Day: April 21, 2013

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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I honestly have no idea how to know how many strokes until we finish a race, piece, etc. Like, do I just guess?

Check out the second half of the post linked below. In addition to everything I said there, start gauging the distance you travel over ten strokes at various stroke rates and pressures to get an idea of what the “last ten” feels like. In a sense, yes, you’re guessing, but it’s very calculated guesswork. You won’t always be right but the goal is to be close if you can’t be spot on. It’s always better to say “last 5” and only take three than to say “last 3” and take five.

Related: I still have trouble judging distances [m] any tips?

Pay attention to how much time it takes too because then you can say “10 strokes to go, 15 seconds away from that gold medal…”. SUCH a motivator at the end of a race, especially when it’s close.

College Coxing Q&A

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What are the qualifications of being a cox? I’m 5’1 and 108lbs. Also I’ve actually never coxed before but the only way I could row in college is to cox so what are some ways I can get my name out for scholarships?

There’s also no way a coach would give a scholarship to someone who didn’t have any experience. Even if you have rowing experience, you’re not likely to get recruited as a coxswain if you haven’t actually proven yourself as a coxswain yet. Your best bet and my suggestion would be to go to walk on tryouts at the beginning of the year. You can either reach out to the coaches now to let them know you’re interested or just wait until you get to school.

One of the primary qualifications is being at or near racing weight, which is 110lbs for women and 125lbs for men. Height doesn’t really matter but obviously the shorter the better due to space constraints in the boat. Personality-wise, you need to be assertive, tactical, and not lacking in common sense, amongst other things.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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I keep overly saying “sorry” in the boat, even when I don’t need to. Any tips on how to stop?

Just … stop. It’s that simple.

When I was a novice I’d occasionally apologize for things and the rowers would be like … wait, what happened? … because they had no idea what I was even apologizing for. After that I stopped saying “sorry” unless the situation absolutely warranted it. If you say it too often it dilutes it’s value so when you do something that actually requires you to be sorry your rowers will most likely respond with “well, she apologizes for everything, she’s not really that sorry” and still be pissed at you for whatever it was, despite the fact that you offered up an apology.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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This kind of sounds weird, but I’m a novice coxswain, how do I get my boat to respect me? I feel like (with the exception of calls related to steering and drills) they don’t listen to anything I say in the boat. They talk a lot and I tell them not to but they continue to. They point stuff out to me on the water that I can clearly see and I just feel like they are always yelling at me and telling me what to do. Sometimes I just need to make a decision but I can’t if everyone is yelling at me. I don’t know what to do. I’m learning but the coaches don’t really help me out. Most of the things I’ve learned about coxing I’ve learned from other coxswains on the team or your blog. Do you know how to fix this and get the rowers to listen to me?

You guys should just start telling me who you row for so I can send your team a personalized ass kicking. It’s so irritating when I see/hear this happening. Like, not only is it rude and disrespectful but its also not safe. It seems like I’m the only person that gets that. And the fact that coaches just let it happen?! Come on.

Related: How do I get my boat to respect me?? I’m a novice coxswain on the B boat. I do all the workouts and I asked a few people for advice in what they want to hear etc but some still don’t respect me! I’m nice but firm when needed to be. I was a rower for 3 months in a a single and 2 months in an 8 and 4. I was good, they wanted me to go to varsity singles this year so I kinda get rowing better than most coxswains so I do what I wanted my coxswain to do but still no respect from half my boat!!

This is one of those things where there’s nothing I can say other than to just tell them to stop doing what they’re doing. Meet privately with your coaches and tell them explicitly the problems you’re having with the rowers. Tell them that you repeatedly ask them to stop talking so that you can do what you need to do but they don’t listen or respond. Explain that you’re trying to build a rapport with them but it’s hard to do when they aren’t putting forth the effort or showing you any respect.

You have to be confident when you’re on the water too, even and most especially as novice. A lot of the times when coxswains say their boat does what yours is doing it’s because the rowers don’t trust the coxswain because the coxswain doesn’t trust themselves. This causes the rowers to think they’ve got to do the coxswain’s job for them and of course everyone has an opinion on how it should be done so it just turns into one big clusterfuck. Instead of saying “guys, be quiet” call the rowers that are talking out by name. There’s no shame in doing that at all.

One way that I got my boat to stop doing that really fast was by saying their names every. single. time. they’d start talking or screwing around. Eventually everyone got so pissed off that they kept of getting called out that they shut up and just rowed. Plus, the rowers that weren’t getting sucked into the antics got really frustrated because they just wanted to row so the pressure of having their teammates turn around and say “Be quiet” in addition to knowing I was going to call them out put an end to the unnecessary stuff that was happening.

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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I’m a new coxswain on a team that rows in a salt water bay, and I’ve noticed some of the coxboxes have stopped working. Is salt water damaging to coxboxes? Like if I dip the connector for the mic/boat wire in the water to loosen it like you would in fresh water, is it bad to do that in salt water?

Yes, most likely the cox boxes are being damaged from the salt water corroding the wiring, which can cause the cox boxes to short out or not turn on at all. Salt water also carries an electrical charge if I remember correctly from chemistry, which means you’re lucky you haven’t suffered any kind of electrical shock to your hands or face yet.

My suggestion is to get in touch with NK and tell them what’s been going on. They’ll be able to tell you for sure if there is irreparable damage done to the cox boxes or whether or not they can be repaired/replaced. To be safe though, stop dipping the connectors in the water.