Why college rowing is the best thing about Oxford

“That time I went to Oxford for two years and everything I did somehow came to involve rowing.” - An Oxford friend, commenting on one of her many rowing photos posted on facebook (used with permission).

(Photo of the 2015 St John's College Men's 2nd Torpids crew after a succesful regatta, taken by coach Ben Oestringer. I am sitting in the #4 position, in the red shirt.)

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What’s the best thing about Oxford University? The history? The architecture? The academics?

According to my Oxford facebook friends and other Oxbridge commentators, it might be something else altogether: a section of the Thames that flows through the city, confusingly called the “Isis”. This lovely two-kilometer stretch of water is home to the university’s centuries-old tradition of inter-collegiate rowing. It’s a sport as old, if not older, than many of the Oxford colleges themselves. Indeed, this year marks the 200^th-anniversary of the first ever university boat race, between Brasenose and Jesus Colleges. How has the rowing tradition lasted this long? Simple: it’s the best thing you can do as an Oxford student. Here are five reasons why.

Growing up in Canada as the son of poor Chinese immigrants, it was impossible for my family to pay for sports while I was a kid. Imagine my delight when I discovered that my Oxford College boat club membership is free - yes, free! Each Oxford College heavily subsidizes their boat club. The only out-of-pocket expenses for students are the initial water safety test and race fees for the regattas (I only paid about £20 for the entire year last year).

Further sweetening the college rowing deal is its inclusivity. With multiple boats per college, rowing here caters to students of all commitment levels and abilities. Basically anyone who wants to can join a collage boat and participate in the races. No previous experience is required - novices like myself are trained, for free, by a team of dedicated coaches. And, fortunately for me, rowing here isn’t just for tall people. All you just have to do is work hard. That’s something that even I, a 5’7” athletic misfit with no innate sporting gifts, can do.

As anyone who rows or has rower friends would know, we’re more than happy to add people to our bandwagon and share our amazing sport with you, either by talking non-stop about it, inviting you to watch us race, or shamelessly trying to recruit you. And we often succeed. Rowing really does bring people together from all backgrounds. My Torpids regatta boat last year represented eight countries: Indonesia, the USA, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Canada, Serbia, and England. Make that nine, if you count my birthplace, China. It’s often said that “the world comes to Oxford”. Nowhere is that more true than in a College boat club.

Oxford is a place filled with brains, and sometimes, it can be fairly draining. Fortunately, rowing doesn’t require you to use your brain. You just sit in a boat, and move an oar in exactly the same way over, and over, and over. It doesn’t get any simpler. In fact, to succeed in a crew of eight, you pretty much have to shut your brain off, peel it out of your head, and hand it over to your coxswain…which I do gladly, with great relief, during every outing. There’s something magically liberating in just doing what I’m told, instead of constantly trying to live up to the “future-world-leader” image expected of all Oxford students. As such, college rowing helps students achieve the right balance between work and play, serving as the perfect stress reliever, the cure-all antidote to Oxford’s work-life balance woes.

When I arrived at Oxford last fall, I (like many other students) struggled initially with the transition. Fortunately, my college boat club found me and rescued me, Hollywood-style, from the pit of despair. Enjoyment of rowing, the most traditional of Oxford sports, helped me enjoy Oxford itself. The physical exertion of daily training helped me get over things I needed to get over, and allowed me to move on to better people and happier times. After a while, the people you row with will become like family. My fellow rowers and I not only train and race together, we also eat together, cease alcohol consumption together (before races), party together (after races) - the list goes on. In this way, rowing allowed me to be vulnerable and connect with more people, helping me establish the many good friends I have in Oxford today.

What’s all the training for, if not for racing! In Oxford (and, ok, also in Cambridge), the rivers are too narrow to race many boats side-by-side. So ingeniously, people (probably those with abundant money) devised a novel system of racing, called bumps racing, where the boats line up one after the other along the river. Each boat tries to smash into the boat ahead of them before being caught by the boat behind them. It initially seemed a bit absurd - who in their right mind would want to risk damage to boats worth more than £30,000 each just to have fun in a race? But after having participated in two bumps regattas, I can tell you that the experience and the emotions are worth the sterling. The feeling of catching up to and emphatically bumping the boat ahead gives us rowers a feeling of victory like no other; especially the moments just before the bump, when our coxswain yells boldly to the doomed college boat ahead: “we’re coming for you!” Similarly, getting bumped is just as emotional, if not more so, since you not only lose the race, but must suffer the humiliation of actually watching the boat behind you creeping ever-closer, making a few initial taunting swipes like a cat playing with its prey, and finally administering the killer blow. Whatever side you are on in a bumps-race, it’s truly as intense as people describe it. And it will be something you will remember for a lifetime, regardless of how well your crew performs.

College rowing at Oxford is welcoming, inclusive, and down-to-earth. It’s the perfect place to chill after class and to make new friends. And, in the Oxford bubble, where everything can seem so surreal, so transient, and so daunting, rowing is one of the few things that are truly tangible here. To me, there is no debate: college rowing is by far the best thing to do whilst you’re an Oxford student. So don’t wait, contact your college boat club and give rowing a try. Just be prepared to be “bumped” by my boat!