulling points oh really uh I never won any at school and I went

To leanda and then even when I did under 23s at the time it was still where they’d give you 12 in your discipline but they wouldn’t add any now they give you 12 across the board oh do they so every year it’s like bang Tom in the

Bottom quad with like I think one you did it with Jack like anyone who came in with like no points you get like go go and go and win whatever it was at the time senior 4 or something I always joked at the end of finishing with GB I

Should go and do some like novice single like thinking like bule regata then but then I was like but what if I don’t win but people used to do that I remember turning up like brettas and you’d be like how on a minute they were

Like a World Cup round last week um so um uh yes so we just had a very good group and then went to the school’s head that year and um they came and sorry and they just had a good row nothing special and then the result came out afterward

And we kind of didn’t expect to be where we needed to be at that point we wanted to just be kind of there or thereabouts and so then we they won schools head at that at that time in the season that was quite I was oh you know maybe we’re a

Bit faster than we thought um and then went on to uh National schools and um we changed the way we race changed the way we rode kind of from pre not maybe not Chang the way we rode but we kind of had another piece of the puzzle fell into

Place with this kind of technical model that we worked to that season and then um uh so yeah had a successful National schools one there and then it was kind of five weeks out from Henley at that point um and kind of bought the crew together a little bit more did a few

More kind of sprinkled a bit more dust and more rest on it uh nothing illegal by the way I’m uh yeah you know and then obviously it was a you know successful Henley campaign um which was actually yeah was was amazing because it was um clarky and

I and kind of set that stall out early on I put a bet down with the rugby coaches that we would win Henley in within four years and that was on a uh rugby tour in September so they took four years from that se or no in the

October they took four years from that oober I meant four Henley so they said I hadn’t succeeded oh bastard but uh yeah yeah so that was um yeah the fourth year uh and it came together it was like you know like now you look back was like oh

Yeah sweet you just progress nicely and then they ended up with a win it’s kind of like it’s not how it works at the time so so what special sprinkle dust did you did you put on there like that change I think a lot of say the

Schoolboy ring like um you just won’t get the athletes every year like you’re going to need but that means you have to put the processes and the things in place so that when you do get the crew everything’s ready to go you can’t wait for the crew and

No exactly so what were some of those things do you think you maybe put in place um I mean it was it was very uh it was very small boat club that point so when we won there was 36 people pretty much the whole the whole boat club was

36 rowers from j14 through to to siik form um which is actually very similar to the girls well not even not very similar the girls side of the boat club when they won in 2022 there was I think nine girls in the whole boat club wow so

Yeah yeah it was like quite a good percentage of them on Henley amazing um but yeah which in some ways you think oh that’s difficult because you know we don’t have to the you know the bottom of the pyramid to choose from but then I don’t know I think everyone’s got their

Own challenges in different boat clubs and different um setups and I think this is kind of like we didn’t have many numbers to deal with but that meant that you know we knew that the numbers we had needed to be developed and so it was always a process the the focus is always

On development um and yeah so we had 36 people and then within 18 months it had basically doubled in size kind of you know sort of thing that it kind of attracts people within the school to it yeah upward spiral yeah yeah and then um so girls rowing had always kind of been

Um at the school but had because it was on a slightly different timetable the girls site and the boys site a slightly different timetable so they weren’t a ever able to really kind of break through and then the timetable changed which is why now girls are around at the

Schools kind of picked up in a in a big way um in fact we kind of quadrupled in size in September just gone on the girls side so which is amazing but obviously equipment wise now we need to kind of pull all the equipment together so we

Able for them to be able to train yeah as far as what we did that year differently um uh what did we do differently I mean we did um we made sure that we peaked at the right time which I don’t think I’d ever really kind of thought about before

Um I think I just thought train was training and you just did you just tried to go fast all the time never thought about that kind of being layered and trying to actually bring together different pieces of the puzzle I it was one of the things that Robin actually uh

Said in that conversation I had with him he’s like if you give them everything and then they lose then like how do you pick them back up like so it’s kind of you know we only really kind of they only get the full treatment now for Henley prior to that there’s always kind

Of something held back whether it’s a piece of kick whether it’s a training phase whether it’s a whatever it might be you know there’s lots of different layers that we bring out kind of across the year so we kind of POS possibly have now kind of got this bit of reputation

For kind of finding Speed come Henley but it’s kind of like because we’re trying to find speed in completely so it’s not that we’re trying to not find speed it’s just that we’ll be trying to find speed through being more powerful than the gym at a certain point which

Obviously is going to be more of a challenge than if you actually put together the amount of pieces that you need to put together or whatever it might be later in the year um or it might be that we just haven’t set the boat up and they’re kind of just on a

Very basic rig until a certain point or it might be I don’t know whatever it might be we trying to we kind of always have a another layer yeah you keep a few tricks up in your sleeve and also and almost you have to do it at the expense

Of results sometimes which is you know and as long as you kind you have to set what you’re thinking is your you know as long as we’re within this range we’re doing all right we’re on track um which is very kind of difficult to sometimes get people’s

Head drowned and that you’re just like right you know this is what success you know that’s I think that’s the big thing what does success look like to us at this race or this Riata or whatever it might be um and kind of work into your own criteria and I think that’s that’s

One of the big changes I work I work with a sports psychologist uh called Allison matland who was just brilliant um and she completely changed the way in which I cuz I said to her you know she came and basically did a careers talk on sports psychology at the

School uh which I went and watched just because I am interested in sports psychology and um at the end of the talk she had a really good kind of like manner to her and very good um Aura and you know I thought okay you you should

Be a great person so I went to SP after I was like we’ve got ran team would you be interested and be up for coming to do some work with them and she said well if you’re the coach it would probably be better if I work with you and then you

Work with them and then if you feel you still need to bring me in then I’ll come in I that’s different already you know um so I work with her a lot about kind of um I mean it was comedically bad as to I could not get my

Head round what she was trying to explain to me I don’t know if you’ve ever seen The Simpsons when they’re talking about a gas explosion to H to Homer have you ever seen this and they have to like draw out sketches and act show him like the stove and it was kind

Of like was embarrassing how I just couldn’t understand what she was saying to me and then about 5 minutes before the end of the first hour with there I was just like ah right it was another one of those ones where just kind of lying in bed goes around your head um so

That that was a big she she made a big impact on what we kind of how we worked going into races um and and have done since TR she’s been very very helpful I’ve used it a load of time since then um it sounds like one part of it being

Like um using everything to for you for your advant whatever A G is like getting the most out of it that you want for it and also understanding like yeah like we said with Oxford colleges and stuff it takes a lot longer to maybe rebuild or or build a structure or a way

That we want to row so that in 6 months time we’re faster than the people who are a lot faster than now like we could be fast at this or we don’t care out and that a lot of other crews are doing that just like how do we get instant speed

Right leave The Blaze on the water Bo they’ll be faster than this now but there’s like a process to being faster than later on yeah it’s it’s basically that nail in the process yeah if you do that then it will take care of itself post is

Ding um so that was one of the big things you changed um but I mean it’s kind of it’s also quite helpful having some really good athletes to work with and that’s the same thing throughout all of this you know you think of the people that we’ve talked about there’s been

Some great athletes through that period um so yeah it’s not kind of you know it’s not just like oh you know XY Z it was it was some very very um talented athletes that we could do different things with yeah and that year we had a

