Day: April 3, 2013

Novice Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

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I’m being forced to bow a quad in an upcoming practice. I’ve been sculling for a week and I feel a little intimidated. I don’t even know which oar I have to put pressure on to turn the boat in my desired direction. The only time I’ve had any experience was when I was in a double with a varsity member. I didn’t learn the basics, but from being in that position I learned how to sound confident. Do you have any tips?

Take your time. If you’re not sure what to do, ask. That is always preferable to guessing, even if it takes a few seconds out of practice. Try and figure out what you’re doing during practice before you get on the water so that you have a chance to go over the practice plan with your coach and can get an idea of what you need to say. Assuming your coach is going out with you, it might be better to just let him tell the crew what to do so you can focus on rowing and steering. That’s how it normally works with novice coxswains.

If you want to turn the boat to starboard (your left), you’ll need to row with your right oar. If you want to turn the boat to port (your right), you’ll need to row with your left oar. Basically whichever way you want to turn, row with the opposite oar.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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So we recently got a new coach and she said that she is not going to group us based on experience anymore and that we pretty much have to try out for varsity again. As a two season varsity rower I think it’s unfair that I have to prove myself to this coach and that she’s bulldozed over all of my hard work and making me start from scratch. Would you ever do that? Also, is there any way to not get huge thighs from rowing?

Personally no, I wouldn’t do that. I would reserve the right to maybe reevaluate seats (over a lengthy period of time) in the varsity boats if I felt someone wasn’t deserving of their spot in the first eight or if someone in the third eight deserved to be in the second, but I wouldn’t make someone try out again. I think there has to be respect from the rower’s end that she’s the coach and is going to do things how she wants to do them (regardless of whether or not people agree) but there also has to be respect on the coach’s end for the work that everyone has put into getting where they are now. To disregard all of that seems selfish.

Rowers are blessed/cursed with the gift of thunder thighs. The quads and hamstrings are THE main muscles that we employ while rowing (I say “we” like I actually row or something), so naturally the more they get used, the stronger they become, and the larger the muscles get. Just like there’s no way to prevent people from saying “your arms must be so strong!”, there’s no way to prevent getting huge thighs. Embrace it!

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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What do you find the most difficult thing about coaching? Besides money issues/weird hours…

The most difficult thing about coaching for me, disregarding the money and hours, is working with people who are less dedicated than I am. When I commit to doing something, I commit 100%, not because I’m trying to be that person who is overly enthusiastic or a suck up or whatever but because to me, that just seems like the “normal” thing to do. I think it probably just comes off like that because most other people appear to be OK with settling whereas I’m not.

If you commit to participating in something, why wouldn’t you show up every single day? Isn’t it like, oh I don’t know, assumed that you need to be at every single practice? It pisses me off when people say “oh, well, it was cold so I didn’t think we had practice” or “it rained this morning (for ten minutes) so we didn’t bring clothes or tennis shoes because we didn’t think we’d be going out (eight hours after it stopped raining)”. In that same vein, I have zero patience for people who half-ass the workouts, especially the easy stuff like calisthenics. Complaining about every single exercise, making no effort to do it properly, and then complaining even more because you’re sore and/or hurt yourself … why are you even there? You’re wasting everyone’s time and making me question whether or not you actually want to be there. If you’re not putting any effort into practice, where is my motivation to put any effort into coaching you?

People act like saying things like that is taboo or whatever, like it’s not something coaches should ever think or say, but I disagree. If you’re going to make it apparent that you don’t want to be there or you’re less dedicated than your teammates and coaches, I’m not going to hide my lack of interest in coaching you. I’d rather focus my attention on the people who show up and do what needs to be done without acting like they’re having their teeth pulled.