Your Northern correspondent returns with the third and final chapter (and last word on rowing technique and rowing well). What some are calling a work of timeless genius, others are calling how you move a boat and yet more are calling what happens when you let a Northerner on the mic without the calming presence of a Southern Overlord, this is the third instalment of the original two-part series.

Another writer might have titled it 'Concerning Rowing and Rowers ...' but Tolkien was never much cop on the water and had a crap 2k score, so let's only refer to Tollers when we have a question about Beowulf or Asterisk Realities in Philology.

So, never, then ...

This final episode kicks off with a mea culpa. Having played the cheerful and moronic Northern One to Pip's scientific genius, your correspondent has finally grown a set. No-one knows a set of what, but they're currently being biopsied and we're hoping for something edible. However, in Part Two, I said something to the effect that it doesn't matter what you do in a boat the most important thing is that you do it together.

It's just plain wrong.

Here's the thing: it doesn't matter how together you are if you're learning or reinforcing bad habits. That's point one. Point two is that after saying there is room in rowing for different stylistic approaches, I was wrong. There isn't. There's only one way to row a blade (and thus a boat) and that way is hard, skilfully and with reference to the actual physics and mechanics involved.

As I've been saying all along.

The point is that if that's the case, the technical approaches we take and language we use is all about getting us back to the point where we move the boat well.

And that's where this episode comes in. Rowing is a feel sport. We all know what it feels like to move a boat well, either for one stroke, or ten, or one hundred, or one outing, or race, or training block.

So, with that in mind, we go back to the importance of clarifying technical calls and drills to identify what they mean and what they are supposed to do rather than playing coaching and crew mood music.

It isn't because it makes you fit enough to row well (although it helps). It's because mileage allows us to identify the feeling of moving the boat well, learn it, remember it, chase it, and become more and more efficient at doing it.