Um you know just a very very good group of boys um and then off the back of that year we had um oie Cosley was the spare scholar for the C no sorry no OE kley was the scolar for the coupe FY Grom was the spare scholar for the CP for the

Coupe uh we then had um Finley was also in the England four with is Ben Smith jonno and Alex as well um and then kind of that was like a like a bit of a bubble that sort of then finished at the school uh and then the following year we

Had Costo back um just like a it was like a new we had we knew we had a new group kind come through and being such a small setup we knew it was always kind of it’s not like undulating it’s kind of there’s always we have to rework to kind

Of get things so we thought the following year if we can get into the champ schools final again that would have steadied the ship it would have been me that we still on the map and all the rest of it um and Costo did very well through trials that year he then

Went on and got a silver at the junior worlds in the quad that year with um Victor and some you know the the winds boys Lads um yeah because that was the final like in 2017 you had a CLA Cod versus winds boy final so like you’re

Talking about making champ a final but let alone you make Henley yeah yeah but I mean it was completely Biz it was one of those ones I’ve never had a heny like it to be perfectly honest it was close it was really really close I remember

And it was also it’s kind of like we so National schools it came fourth and I think at the schools head that year was when it was shorten to 1,500 meters and our boys they kind of over the Tano said it’s now going to be from the start to

The hole in the wall not hole in the wall the the band standand oh oh yeah not much so nothing yeah and our Lads asked and said how far is how long is it between the star and the Band Stand and the other gu said how long is a piece of

String and that was his answer start is that at the start do you know who’s normally at the start it’s normally Fred smallbone oh is that would make sense um so they went over like I was like they came I think they came at 17th and 35 seconds off of Maiden head

Who won it over 1500 meters and I was like that’s like National schools champ final is going to be a tough one but it was kind of one of those ones where you kind of like right do we try and dissect it or do we just write it off and I

Think we just like don’t worry about it boys let’s just forget about it got in the mini bus home when got some KFC on the way you know just one of those ones just write the day off and just you know so then National schools rata like the

Biggest speech of the whole season was National schools semi-final because it was just like we just got to get into that final um so you know they’re full in the trenches speech everything thrown out boys were pumped as anything made into the final like we just like that’s

It the season we we we’re there um and then in the final went off well um and they came fourth I think there were nine second I think it was I can’t even remember who won it was it nander that won that year either leand or Windsor

Boy who was like they had a rivalry that year could have been either leand winds boys or made one of those three1 yeah and I know that we 9 seconds off I was like right it’s quite a short amount of time to turn 9 seconds um I think it

Might have been made I can’t remember anyway um so then went away kind of just kept on trying out different lineups trying out different things you know like looking in the bag pulling out different toys and sometimes that’s the LI the benefit you have yeah you’re not

In the lead you’ve got a big chunk to make up let and the winner doesn’t get that isn’t that nuts yeah yeah um so then it was about uh we got video actually 10 days out and it still wasn’t the lineup that ended up racing and so I think we went to

Dy about the weekend before we moved there on the Wednesday on Thursday or something um I tried out a lineup it was terrible but I hadn’t got my toolbox with me so we were like right we’ll go back to the National schools lineup but I haven’t got my toolbox and we’ll go

And try it again we went out and tried it again and it went better it was one of those ones where so then we moved to Henley I was like well we’ll try it once more had a really good session we were like right okay but then we just kept on

Every session it got better and better and better and then each round you know you put together more and more and more of a race um and then it was one of those ones where we came up against Maiden in the semi-final and so it’s like my club

That I’ve been at since I was 13 against cla’s court so it was quite a cool little uh you know quite a cool cool thing to be part of and you both were at the same the at the same boat house but because we’re quite R you know at that

Point big rivals so haven’t really done much together um so yeah and just boys put together like a really good race and then suddenly we’re in the final we was like well this is a weird one um so kind of come the final I think it was one of

Those ones where one of those years where everyone’s just kind of like what you know like you’re in the final and that that was it we was it was one of those things where he like you’re in the final let’s just see what we can do um

We said like right well you know halfway to basically hanback Bridge that’s going to be you know if you can keep yourself in touch and do something there you’re going to be there or thereabouts and you can hear now on the commentary so you got the commentary obviously on the

Video and then you got the commentary within stewards where there you know when they kind of they just go up an octave and lightning sign they’re like Players Court rating bloody bloody blah winds boy rting to her and he says uh and wind boy lead by a quarter of elect

And then almost as soon as he stops talking he then tells you the rates again this is on the basically the start of the enclosures um and he goes winds boys a raise their race of striking whatever close SC raise their races strikes whatever and then he pauses and he goes

And the crews are level and you just hear the you can hear the crowd it’s because I watched it like a thousand times you can hear the crowd go and then it kicks off and then winds boys R away but it was kind of it was just one of

Those ones where to be leveled in the enclosures these Four Lads that had just just given everything I mean it was just like the most phenomenal crew because it was you know we had um three boys that couldn’t even get into trials let alone kind of be knocking on the door or

Anything like that hadn’t even got into the trials process yeah oie Cosley obviously was phenomenal um but yeah just did everything right and yeah and put together it was one of those it feel it was almost a weird one because it’s a year that feels like a win because as

Far as the process is concerned it was just every every single thing that they could have done you beat all your markers yeah just if there was one crew that was better doesn’t mean you didn’t have the the best year and they got the record they got the the course record

Really just annoyingly somebody had got it one second before them that it blower the bar and then yeah and then also like well that year you’ve made up nine seconds between n and final to the winners and I I know costy doesn’t talk much but you worked so high in that race

I doubt he spoke for a week up yeah yeah that was amazing yeah Windsor Maiden Head cla’s Court top three crews in an event that’s you know what’s normally over subscribed by about 30 crw you know that’s pretty yeah and leand that’s pretty pretty awesome isn’t it bizarre though that you’ve got like

That epicenter I think the first time it had left the hems Valley was when skullers won it a couple of years back and it’s just just every it always stays within 10 miles of the Riata people come from all over the world and yeah well you’ve got ballay Leander

Windsor CLA cord Maiden head I guess the trick is just to do your seat racing of D but yeah I mean it’s kind of it is weird though that that’s the case um yeah I don’t know why not exactly home water but I guess they have more time on

It yeah Autumn I guess also just sculling in this area like you win if you get win it Marlo spring like one of the smaller iats probably got to be one of the top in the country so it’s just kind of like the standard is just set

Very early on you know you’ve got to achieve something that’s weird like a weird level was it like Michael Ando all of those artists that were in the same sort of area and just bounced off one another and as a comes CLA just Claire’s just comparing cla’s called to

Michaelangelo well you built it so you have the right to do that a masterpiece I I like that analogy yeah yeah that’s good I’m I’m going to use it no one no one goes for fast without any competition you got there’s got to be someone pushing you pushing you to

That performance I mean there’s yeah it’s um it’s been it’s a like a I think it’s an era you know obviously it’s going to change there will be people that will take that on but it’s yeah it’s cool little era and also I think those two finals being against Windsor

Obviously wind’s the the the the crew like the club that have had such a like a have made such a stamp on that event ever since it started like it makes it you feel like you’re in a class final if you’re against sort of thing yeah plus

