Did some updating to various parts of the blog this week so have a look around and let me know what you think!
https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/2IpOh6SmE9v79MWgJm3ie8
Month: June 2014
Winter training tips for coxswains
…because we all know there’s no worse time to be a coxswain than during the winter.
The winter months are a great time for coxswains to work on two main skills: your ability to spot and diagnose technical proficiencies/deficiencies and polish up some of your calls. One of the best things you can do for yourself is talk to your coach and ask them to let you run a practice (or multiple practices) under their supervision. As thrilling as taking the rowers through a body circuit is, doing that for 3+ months is not going to make you a better coxswain.
Related: How to survive winter training: Coxswains
One of my coaches overheard a friend and I whining about taking our respective eights through circuits our sophomore year (pretty sure the gist of our conversation was “this is so stupid, I’m so bored, I could be doing my homework right now (lol), etc.”) so the next practice he had us stay upstairs and alternate taking the rowers through warmups and different drills. It was good for us because at that point after a year of experience we knew how things should be called, we just needed to fine-tune how we did it.
When it comes to working on your technical calls, you should limit this to two occasions: warmups/drills and group workouts where everyone is rowing at the same pace (rate pyramids are an ideal workout for this). Basically anytime the rowers are all doing the same thing, go for it, otherwise, be a silent observer. In cases like this, you’re not really focusing on the individual so the rowers who don’t like being coxed on the erg won’t have much to complain about. This is more for you than it is for them anyways.
One of the main things you should focus on is how you call the transitions between rates, pressure, starts and settles, etc. Remember that just because you’re not on the water doesn’t mean you can start monologue-ing with your calls. Everything should still be simple and concise. I’ve used this analogy before but for those who haven’t heard it, if you can’t tweet whatever call you’re trying to make (aka it’s longer than the length of one tweet, which is 140 characters), it’s too long. Take out the unnecessary words so only the really important ones (the ones that are critical in conveying your message) remain. This would also be a good opportunity to practice the difference between “over” and “on” in terms of when to do something.
If the workout is going to have a technical focus, particularly if you’re in the tanks, determine what the focus is ahead of time (catches, finishes, sequencing, etc.) so you can create a “word bank” comprised of 10-12 calls that you can then incorporate into your vocabulary while you’re coxing. The more you practice them off the water the more natural they’ll sound on the water (and the less effort you’ll have to go through trying to come up with something to say). If you’re an experienced coxswain, don’t fall back on the same general calls that you’re used to using. Get creative and come up with some new ones by listening to recordings, talking with the rowers, etc. This is your time to figure out what works and what doesn’t before you get on the water so don’t waste the opportunity by being lazy.
When incorporating these technical filler calls, also make sure that your tone matches the overall intensity of the piece. The goal in coxing these pieces on land is to mimic how you would do it on the water during practice or in some cases, like you would on race day. (Side note, I think practicing race-day warmups, starts and settles, etc. are all GREAT to do on the ergs, especially if you give yourself a time limit to have it all done by.) If the rowers are doing low-rate steady state pieces with a focus on controlled and in-sync leg drives, don’t cox them like they’re bow ball to bow ball with Brown and Harvard in the grand final at IRAs and you’re trying to nose your boat out in front with a five for legs.
The second thing that you should do when not working on your calls is sharpening up your “technical eye”. Being on land gives you the opportunity to look at the rowers in a way that you don’t normally get to – from the side. This should be your “go to” thing to do if/when you aren’t given anything else to do. I personally don’t like calling drills or whatever while trying to observe the rowers because then my focus is split between the two and I end up not being wholly focused on either. One consistently distracts from the other and if I’m not losing track of what stroke we’re on, how much time is left, etc. then I just end up looking at the rowers without really seeing anything.
Related: The coxswain in winter
When observing the rowers, you should have a picture in your head of what the “ideal” rower’s form looks like. I used to always pick the best rower on our team and compare everyone’s form to her. This is after actually confirming with our coach that she had the best form on the team and would be a good example for others to follow. From there you can compare what you’re seeing in front of you to what you’re visualizing in your head and note what’s different between the two. The details aren’t what’s important here, rather you should be looking at the building-block kind of things – mainly leg drive, the transitions through the body sequence (legs → back → arms and back up), posture, etc.
