An aggregate resource for all those riding in the 9th seat
College Racing Video of the Week
Last weekend, while those of us in USA were prepping for CRASH-Bs, the University of Washington Huskies headed across the pond to race Cambridge University on the Tideway. Matthew Pinsent served as the official umpire of the race, which saw Washington come away with a 3 length victory over CUBC.
Coxing High School Novice Q&A Rowing Teammates & Coaches
I’m currently a novice high school rower but I haven’t been feeling really into rowing lately. I’ve wanted to cox since I started in September, but I’m too big to cox for the women. I’m 120ish and really want to cox for the men next season. However, I’m really nervous to talk to my coach about it because she considers me one of her better lightweight rowers. I know I still have a while to think about it since the season doesn’t end for a few months but how should I talk to her about this?
If you’re leaning more towards coxing than rowing, just tell your coach that. Explain to her why you feel like that and just say that even though you know she considers you an asset to the lightweight boat, you think you’d be more effective to the team as a coxswain. Then explain why, of course. Always have reasons that you can explain and/or back up. It makes for a much more effective argument. Don’t be nervous to talk to her – coaches are there for a reason and one of them is to help their athletes when they’re having problems. If you think she’s going to react poorly or punish you in some way, you’ve got bigger problems on your hands. Ask to talk to her privately and then just have an honest discussion about where you are mentally with crew. If your heart isn’t in rowing but something about coxing excites you, tell her that. I’d rather have an enthusiastic rower-turned-coxswain than a rower with a perpetual “meh” attitude.
I’d also think about why you’re not feeling into rowing lately and ask yourself if coxing is going to make you feel any differently if you’re able to make the switch. I’ve had friends try and do this before and I always end up equating it to people who are really unhappy about things and think that losing 20lbs will suddenly make all their problems go away. For the short term, maybe, but in the long term there’s a good chance you’re probably still going to be unhappy because you never dealt with the root issue. Before you make any decisions, figure out why rowing isn’t doing anything for you right now and what you could do to fix that. If whatever you try doesn’t seem to make things better, then try coxing. Don’t look at coxing as the be all, end all solution though.
I just read your post about intimidating your opponents, which is perhaps one of the greatest things I’ve seen, but I wanted to ask what are some of your favorite/most effective calls?
If we’re under a bridge or something, I love to say “attack now” because I think the echoing of my voice just heightens the intensity of the call. I borrowed “Do not sit, do not quit” from Pete Cipollone and use it during pieces or races to remind my boat that we can’t take a single stroke off. I also like quick, monosyllabic calls like “pop”, “BOOM”, “sharp”, etc. basically because I can say so much without actually having to say anything. I also like directly calling out people in my boat so doing bursts for or with each pair is a good way to do that.
I think the effectiveness of your calls lies not within the call itself though but in how you say it. It’s like when your parents tell you to do something in their normal voice and it’s like “yea ok, gonna get right on that” and then there’s the times when they tell you to do it and you can actually sense Satan in their voice. That’s one of the reasons why I try and constantly reiterate that it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that makes the difference. If there’s no passion or intensity behind your voice, how and why would you expect the rowers to respond with intensity in their rowing? In the posts I’ve done on coxswain recordings I’ve tried to point out good and bad examples of this so check those out if you need some inspiration on what an effective tone sounds like.
Related: Coxswain recordings
The way to really make a call do something for your crew is to match your tone of voice to what you want to get out of the rowers. If you want the rowers to relax, your voice has to be relaxed. If you want them walking on a crew, the intensity of your voice should be increasing with each stroke that you get closer to or walk away from them. Your tone of voice is by far the biggest asset to your crew and how effective you are at utilizing it is what in turn makes your calls effective.
Our novice coach has told us that cox selections are based on evals, their judgement, and race results. Today was our first race and my steering abilities in windy weather are very questionable – as in multiple oar collisions. Yes, I am committed to improving before our next race, but do you think it has effected my seating? What can I do other than practice? Thanks!
Weather is one of those things you can’t control so hopefully your coach recognizes that and doesn’t penalize you in any way. Steering in the wind can be tough for anyone, regardless of experience. When you’re out there though, make it a priority to work on your steering as much as you can. Spend some time talking with your coaches and get their advice on how to handle various weather and non-weather related steering situations so that when you do get on the water, you’ll already have an idea of how to handle things.