Also like it’s interesting the way they wrote because they they don’t historically have the biggest guys they they have quite a few j16 sometimes in their like first squads racing the finals and you just think like wow they’re not even wearing all ones they’re wearing like half gits with like

Shorts who’s head coach over there wiy so oh yeah yeah yeah so it’s um he’s doing a cracking job yeah yeah amazing amazing that is kind of yeah and you know as much as we might be Rivals like w is at my wedding when I was at Junior

Worlds in duberg obviously I was with Amelia Hernandez from um winter boys who actually lived at Mark wilky lived at his house at that point as well so he kind of came out yeah so I’ve known it for a long time so we might be Rivals

With sending all of them but we got on well and yeah yeah small world yeah yeah very small world um yeah and then recently sort of dipping your toe I say recently but obviously we heard we saw the the campaign from from Henley the pl

Yeah yeah so um so it’s a weird one so I basically um so we had another fast crew from the school in 2019 and then covid happened and then um in 2019 I had um my first child um so uh well I didn’t have him my wife had

Him so we had our first child Walt and um then covid hit and then we’ve had Molly as well um so it’s just a little bit of a different time and I got to a point in the end where I don’t I didn’t feel I was doing a good enough job with

My coaching and also at the same time I wasn’t doing a good enough job with my parenting so kind of something had to go um so uh I spoke to the school just said like I carry on doing it how I’m doing it and they were great and they said we

Don’t want to lose lose you so we kind of they created a role which was um basically try and spread uh the culture we bu built within the boat club across other sports within the schools and to kind of support the other sports and all

The rest of it that’s cool so it was a great little role um but it was it was it was quite challenging because obviously I’m not I’m not in charge of any of those other sports I’m just there to support the coaches and and bits and

Pieces like that um and so I went alongside doing that role I started coaching the j14 boys at CLA cor which I hadn’t done in 10 years or so kind of since we started making the boat club um but you know so it’s it’s very very different challenge but I kind

Of so from my point of VI I feel like I’m I’m starting to develop again as a coach by doing that sort of thing kind of um I’d kind of been the head of boys roow or head of rowing them but it was kind of primarily boys for a long time

And and obviously at Maiden head we kind of going down that same path for quite a few um years so to kind of be doing something different again was uh really refreshing and um really challenging but complet complely different ways to like you know trying to win a heny campaign

Like this but you know very very similar um not similar at all actually but very kind of challenging all the same um so then started coaching the j14 boys and I started um working alongside Jack Jessman with the senior girls at the school um uh kind of been the support

Role of him um and then I started rowing myself outside of school so in 2021 as obviously that was that late Henley so it’s a bit more like of an informal Henley in an informal year so as a coaching team we were just like should we just Chuck a four in um

And my coach had uh pre just not long since during covid passed away Derek passed away um so I thought it’d be quite cool to just do another Henley kind of almost sort of in his in in in his honor so we put together this four

Um and qualified which was like that was all we wanted to do that was great and then we came up against Kingston who were one of the favorites we were like five lengths down going through the enclosures remember the like in front of me Jack sit up I was like no why

Would why would we do that um anyway but it kind of I just got got into it again um but in fact I I primarily got back into I going cycling for the first time in like a decade um so I started cycling and then kind of

Used that and then you know we put together I think we’ve done like five or six sessions we were that crew that everyone doesn’t want to turn up because probably there was somebody training all year and we kind of ruined it for them so anyway but it was amazing to qualify

And it meant a lot because it was obviously um it was R from Aiden head Henley again Derek would have absolutely loved it that we had like a senior Men Four rasing Henley blah blah blah so that was great and then um so in 2016 I

Moved to heny from Maiden head so I stepped away from the sl6 which was a big you know weird into the rg9 uh nice and then you go uh and then yeah so there was a group of lads I used to race against when I was younger that were training at heny

Roow club called the plotters or they self-proclaimed the the plotters um so I went just joined in with them really my first day I was many joining with them I got covid so actually like probably to begin with they just thought I was just all cha

Um so after about five weeks of having covid uh I finally got back into a boat and my first session I think we were just paddling my heart rate was like 186 or something oh god um so then that year there was a a bit of a senior men’s

Group at Henley Ryan club and then some of the plotters kind of made up the last places in that eight and we qualified for Henley again which was great and then last year with padders and a load of um I think we had an average age of

42 and there were across the crew there was 18 children um so it was it was just amazing it was really cool little thing to do um and also it was I mean it’s not a big deal in the ran world but it just meant so much to everyone in the boat to

Do it again um so that was great it was really good um we had a good you know group cheering us out the boat tents and then to qualify um you know there was some people in the boat tears and stuff like it really it’s like as it should be

If you qualify it’s like a massive deal I think that’s one of the best things about heny rat and is forgetting forgotten about you can you can have absolutely nothing to do with winning it but you can win me my school had never got through the first round at Henley

And my crew didn’t unfortunately do it and the year after they did um and it was in like it was insane like the whole school was like was the best thing SCH ever done and then the next year I was at leanda like winning

The 10th cup and I was but it was like the same feeling it was whatever you’re Moun is yeah exactly that’s the thing isn’t it you kind of set your own targets um so that was great and that was kind of um so we generally work like everyone gets

Together on a Thursday so I mean it’s a little bit different we’re taking it a bit more seriously this year but last year and previous day it was basically Thursday night when you meet at 6:30 it’s a something on the air go through the winter or in the summer you get on

The water um and generally everyone’s got kids so everyone’s got to get away sharpish so it’s like 6 30 start you don’t get in there and have a like you’re in on go and then um almost it’s almost compulsory you have to go have a pint afterwards so you can finish a

Session have a pint go it’s always one of those ones where like five minutes before and everyone everyone’s or someone will go everyone another pint just like and you neck back you know it’s great you kind of um so that’s Thursday night and then a Sunday morning

7:30 get down there it’s um it’s ch again it’s changed now could we get a little bit more distance would we rod from the RO Club to the bottom back up and that was it and we go in everyone would go and have a coffee together and

Then go home and it was just brilliant but it was actually it was perfect because it’s exactly what you wanted everyone that was rowing There Was You Know had done something to a really good level in the past so you kind of almost guaranteed a good crew um and yeah it

Was just great to go and kind of get going up and down the river and then I remember like last year we went to the Head we were like you know this is this we came back up 112 everyone devastated we figured out we haven’t actually done more than 16k a week at

Any point can’t be too angry exactly it’s only like when you actually look at what we’re doing it’s like actually probably that’s fory that’s pretty good off the back of absolutely no tra yeah that’s brilliant um so yeah so it’s a really good little group that part of

There that sounds fun yeah and again he’s kind of going back into R again it’s almost like I feel a bit Yeah but like I’m kind of developing again as a Coke I was going to say do you think that’s helped yeah so I kind of I I kind

Of I don’t want to discuss go down the same routes all the time so coaching j14 boys row myself again and like just processing things so you know 2022 um that girls quad you know I coach something and then go away and just you know when you’re paddling along just be

Thinking about how how can I explain this differently what am I explaining the right thing with all those different things um so it’s really helpful on that front to kind of just proc you know things that I’ve always done with the boys um for all those years how we can

Do it differently so and you know so it’s kind of come on to that on 2022 um so Jack was leading the goals there and it it was just a really small little group um and they qualified for the first time 2021 so we had a girls crew in the Riata

