Row Club at UTS: Open Day 13 April

Trying a new class is its own small workout. You hover at the door. You pick a spot near the back and hope nobody watches your first attempt. The first Row Club Open Day was built for exactly that moment.

On Sunday 13 April 2025, UTS Rowing Club on Dobroyd Parade in Haberfield hosted the launch of Row Club: instructor-led indoor rowing classes, run as group fitness and open to every level. Three free 45-minute sessions ran through the morning, at 9am, 10am and 11am, each coached by Olympians Paige Barr and Paddy Holt. This page is the record of that launch, and a guide to the weekly classes it started.

What the Open Day actually taught

The sessions were a lesson, not a showcase. Each one opened with a welcome and the basics: how to sit, how to strap in, what the screen in front of you is telling you. Then came technique guidance from the instructors, then a structured workout set to music, scaled so a first-timer and a seasoned athlete could work side by side.

That order matters. Learn the movement first and every session after it counts for more. If you take one thing to your own next row, take that: slow down until the stroke feels right, then add the effort back.

Why a class beats willpower

Rowing alone asks a lot of your motivation. A class asks less, because the room does part of the work. Your screen shows your own number and nobody else’s, so the effort stays yours. The energy around you is shared, so the momentum isn’t. Private effort, public momentum: that was the design of the Open Day, and it’s the design of every Row Club session since.

So if your solo cardio habit keeps dissolving, don’t blame your discipline. Change the room.

Where Row Club runs now

The Open Day was the start, not the event. Row Club classes still run every week at UTS Rowing Club in Haberfield: 45 minutes, instructor-led, open to the public, with no rowing experience and no UTS membership required. Current class times and casual or pack pricing live with the booking calendar on the UTS Row Club page. Between sessions, the Row Nation app keeps your training structured and your progress visible.

If you hovered at that boatshed door one April morning and rowed anyway, you already know the secret. If you missed it, the door is still open on Dobroyd Parade, every week.

Book a Row Club class at UTS →