I doubt it would affect your seating that much, especially if you’re novice, but from a coach’s point of view I can see how it might. Even though steering in the wind can be tough you’ve still gotta be able to handle it and not let it impact your course or your coxing. Since you’re a novice though I’d just chalk it up to a learning experience and use it to better prepare yourself for the next time you’re out in similar conditions.
What are some calls you make during a 2k when you know the other crews can hear you to get in their head and psych them out?
I usually tend to ad lib as we go along and just go with what I see but usually I’ll pick out something I notice about their rowing and try to capitalize on that. Sometimes I’ll say something about the entire boat (their rowing is sloppy, they’re looking at us, they went out too hard, etc.) or my personal favorite, I’ll pick out a specific rower in the other boat and then talk to the rower in that same seat in my boat. I’ll tell them something I notice about that rower and then tell the rower in my boat to get us up to or past that seat.
If we’re locked in with them in a dead heat, I simply tell my crew that this is where we’re gonna break them, right here, this stroke. I make sure I say it loud enough that the other boat hears me and I always make it a point to look directly at their coxswain when I say it. That’s the only time I’ll let on to another crew that I’m about to take a burst, just to tease them and let them think they can counter it. (It’s never worked because we’re calm whereas they’re frantic.) Sometimes I expect us to be able to get past certain crews pretty easily and we don’t, so I’ll end up saying something like “We’re gonna walk and we’re gonna walk NOW!!”.
One time I was so bored at the starting line so I just picked one of the coxswains beside me and stared at her the entire time we were staging and while the official was doing the countdown start. She kept giving me the weirdest looks but I know I got in her head because as soon as the official said “GO” I snapped forward like everything was normal and she was still at the start, completely confused. They were about three seats behind us from the very beginning because of it. I definitely thought she was going to protest it but she didn’t. One of the officials who was on the starting platform behind us came over to us after we crossed the line and said that was one of the most intense and crazy tactics he’s ever seen a coxswain use to psych out their opponents and congratulations, because clearly it worked.
Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches
How can a novice coxswain annoy her coach? I’m trying to not annoy the coach, so in a coach’s perspective, what would you say?
The biggest things for me (and this goes for anyone, not just novices) are not taking their job/role on the team seriously, not following instructions, not making an effort to improve, showing up late to practice, not respecting his/her teammates, etc. Personally I also get pretty annoyed by super peppy, cheerleader-y coxswains. Tone it down a notch, take your responsibilities seriously. Also never assume you know more than your coach – ever.
This is one of the few posts I plan on writing that is a little off the topic of rowing and coxing but I think it’s an important one that needs to be discussed, mainly because I don’t think anyone else will or has discussed it. February 24th through March 2nd is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week and I want to take the opportunity to utilize the (small) platform I have here to shed some light on the issues rowers and coxswains face with regards to disordered eating, pressures to maintain or lose weight, etc. Eating disorders are a taboo topic regardless of what “world” you’re in (rowing or not) and people tend to shy away from the topic because it’s an uncomfortable one to talk about. With regards to rowing, most coaches don’t have the breadth of knowledge to recognize and understand the signs and symptoms of an ED, let alone what to do about it if they’re confronted with one of their athletes dealing with one.
I can’t and won’t claim to know everything there is to know about eating disorders, but it is something I studied pretty intensely in college as part of my major and something I’ve witnessed first hand several times. Even though I’m 15 pounds below the women’s minimum for coxswains, I’ve still been pressured by coaches to keep my weight down so I’ll admit to doing some not-to-healthy things on occasion for the sake of keeping my boat fast. Believe me when I say it’s never worth it.
It’s important to remember that eating disorders aren’t just physical, they’re psychological as well. The stigma surrounding mental health disorders is tends to perpetuate the disorders even more. Please don’t let other people’s opinions, actions, offhand comments, etc. discourage you from asking for and/or getting help. I think it’s important in situations like these for people to recognize that they aren’t the only ones dealing with these issues, so if you are a rower or coxswain who has dealt with an eating disorder (either in the past or currently) and wouldn’t mind sharing your experience, please send me an email. The point of this is to let other rowers and coxswains know that they aren’t the only ones going through this and to encourage them to seek help, whether it be from their peers or a professional.