Which was amazing made around really like phenomenal and then 2022 we just kind of like right you know see what we can do really it was one of those one of those years again um we knew we had kind of four pretty decent athletes but I not really worked with

Girls before so I didn’t know like markers I didn’t know times percentages all those different things um rig like all these different things you speaks loads of people and I have kind of like my own ideas on rig and what you should do and people were saying really

Different things to what I thought I was like oh okay um and so we just kind of um Jack and I just tried to loaded different things and I absolutely love coaching with him because we just it’s just a good laugh you know um so you

Know coach with clarky for a few years and then Tom gearing so John gearing’s son um coached with him for four years so he was there 2016 to 2020 and then sorry and then Alex is now taking on the boys Jack’s kind of leading up

The girls um and so to work with Jack’s brilliant and it’s kind of we have um we had a really just a great group and then we had um one girl go down ill and she just kept getting uh kind of a repeat illness and then we had a girl who’

Started as a j15 in that year so she started in the September as j15 but we needed a fourth person for the crew and so she then kind of in April she was still in one of the wide singles maybe March so one of the wide singles wow and

Then she didn’t want to go on training camp but her sister was in the boat so she so she went on training camp um and I was going be going on that camp and I got Co for a second time on that camp literally like uh it was about three or

Four days before that camp started and I was like right I’ll come the next day I’ll come the next day I’ll come the next day and then it was like in the end I was like I don’t think I’m coming you know just absolutely just in pieces at

Least that was that wasn’t like an international camp that was the residential one right uh yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly we’re in North witch that year cuz we couldn’t go to arle cuz it was overseas oh lock um so yeah so then um off the back of that um it was just

One of those ones where it was it was again we just pulled like another piece of the puzzle another piece of the puzzle National schools regly came third which was you know which is phenomenal really massive result for the school um and then it was kind of you know then we

Started pulling a few more layers into it and um coming into Henley like they again they were just sort of H in a good Rhythm started you know do what we’d been hoping to do and it was I mean it was quite bad because like I was sending

Them clips of different Crews that we we could pinch things from and different rhythms and then I kind of having always coach boys every crew I was sending was men’s Cruise so then we went away and I was like right so then I kind of you

Know went back to like when I was a teenager just repeatedly watching different world Champs different whatever you know all these different things um uh yeah so uh we kind of had a couple of Crews we like we want to pinch this we want to do that blah blah blah um and

Then yeah went into Henley uh had a really good couple of rounds and then went into the Sati against shiplake who obviously were the holders from the year before okay um and then kind of uh put together a good piece with that and then up against um red

Redwood schulls on the Sunday from San Francisco um and it was another one it was just like a classic players School race was kind of just keep keep there or thereabouts and then see what I can see what he can do later on um and girls absolutely just slashed it really it was

It was great so it was um so yeah so that was another um you know win for the boat club so it’s actually over the course of the 20 where it is since 9845 they’ had four henle wins now so it’s quite a you know successful little

Group um I know Brooks have seven in one year but you know for us over that period to put it into perspective yeah yeah but again that’s that’s 30 years of work yeah it’s gone into that yeah yeah yeah I think that kind of just highlights how ridiculous what they are

Doing is you know kind of it’s a massive deal for us to have four over 30 nearly four years yeah and like there’s a lot of clubs that hang on to one back 20 years exactly and that could be an impressive yeah yeah so can you remember

A few of those Crews and thatd those videos that you were focusing on Dutch scaring at the moment is like phenomenal across the board I think um so yeah dut the Dutch um men and women I don’t know who’s coaching there but they’re doing something right it’s something some some guy called

Franchesca is an Italian rower from London and Rio is that right he then went over to coach nerest I literally saw it this morning cuz he just won World rowing Coach of the Year oh did he award yeah yeah and then he’s been coaching Nas since like I think after

2018 or something and then after Tokyo he coaching the national team and obviously they’ve just been growing strength and strength yeah just so yeah the Dutch we looked at a lot um uh what else did we look at there was an Aussie men’s double from 2012 I don’t

Know if you remember not 2012 2008 it’s really kind of they won Gold in 2008 just like phenomenal little rhythm so we watched that uh but primarily Dutch women’s Dutch women’s sculling um was yeah and I think still is great and I think it’s actually got better in the

Last 18 months and we already thought they were like phenomenal so yeah the Dutch we watched a lot um and then it’s kind of I don’t know like coaching’s changed I think you guys touched on it a while back like can you imagine getting a video sent to you and having your

Stroke dissected and the voice recorded onto it like that is such a huge asset and Tool like you can definitely overuse it but to have that sort of thing oh yeah is um a massive asset I remember my dad had to rent either rent or borrow a video camera from

Work they then we then had to organize for a launch to come out with me and my peirs partner we videoed the session got it put on two videos so that I had one and then Banky had said if you got any footage you want me to dissect send it

In so then we sent a video into him to him to give us feedback which we never got either but that’s how much of like a challenge it was to get like video analysis feedback even even when I rocked up at Leander in 2014 we just have footage from the Saturday sessions

Like the entire club would do pieces I think like two 3ks or something like that and then there would be a coach on the bank and they would record all the crews coming pass and once a week maybe you were caught onto the camera obious the focus was on the seniors anyway I

Was like right go have a look at this but now it’s to be sent your phone yeah air air dropping to all your athletes like straight after the session it’s amazing yeah but also as amazing as it is do you think like I think personally

For me like coaching when like it like I just never had a minute away from it and I say have all we would all our um sessions and stuff with because it was uni students were planned for either like Facebook chats or like WhatsApp chats so they’re constantly throughout

The day oh Tom I’ve just looked at this one stroke it’s like not perfect and then you’re like trying to help this like it’s just one stroke and and then someone else has got a problem and then you just feel like it’s just think there’s definitely a time and a place to

Use it like if you use it all year or like I don’t know I couldn’t i’t got the focus to be able to use all year as well you know what I mean but if you can use it at the right time you know however many weeks out from a henley campaign or

Whatever it might be then it can be really helpful so I wasting some footage from zida and the um Dutch SCS as well and like they obviously use the Dutch in particular they don’t have any concept to that they use in their facility no they they go purely rp3 oh really and

Because they’re so fluid we’re talking about like that fluid skulling Etc like it seems that they’re almost like cutting out uh you know if you look at the power curve it’s obviously like a half circle you cut out a few percent on either end and then you just got that really powerful

Rhythm that’s so many single scolars were shot like Andre sy just but it’s like if you look at Juniors how many of them go over vertical with their shin and then you look at an international Riata barely anyone get with their Shin it’s bizarre yeah like three4 slide

Almost like from the outside even though it’s not but like that’s so this seems like this is what the Das are doing they’re just staying in that fluid room where they can like just apply the most power per second they must have like a they must have something funny with the

Rig to be able to I don’t know I’d love to just kind of pick their brains bit heavy a bit short yeah possibly might be something to do with the foot play positions as well like one of the things I noticed I was thinking about this morning actually what when I was Runing

In Poland actually I came to trial when I saw that came third um then I had to use a single that I was sharing with with another guy that from my club yeah yeah and then I before I even got out onto the boat I had to like change the

Angle of a foot plate and everything cuz it’s like I could I could barely get up the SL like my feet were so high up and everything like maybe there’s something to do with that they got they got something right but then like so this is another thing working with other

Sports um trying to explain the sport to non rowers it’s like it can be so helpful so a m of mine put me on a really geeky WhatsApp group I don’t know why I thought of it it doesn’t exist now but it was like a proper dweeby thing but

Basically it would be it was called knowledge share and he’ put himself and like three other mates on it and everyone had to explain something that the others wouldn’t get whether it was with like finances in their career or like whatever it might be that’s cool

And I was like you know they’re all like doctors and big money City Boys I was like I haven’t got anything that you guys so I just thought all right well explain rowing to them and they asked these questions I was like oh yeah no that’s so then it made me like

Completely think differently about it and I was doing this with the um head of sport at cla’s court a couple of months back and I was talking about um so they once did a video analysis not video yeah video analysis of um do you remember Greg retki the tennis player he’s had

Like a phenomenal serve yeah and I remember them dissecting it on um TV and they said right they started with his feet they look at his feet so so to begin with he crouches down blah blah and then they basically showed it was like a whip going through his body up to

The top of the Racket and then it just like exploded off of his racket and I was saying like that’s similar sort of thing with the drive and he was like the head of sport um and head of rugby was oh yeah so like the summation of forces

I was like what’s that he like summation of forces it’s like how every projectile is thrown I was like what the hell is this so you can look it up on it’s like an a level or GCS PE question the summation of force is basically it’s basically the drive base

So it’s kind of and it’s the same whether you’re lifting a weight throwing a ball whatever it is it starts with your bigger bigger slower muscles and then you work through to your smaller muscles and the more muscles you can recruit and the order in which it

Happens is the same in everything if you think about power cleans if you think about throwing a ball throwing a javelin whatever it might be it’s exactly the same so it’s not like um it’s not you know it’s nothing new this has been since people were throwing SP fears it’s

Like it’s the same technique people have used for years I was like yeah how have I been involved in raming for nearly 30 years I’ve never heard of the summation of forces so you can look it up there’s a really good video that some like PE teacher in Australia’s done and he

Breaks down throwing and he starts throwing with just his wrist then his elbow then his shoulder and then he uses his upper body and then he does a run up I was like what the hell you know and then he does he does a power curve for

Each part of the throw as well so like you know your your legs will have a power curve and your body will have a power curve as well your shoulder and your forearm and your wrist and the trick is to make sure that the next part

Follows on when that hits it Peak its peak power I was like this is just gold like how have I never heard of this before I remember this is my reaction right now I remember when I had our first coach I think it was Jeff Jeff bacon down at Leander Jeff

Baker Matt Baker’s dead no no no no Jeffrey Jeffrey bacon I think it was called oh okay different guy anyway yeah he was like he just stopped us and he was like oh everyone everyone says it’s legs then bodies then arms it’s not it’s legs legs and bodies legs and bodies and

Arms bodies and arms and that’s like the first time in I head when I clicked it was like it’s not three separate movements trying to bring the curve all the way through yeah and like I’m sure other people had told me that and I hadn’t listened like just for some

Reason in that way as funny as a coach isn’t you try and think of different ways to say something yeah yeah until it clicks but I was speaking to um Robin Williams was down with us a few weeks back um sitting in on a session with

Alex and this is like my new thing I was just like have you ever heard of this and he was like yeah yeah no when I was at Cambridge they had a like a commonwealth weightlifter come down and talk about weightlifting technique but he was like I don’t know he’d been a

Weightlifter previously and he was he was like wasn’t that big bigger bloke and he cleaned like 140 or cleaned and you know like just ridiculous amount of weight and he was like it’s not that I’m that strong I just have got the timing and he was talking about the summation

Of forces the timing of it is the big thing so that’s kind of like yeah that’s blown my mind I don’t I kind of yeah one of those things to obsess over when you’re sat on the urg or whatever for hours yeah no it’s good though it’s like

Nice to hear from what you said like again for me like going back and teaching NES is so you have to really remember that no one understands the language of and it’s completely Bonkers and actually break things down and it’s made it makes it a lot more simple in

Your own head um but it’s weird is it when you first start teaching people’s a row you’re teaching them and then I think kind of as time goes on you you go from kind of teaching to coaching yeah and it’s kind of like and that’s so

Weird though it’s kind of like if you start if you give too much freedom to begin with they’re just not going to get it so but it’s kind of like as time goes on you need to know I’m going to let go of that let go that let go yeah and you

Need to like drip feed information cuz you can very easily overwhelm people like when you first like when you first started teaching them how to rot like yeah what like sometimes you have to almost like Dam down certain parts of the stroke and then later be like okay

Now we to like go back over on this and there’s like actually a few more things in there the analogy I once heard about it is like you know have you ever done first aid course when they go they do like situations like you’re going to walk into a room this person’s bleeding

This person’s unconscious this person’s screaming like what or did you treat people so it’s called triage yeah I was like that’s it with coaching like it’s very easy to go in and point out a load of things that someone’s doing wrong but I think the art of it is

Like figuring out what order like you know so like the person they would say like the person who’s unconscious you treat them first you know what’s going on there and then then you go to the person who’s whatever it might be and it’s kind of like yeah it’s very kind of

Similar with coaching I think you kind of if you if you’re working on the wrong thing or even on the wrong you know the right thing but at the wrong time in the season or whatever I think is triage but with timing so I think that’s like the

Greatest skill of a finishing coach would be like picking the right thing that I can make the most amount of improvement in in the small time that we have so those skills of like oh it’s September we can really start working on shape this is going to take a really

Long time whereas like we’re racing in two weeks like stuff the shake just just drag it out like we’re not going to we’re not going to get there in two weeks yeah yeah yeah but I mean and it’s kind of but I think that’s the thing as

You get more experience you kind of think okay well we can kick that one down the road for a little bit because we need to get this bit ingrained and right now’s the right time to bring XY and Zed up yeah yeah yeah I wanted to

Ask you about um training Juniors and in general I seen them advanc like obviously like you’ve overseen like athletes go from like you said year seven to year 12 I think and and often times you see with Junior athletes they can like have a really nice progression

Up until like their final year of Junior like J 18 year and then they go into under 23 and maybe they don’t have another gear or like sometimes they burn out or they’ve done too much too early like how do you find the balance and like possibly what do you think is

Causing that like that we could avoid when training those athletes I think you kind of have to I mean I think like the way you train as a senior is very very different to how you train as a junior and it’s kind of like then it becomes kind of

Difficult difficult but you have to keep that in mind when you’re talking to people that looking at it from a senior perspective to people that are looking at it from a junior perspective and I think really like we’re talking about the layers like if you’re doing the right thing effectively you’re doing the

You know notar going to go into all of it but you doing one thing through the winter in the kind of the spring um and then kind of spring into summer you probably train more like a senior and it’s but you kind of need that winter of

Doing the right things as you know as a junior so that you’re kind of getting the right foundation for for later on um because I mean you know I think a lot of people tend to kind of have a bit of a break from rowing at the end of of

Junior but at the same time clay we’ve had a lot of people that have stuck with it and have gone on which is which is a great thing um and you know it’s I think it’s um it’s down to just kind of giving them the right sort of foundation which

Is kind of you know gen generally around conditioning really is making sure they’re in the right sort of shape to be able to then withstand yeah what is effectively just a very repetitive Sport and in terms of like training versus development like obviously you can put