Check back for a new post each afternoon this week. You can find all the posts (and other related questions and posts) under the “eating disorders” tag.
The other day I was stuck in the center lane. Let’s just say it didn’t go so well. How do you concentrate on boats on either side of you/your point, your rowers, making calls and stroke rate? Ack, overwhelmed!
This is why I always wanted to be in the center lane – it forced me to focus on everything and really helped me get better at multi-tasking while coxing. Now I think I can probably do eighteen things at once and not even blink. It is overwhelming though, especially if you’re a novice and still trying to learn how to steer and talk at the same time. My biggest thing with being in the center wasn’t so much what I was doing, because obviously I knew what I was doing (as in, what adjustments I was making), but what the other coxswains were doing. I knew that I could steer a decent line and keep away from the other boats, but what about them? Can they do that? Or am I going to have to constantly be worrying about whether or not they’re going to steer into me?
Trust between coxswains is huge so you’ve got to establish before you get out on the water that each person is going to be aware of the other boats and make it a point to try and maintain a certain distance between all of you at all times. If you notice someone is getting a little too close for comfort, don’t be afraid to call over and say “Hey, watch your starboard blades!” or simply “Move to port!”. With girls this is always such a bigger issue than it needs to be because I think it gets interpreted as the other person being unnecessarily bitchy but it’s not like that. Even if it comes out in what may sound like an angry tone, unless she’s already asked you eighty times to move and you aren’t listening, most of the time it’s not meant in a bad way. If someone asks you to move, just do it. It’s for their safety and yours.
When I get out on the water, I just have this mindset of this is what I have to do and there are no other options. Once I got the hang of steering, I pushed it to the bottom of my list of things to pay attention to and basically went on auto-pilot. The only time I actively think about steering is during steady state when I don’t have to talk as much or when there are a lot of other crews around, in which case I tell the rowers “OK guys, traffic’s a little heavy so I’m just gonna steer for a bit”, that way they know that I’m focusing on something and not just being unreasonably quiet. I’m always aware of what I’m doing but at the same time I’m not, if that makes sense. It’s like driving a car – you know what you’re doing but you’re not always actively thinking about it. You can hold a conversation while singing along to the radio while driving and not think anything of it. That’s how I approach coxing. Every 20-30 strokes or so I’ll pop my head out to the side and see if there’s anything up ahead and then make any necessary adjustments, but other than that I don’t worry about my steering too much.
The #1 thing I focus on is the rowers. Hands down, always, they are (and should be) my priority. I’m constantly moving my eyes back and forth between starboard and port, bow and stern. I’ve gotten to know my rower’s tendencies pretty well so I remind them of things I know they’re working on and then just ad lib the rest. I basically just tell them what I see. It really is that simple. If you see someone’s timing is off, tell them. If you see someone washing out, tell them. If you see someone rowing it in, tell them. None of that requires any extra brainpower on your end so it takes minimal, if not zero, effort for you to make that call.
As you get more experienced you’ll be able to talk without stopping while doing everything else you do and not think anything of it. I actually surprised myself a lot this past fall when I’d record myself and then find later when I listed to it that I talked for 25, 30, 40 minutes straight with a decent amount of intensity during race pieces or hard steady state. At least 85% of what I said wasn’t anything complicated either – it was all what I saw, pointing out locations, etc.
With stroke rate, I don’t pay attention to it unless we’re doing a drill or steady state that requires us to be at a specific rate. If we’re doing that then I’ll glance down every few strokes to make sure we’re on pace but I usually won’t say anything unless it’s starting to fall off, in which case I’ll say something like “We’re down at a 26, let’s bump it back up to a 28 on this one…”. Usually when we do have a specific rate we need to be at I won’t say anything unless we go +/- one beat, just because being that hyper-focused on the rate can lead to rush in the boat as they try to make up that half a beat. Ultimately though, all you’re doing is shifting your eyes down and back up over the course of like, a millisecond, and then reporting what your cox box says so again, it doesn’t take much effort to do this alongside everything else.