Them on the program you can make them do loads of miles and like do loads of heart Eros but then you also like want to think about you know developing them as an athlete like for their entire career so like what they’re going to do when they’re like 22 25 30 potentially

Possibly if they stick with it but like what are some of the most common pitfalls that you can avoid so it’s like not to put too much on them so that they won’t have another gear to go like I think the way I think of it is like a

Writing a story like if you tell them the end of the story in the first season well you know first season is effectively chapter one so if you tell them everything in that first season it’s going to be amazing first season they’ll love it but then the second

Season they’ll be like okay we kind of that’s very similar to last year and then you know what I mean like you have to really have again we go back to like the laters thing you have to tell the story um and I think if you do it if you do it

Right they’ll have you know lots and lots of years of kind of what it is that they’re you know what you know what they’re trying to take from the sport it’s kind of like so if you if you yeah I mean like what we do with a j4s like you know very very

Consciously don’t do certain things and we as a boat club we very consciously they don’t have the best kit because again that’s kind of something to look forward to further down the line they don’t have necessarily the full Pro well they don’t have the full program by any

Shape or form you know and they don’t do a load of different things but it’s more so because you have to you know you got to do enough so that they catch the bug and they they get that hook of knowing what the Sport’s all about but it’s more

So kind of trying to um yeah just just give them enough each time so you’re always drip feeding another thing another thing another thing and it’s kind of I think that’s often what is done wrong at junior level you know you get lots of clubs and schools that are phenomenal at

J14 and 15 but then by the time they get j18 the kids aren’t interested so yeah so you’re saying sometimes sometimes you just have to like sacrifice possibly your seasonal goals or like goals for a certain race in order for the longterm development well I think you have to

Kind of outline what success I think that goes back to what was just said rely H what is success that look look like for for you as a squad you know or you as an athlete and you as a kind of as a as a coach of a of a group what

Does success look like for that year and as long as they’re kind of within that range and sweet kind of it’s then onto the next one bit more of the story bit more of the story and kind of so on and so forth so it’s kind of like you want

It to be a page Turner you know where they want to get onto the next they want to put the book down um which is challenging at certain times like this winter being off the water a lot that’s makes it really tough um and sometimes

You know you have to do it for complete and utter nonperformance reasons just has to be good fun and they just want to they want to be there that day to they tick the session off they want to play with their mates like that you have like

A you know British Bake Off you know over a few weeks through January or something like that you know what I mean like those sort of things it’s just going to get people enjoying the sport um Through The Dark Times until you know the Sun comes out again and it’s a

Little bit more enjoyable again yeah able to get back on the water but then you get people probably like us and like a lot of rowers that’s like just love it at the moment I’ve started doing our Eros I love them like what the hell is

Going on when what who likes that but it’s kind of like there’s a little group of us at Henley all doing these things all trying to one up each other trying to figure out what our Christmas challenges over you know over that period I it’s idiotic well why the hell

Would you want to do that but it’s kind of like you know it’s probably because I had the story written to me so my head isn’t on that one hour on the Ergo my head is elsewhere because I’ve kind of I want to have that end of the story or

Whatever it might be again but it’s because kind of you know we’ve been through all those layers before and you do get people that are more than happy to just sit there and do absolutely nothing but I think that was the thing going from made the Rowan Club so I came

From as we said Earl on absolutely loved it went to a Rowan Club everyone is at their own club to row because they absolutely love it and then I went to a school people turned up that well I I I don’t want to do rugby or don’t want to

Football whatever it’s like okay so do you want to R you know they don’t even even really want to row and it’s kind of then suddenly like how do I how do I motivate them to want to do this sport how do I show them what this sport kind

Of can have and can can bring and can do for them as well like as athlete development I I think that’s brilliant like I really hope more people like pick that up because like you see so much talent like going through the ranks and trials ET like we’re talking with Matt

Ald I think his Junior eight or something like none of them row anymore oh really and he’s like the only one left so like I think if we can like also like retain more people and the Sport’s going to grow so I think that’s Absol brilliant advice that again comes back

To like what we’re talking about with a Sprint rat you know what I mean like to do the rat to do the to do rowing at the top level everyone wants to think that they’re doing at the top level like like when you’re 40 plus and you’ve got kids

In resta not many people have time to be able to do like training for a 2K race but you might be able to train for a 500 meter race and you might have a group of lads that used to r with when you were younger that would be Keen as much of

That sort of thing so that’s where I think that the sport in the country or maybe you know worldwide needs to look at what’s going on there and have some sort of you know purpose behind non-traditional R I love non-traditional sorry traditional R obviously we you know that’s why doing this talked about

It with the beach print stuff which exciting yeah it’s different and yeah it’s a shame that we’ve lost light weights roaring and all those kind of things but it’s new it’s different it’s fun you know I speak to people who’ve done it they find it really exciting there’s a great atmosphere there

You can watch the whole race and sit on the beach in the Sun and it’s a different experience yeah and I think there’s a place to have that and and what we do yeah cuz I remember again with my my cousin he used to have all

The videos of so they used to have leand daff Sprints have you ever heard of leand daff Sprints so leand D Sprints and Serpentine Sprint still used to this was Channel I remember the serpentine well not it was before my time remember hearing it was before my time as well he

Used to have these videos so when he was off traveling I’d be like watching his rowing videos that I was in my early days and watch like um uh I think it was Serpentine Sprints but that was like an international thing so the Russians were there abonal were

Doing it the Russian there was a Russian twins as well I know there was like all of these different countries doing these races Martin cross was involved Eric Sims Sally Hassan Adam Cliff all of these like great yeah obviously red grave HS all of that lot um but it made

A big thing and you could have these riatas if we were to get like a Sprint thing I don’t sound like I’m campaigning for it but it would be a good thing you could also have ratas in the middle of big cities yeah like they have the Red

Bull league in Germany or they used to and they did those 500 meter Sprints and they were fun and then like you would have different clubs and then you have Leakes and standings and rankings and like why not and if you had it like the if you had the Nationals or whatever

Weekend after heny then you would keep like you could say to International Crews oh stick around and get stuck in I guess it would be not Nationals then but whatever you would we’d figure out the detail yeah unfortunately Luc is quite up the week isn’t it bloody yeah someone call

Up this get out of yeah have they heard about it but you know what I mean like like American Unis Aussie Unis Cru came over they found out there was like a like a Red Bull like a Red Bull series there we go we’ve got the sponsor sorted

As well just a few more details we’re there I’ll just I’ll just clip this up and send him an email Yeah it’s you’re not definitely not the only person you know like spending a lot of time atat speaking to like Rory at all mark one and bunch of other people p Just loads

Of people and they’re just all sort of saying the same thing like where’s where’s the fun we yeah where’s how come we all go half for leather into into Henley warata yeah and then everyone stops R completely yeah and then we don’t start till the weather gets bad

Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah what happened I know it’s difficult with the school and stuff but yeah no definitely from a club perspective I think they could be but to have yeah like a proper sprint series it was like almost like another Avenue to the sport like in cycling you’ve got so

Many different dist same in kaying yet rowing seems to be head season 2K season that’s it it’s kind of like you okay you’ve got some local Sprint regatas but it’s almost kind of like second tier what’s what’s above and it’s like well why why is there not some sort of Sprint

Element that’s going to keep people involved um you know in their later years or kind of mean that they feel like they’re still doing a performance but able to train differently for it yeah you can perform high but not over 2K but you can still perform High youd

Have to do hour Eros like that’s idiots I think I think of you guys do to to I still I don’t mind the half hour but that’s about as f as I think a first tier sort of like Sprint season is a brilliant idea and I think this landscape of the sport is

Definitely shifting like we’re I saw World rer talking about like you know putting their digitization plans for like after LA and how the Sport’s going to evolve and like they said we in this kind of like pivotal moment of like now shifting yeah what the sport is so I

Think why not need to get it into like strong man Arnold Classic those sorts things is just going to give it like completely different avenue that’s just not been there imagine imagine Ronnie comman back into the screaming buddy on the RO machine Brian Shaw is nuts I

Don’t know how that thing stays in one piece I don’t I I don’t want to service that crap we we’ve better do some quick fire one at a time that’s right uh we always end with quick five question I can’t remember what they are but yeah oh

Brilant so we’re going to get long answers I was going to say um out of all the rowing venues that you’ve trained at raced at or visited yeah what are some of your favorites and why um so we have a stretch that we train on Saturday mornings which is the

Cland stretch which we refer to as the stretch of the Gods which obviously is pinched from lucern which is the Lake of the Gods is it uh which absolutely love um so that stretch is phenomenal it’s just yeah you got basically like a hill

Down one whole side of it it can be like blowing a juli and you’ll get flat water which is obviously brings about his own problems later on but that’s that’s phenomenal um lake snon is uh some I haven’t been in a long time but I love L

Zan that’s I’ve been a couple of training camps there and that’s just a where’s that in switzland so it’s where the Swiss teams yeah Bas lovely yeah yeah um that’s an amazing place um and then another one which no one likes but I love is harle

Winkle cuz it’s just like I think I’ve I think it’s more so because of just how many great camps I’m you know I’ve being P there Nostalgia yeah but it’s also we just get some great training done there and then um got good ice creams in the

Cafe as well which is always a big plus the dog blanch uh it’s just like what you need and nothing more yeah yeah yeah accommodation food that works the lake no spr and no internet every time we get there though you get kids like because everyone Raves

About it what I do uh and we get there and they just like is this it is this it and then by the end of the week Gally they’ll love it um so yeah uh hle Winkle and and actually in the restaurant at H Winkle they’ve got three

Clocks one is hle Winkle one is H on TS and one is the Boston the Charles River in Boston which in my last house we had three clocks and we’d had that stencil on the wall as well with with has a Winkle with has Winkle yeah yeah which I

Showed them and they absolutely loved that’s brilliant uh yeah so that’s probably one that you won’t get again but yeah those three places I absolutely love nice my next question if you were to repeat or do over a regata or a race once again when you’re 60 or 70 what

Would a BM so the a race that I’ve done or a regata that I beat to so for example like you might have loved the thrill of an event so much that you’d want to like relive it or sorry like you want to do it again when you’re 60 or

There’s like a race that like you might not be the happy with the result and you’d like to go and change yeah yeah um as far as a riat is concerned I think if I could do Henry when I was 60 that would be great you know I’ve moved my

Family there you know I should moved my family there child was quite Keen uh so you know there was definitely a good level of obsession over that rietta um and as far as a race I’d like to do again um so of races i’ done myself uh

Semi-final Henley in 2001 that was great just I was in a crew with um Barry Gardner Ben tipney and Rich El who actually I’m r with again now Henley and uh that broke he’s like I think it must be 510 5’11 8 fiveish kilos he’ll sit

For an hour 146 like it’s just like a freak unreal and so I’m going to hold on to his cocktails this season hopefully uh so that the semi-final then though because I’d been in barar the year previously watching um rich ellera and he was run with Nick friend who again

I’m run with at the moment um uh when they had Rod past banar do you remember old banar when it actually was in banar and there used to be like 5,000 people there take 40 minutes to get to the bar but if like a big race went past people would cheer because

Other people were cheering so it was like it was almost rowing like a through a football stadium and I remember being we were kind of I think we were probably level or something going through barar and it just erupting like I’m sure most people there or in fact 99% of people

There didn’t care about their own but I didn’t care about that um it was like run through a football stadium that was great that was very henle um and then we just you know the race just went completely not to plan um that was coached by jez Moore and a friend of his

Who just got bronze of the karate World Championships had given us this speech beforehand I was the most fired up I’ve ever been for a race and then the race went to plan and the speech was like three hours before the race so we’re walking

Around uh yes so that race I’d like to do that race again um and then there was a schools head once that just we just you know when you go off the line you oh this is a good little rhythm and then it just doesn’t go um there was one of

Those I was in yeah either of those races probably maybe I’ve got some still to come hopefully not yet good answers yeah yeah the the one I go for is if you could travel back in time to the age you were when you absolutely fell in love with

The sport so 13 14 what advice would you give that kid oh uh oh I haven’t got a clue what would I say uh yeah you’re going to think about that I’ll come up with the idea when I’m in the showet or in the car on the way home

I mean lots of people said the same just you know confidence yourself don’t worry about what people say I think Jack was the first one who like just gave himself like a technical like you should have done this I I didn’t mean it like that okay keep the arm straight yeah yeah

Something like that yeah yeah uh yeah or i’ just be saying it’s great like you you’ll have a great time I don’t I mean was isn’t advice whatsoever that’s simple I think as excited as I was about what was to come at that age I remember I don’t know

If this is a madeup thing but I remember they used to be a thing where they would say if there was a atomic bomb there would be a 4minute warning I don’t know if this I don’t know if this was a thing or not there would be a 4minute warning

If there was atomic bomb and I remember when I was really young thinking I wonder if I could get from my house to the ran Club side I was on the river during that for minute you in that for which I wouldn’t have been able to I

Think the fastest I ever ran there was 13 minutes um but I remember that was like that’s how much I loved it I love that if the world’s going to end get me get on the river yeah and I want to be there that was it I like that I like that

Yeah so yeah I think it’ll just be it’s going to be as good as you hope it is awesome yeah loved it that’s what a lot of people need to here you know don’t worry don’t stress it’s not the end of the world it doesn’t matter where you

Get to like go and have some fun and enjoy take it day by day yeah yeah and it’s great that it’s one of those things I think you know not being an academic I you know I found with school I could put in loads all work and not get any more

Results with it and yet with rowing I could put in more work and I would get more back from it I was just like ah this is It’s just exactly what you want it to be work harder you get more from it it’s very consistent yeah and it was

Just yeah brilliant so yeah I think I that’s one of the big things about the sport um that I love and still love you know you kind of it’s like you guys doing this you know what I mean like this is you might you know it might be a

Chore to have to do these and all the rest of it but you’ll get so much back from it you think it’s a CH think of anything better to do even like sit down with people who I’m best friends with so sit down with day B and it’s like he’s

One of my best Ms we want Hing together but even that how close we are I never get to sit for 3 hours and just really pick his brains it’s like a different kind of conversation at the end of the day you know when we did this we’re like

If no one watches it I’m having a great time like I don’t care if no one you’ve got to interview like amazing like so good yeah it’s great I’m not talking about myself by way uh but yeah just some great people and it’s kind of like you can have none

Of this no one this and you guys have you know so I think it’s one of those things where it’s kind of like you know I don’t know I think it’s just it’s one of those Sports where you can definitely and it’s also such a small sport that