What makes your job easier is having a stroke who makes it a priority to stay consistent. I had a stroke in high school once who I went off on during practice because she, for the life of her, could/would not hold a steady pace. The crew obviously has a part to play in this, the stroke can’t do it entirely on their own, but it starts with them. The rest of the rowers were already super frustrated because they were trying to follow and couldn’t because the rate was so inconsistent and I got pissed because I was trying to watch so many different things and our coach kept yelling at us that he knew we weren’t at the stroke rate he wanted because he had his SpeedCoach out and why wasn’t I telling her to be at a 24, blah blah blah. The next time we stopped I said something along the lines of “This is your responsibility to hit a certain rate. Either make the effort or switch with 6-seat because I’m getting sick of telling you to get the rate where it needs to be and you not making the effort to change anything.”
If your stroke is having issues with holding a consistent rate, find out why. Is the rest of the boat rushing her or can she just not maintain the pace? Once you determine the cause, help her figure out a solution. If it’s the boat rushing, make calls that address moving out of bow together (the hands coming away, bodies swinging forward, etc.) and starting the wheels together. If your stroke is having problems on her own, one thing I do is when we’re doing steady state or something, I’ll take my mic off and tell her the stroke rate every … single … stroke for at least 10 strokes or so, that way she’ll know what range she’s in and can try and tighten it up to whatever rate we actually need to be at. One of my coaches had me do this a few times and it took a lot of time and was super annoying for both of us but it actually did help a lot.
So, circling back to your original question (sorry for going off on tangents), you have to tell yourself “these are my responsibilities, this is what I have to do, and I’m going to do go do it.” You’ve got to commit 100% to multi-tasking, which sounds almost like an oxymoron, but you have to commit 100% to each thing and then do each thing at 100%. It takes a lot of practice, focus, commitment, and patience on your end but once you get the hang of it you’ll wonder why doing all this was ever an issue in the first place. If I’ve had a bad practice because something went wrong or I just got overwhelmed by everything, when we go out the next day, I just take a deep breath and think “Get your shit together. Do not get overwhelmed. You know what you’re doing, you’re in control.” Usually I say that to myself in my head but there have been a few times where I’ll say, in a mildly frustrated voice, “Get your shit together!” out loud, which usually elicits a laugh from my boat.
One piece of advice I can give you though is to never let an overwhelming situation affect your mindset after you’re off the water. If something during practice overwhelmed you, instead of dwelling on it figure out what the situation was, what caused the stress, why it caused you stress, and how you can fix it so that doesn’t happen the next day.
College Q&A Recruiting Teammates & Coaches
What should I NOT ask when talking to a college coach about recruiting?
Off the top of my head the questions you shouldn’t ask are about the obvious things, i.e. the stuff you can (and should) find out on your own about the team and the school. Asking questions like “how many people are on the team”, “who do you race”, “does the school offer XYZ major”, etc. just indicates laziness on your part.
Also, don’t ask them how much money they can offer you. There’s definitely a time and place for questions like that but right when you’re starting to talk to coaches can come off as presumptuous at best and a huge turn-off at worst. I probably wouldn’t ask it at all until I knew I’d been accepted at the university and that rowing for this specific team was a lock. What boat you’ll be in, how often you’ll race, etc. also isn’t a good one to ask – you’re a freshman so regardless of your high school accolades, don’t automatically assume that you’ll be placed in a boat higher than the freshman 8+.
Basically, use your common sense. If a question doesn’t seem appropriate to you, don’t ask it. If you’re not sure, run through them with your coach and get their feedback/advice.
Are the way boats lined up in practice a reflection of a coxswain’s steering ability? There were three eights today and our cox was put in the center lane. Personally, I would think shore side is easier because you can follow it better but … what are your thoughts?
It could be or it could just be your coach decided on a whim that that was the order for the day. Personally, I like being in the center because I’m always trying to work on my steering and being in the center lane forces me to be aware of both boats on either side of me while still maintaining a good line. I hate getting stuck on the shore side because it’s very easy to get pushed over and you always have to worry about things lurking in the shallow water. Being on the outside isn’t the worst spot to be in but you’ve got to be careful not to go too wide and venture to the wrong side of the river. That’s more so a problem on narrower stretches of water but it’s still something to be aware of.
There are advantages and disadvantages of each lane so on neutral water I don’t think there’s necessarily a “best” or “easier” side to be on. Each lane tests your steering skills in a different way so, in my opinion, it’s good to get experience in all three if you can.