There’s so many people you know like we’ve never a couple times said hi I know who you are I know CL SC obviously I coach Pete and in the crew in in 2016 I banged on it about you knocked us out in the first round I was coaching the

Second oh way sorry about that it was Bo oh sorry that was boys anyway you know like you you there’s so many people you know in Roaring but you don’t know it’s another thing it’s like so great to just actually like and also like you are the

Product of The Five People You spend the most time with right and if every week we basically get to speak to this highly driven very motivated very successful people but also please thank you then you find in rowing like you get some people that some people just be shy but

Because they’re quiet and they kind of they’ve done something they will come across as almost like arrogant which is weird yeah said well I come across as no you said that you used to be that quiet guy and people would be like oh intimidate that’s that’s not really eraring but

Yeah right yeah but I think that’s weird but this is where like this podcast is good because you get to talk you know I I don’t get to but you guys talk to those people that you think oh they’re actually they’re not anything like I thought they would be they’re great and

There’s a lot of people who’ve like Charles cousins even Tim Tim Foster was like oh it’s been so long since I’ve kind of had a chance to go back have us like that was awesome you know you you’ll convince yourself that it wasn’t John cins sat here saying oh well

You know I went to two Olympics I didn’t quite get the you went to two Olympics what are you talking about it’s amazing and like because you can talk yourself down from it so it’s a nice chance sometimes for the people on the other

Side of the table to be like I was all right yeah yeah yeah no very much so yeah no I think he’s and now that we don’t have rata magazine I was like obsessed with rata magazine but this is like you know what I mean is it oh thank

You I really I just I really like the idea that we can like you know bring the rowing knowledge like also like from the people that we know from like around the circuit and from like doing Rog Etc and like kind of like put it in one place

Centralize it and just provide something that no one else is in terms of like you know um an insight into the psychology of rowing at the top level or like how to make Schoolboy Cruise go fast or what was it like growing abroad or you know the boat race or running across the

Atlantic and all those sorts of like different things like if we can gain enough eyeballs on this sport I think we can help it grow and I just think that rowing doesn’t get enough recognition for what it is like you said that you could be on the doorstep of Henley in in

Marlo or maidenhead wherever like clar C this and then you know these people don’t know about the regata like what hen roller is which is such a shame isn’t it yeah do you think how many lives people who’ done it how many lives have been changed by doing that Sport

And then yet it doesn’t get the exposure where people everyone can have a go so this is basically Al also like the one of the primary m Bas is behind starting this is like can we bring the rowing gold out there to the rest of the world

So the others can get to see how we live the only real like idea of like what we do is just like what like what content would would I have lapped up when I was 40 oh right yeah let’s just have a real loose chat let’s get into the guts of it

And yeah yeah kind of stuff I guess it depends how much of a geeky rower you were at 14 kind of you know like some you know I’ll talk to some kids and I’m like oh yeah so you know we’ll talk about like my Dale blah blah blah and

They like you’re like my Dale you have yeah do you know do you know who Susie deer is Susie dear I know the name yeah yeah so we yeah in the team at Leander a bit yeah we were in Leander servicing and then Steve William walks through oh

Yeah and then like we say hi to him ET she like what what what was it she said I I don’t know she just doesn’t really she I know she doesn’t re I mean you do know who that is she like I don’t how it is like Steve Williams what are you

Talking about but then it is weird is with like rowers cuz they don’t feel like they’re famous as well like last year so I’ve got a quill abdullah’s book which is perfect balance and I’ve had it like ever since it came out and I think I’ve ordered it like I don’t know how

I’ve got it but anyway I’ve got his book and he’s one of the stewards at Henley so last year at Henny Riata he was there you know in the middle of something and I walked up to him and I was like excuse me you don’t have a pen do you he goes

Yeah but was like obviously busy something else he goes yeah here you go and he handed me the pen and I handed him his book I you signed that for me and he was like flabbergasted that haded book and it was just like for me I’ve got like that’s in my downstairs toilet

Now like I’ve got other writing stuff there not just that book um but yeah it was like he obviously just doesn’t I don’t know he just it didn’t seem like he thought himself as a big deal that’s quite that’s kind of a sign of someone who’s successful isn’t it you don’t

Think that way I love that you’re like I don’t I have I don’t have other stuff in the toilet I have other rowing stuff I do we refer to it as the C red grav Suite it’s all the rowing pho and books and Henry programs and medals and stuff

So speaking of famous people in rowing last Quick fight question um who are some of your rowing Idols of the people that you’ve looked up to during or post your own career uh I always was really obsessed with Tim Foster and the way he wrote I just watched him loads and he

Always seemed to be quite chilled which kind of identified with a bit more um my cousin he was the reason I got into it so I was like he was like my idol for you all of the years when we used to go and row him they go and we never rode

Together like I’ve rode now since 1996 so coming on 30 years he rode from like mid 80s and we’ve never been in a double together so we need to put that right but um yeah probably those two um yeah who I mean obviously but then I

Was at the era of red grave like my ceiling above my bed I remember it was like my final year and all of the paper cuttings of like red grave and his for Sydney Greg s um Jillian Lindsay and Marian button’s crew and you know remember um M Miriam Luke though that

Olympics um that was like the ceiling above my bed just like I was I was so obsessed love good idea and I remember I didn’t get invited to something and there was a line in red Graves book from Sprat spratlin which was you’ve got to

Go and prove them wrong and I was oh yeah that’s perfect so I wrote that I typed that up and got it printed off and that was on the roof of my bedroom on my above my bed um so red grav has got to be because of just how much impact him

And P made made during that time um so yeah yeah there you go what’s that four yeah that’s brilliant I think there’s nothing wrong with you know having the best one of all time as Idol like someone’s going to have him as their Idol brilliant yeah

JY this was fantastic thank you so much for coming down and like just sharing your knowledge and sharing the gold um hopefully other people will also like pick up this knowledge and like expand their rowing based of that and at some point we’d love to have you on again

Possibly maybe as a panel with some other oh yeah that be cool give us the nod thanks every so much for doing it as I say like it’s great you know he makes those bikes and everything fly by yeah the hour Longo oh yeah really appreciate it’s been super interesting talking to

You um I think it’s quite funny how you talk about 20 2016 2022 just sort of coming together it’s like I think it was you bringing it together um but that maybe goes back to you know what we’re talking about um you know being humble um I think also really amazing to hear

How you just kind of took it on and went and traveled around the world and and went and spoke to some clubs and I think you don’t have to go around the world but I think you know talking about putting in what you get out or getting

Out what you put in and I think there might be some clubs who obviously weren’t open but I think there were a whole bunch of clubs if some aspiring coach was like wanted to go and just get different opinion or sit on the approach yeah like just case of like going and

Talking to someone be like hey could I come and sit I think that’s such a huge thing and it sounds like as well throughout your whole coaching career you just keep like kind of looking at different Avenues keep trying to learn I think that’s the best thing to learn

From a coach is to understand that it doesn’t matter how good as a row you are you can always be a better Coach and I think that’s a good example that you’ve shown so um yeah definitely is going to be stuff for people people to learn from

This for sure oh no cheers thanks very much Chups really enjoyed it looking forward to the next one but on that no that’s everything for today’s episode so easy there to the music he

#42 – Thinking Outside the Box with Tom Jost

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#42 – Thinking Outside the Box with Tom Jost

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