From there, you can either make the correction directly to the rower or make a note of it in your notebook (which you should absolutely have on you) to address at another time. Something that I’d recommend doing is writing down what the issue was and what correction you made so that you can reference it later (as in days, weeks, or months later). Additionally, if something looks off but you aren’t sure what specifically the problem is, ask an experienced coxswain or your coach if they could look at the rower and explain what they’re seeing, what the correction needs to be, why that specific correction is needed, and what a good on-the-water call for that would be.
I also do a lot of walking when I’m observing the rowers on the ergs. Very rarely do I stand in the same place for more than a minute or two, unless I’m standing at the front of the room and observing everyone as a group. I like to stand in front of each individual for three to five strokes and look at them like I would in the boat. From there I try to figure out what’s good/bad about their form and what they might look like with an oar in their hands. As I mentioned in the post linked above, it’s a game I play with myself. It involves a lot of educated guesswork but ultimately it’s a great way to teach yourself about technique and form in general. And, as I’ve said thousands of times before, if you learn the tendencies of the rowers and what calls to make to address them while you’re still on land then you’ll be one step ahead of the game once you get out on the water.
Video of the Week: The Tiger Navy at SRAAs
Everywhere I’ve coached I’ve bragged about Marietta – I’ve compared every team to them because they set the bar so damn high in terms of expectations, sportsmanship, pride, coaching, etc. and now not only do other teams have to continue to try to live up to that, any crew I coach from here on out has to live up to this lightweight 8+. What makes me prouder than anything else is that I can finally stop bragging about the boats I coxed at Marietta and start bragging about the one I helped coach. I mean, I’ll still talk up my boats when I can but it’s more exciting now to brag about the things these guys have accomplished. I don’t really know why. My coach and I were talking about this on the bus ride home and when I said that he just smiled so I assume he knows what I mean and/or felt the same way at some point when he started coaching.
So, what’s the takeaway from this season? There are too many to count but the biggest one is that coaching girls is hard. Like, way harder and way more frustrating than coaching boys but it is a ton of fun in ways that coaching guys never could be. I definitely have a new appreciation for it. The payoff is that eventually everybody figures each other out and solid relationships are built, you’re given the nickname “Mom” that you without fail start responding to (even when it’s being yelled in the middle of a crowded regatta), and, if you play your cards right, you end up with a text that says there’s a massive slice of Reese’s PB cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory with your name on it in the hotel room across the hall that you get to eat while listening to a group of girls tell you about their way-too-complicated love lives. I’ll be honest though, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Question of the Day
Hey! This isn’t exactly about rowing but I was hoping you could help. So I have been emailing with a college coach a little bit and I am supposed to call him this week. The only thing is I get really nervous when I talk on the phone so I am really nervous about calling him. Do you have any advice about talking to college coaches on the phone? Thanks!
Trust me, I completely understand how you feel. I hate talking on the phone. It just makes me so uncomfortable. I’m always afraid that I’m not going to hear or understand what the other person says and I’ll have to ask them repeat to themselves or something and I’ll end up sounding really stupid. Since the majority of my rowing-related phone calls are for interviews, most of the tips below will probably have some kind of tie-in to that. For the most part job interviews and recruiting phone calls are pretty similar; the only things that would likely be different is the wording of some of the questions you ask.
Determine how much privacy you need to feel comfortable before, during, and after your call and schedule accordingly so that privacy is maximized and distractions are minimized.
When I schedule a phone call, the most important thing for me is making sure it’s at a time when I’ll be the only person home. Not only does this minimize the likelihood of being interrupted or having the person I’m talking to hear someone yelling across the house to someone else, it also ensures that I won’t have anyone bugging me afterwards about who I was talking to, what we were talking about, how’d it go, etc. Few things piss me off more than other people thinking they’re entitled to details just because you’re in the same area as them or they overheard part of your conversation. (Spoiler alert, you’re not.) I’m uncomfortable enough talking on the phone, I don’t want to finish it and immediately have someone question me on everything that was discussed or critique the responses they heard me give.
The other reason why I like to be totally alone is so that I can guarantee myself absolute silence. It helps a lot with the whole “being nervous about not being able to hear what they’re saying” thing. One time last summer I had a phone interview with someone and they unexpectedly called two hours before we were supposed to talk. Something had come up and they wanted to know if talking now was a possibility. I didn’t feel like I could say no so I said sure, now’s totally fine. Except it wasn’t – I was standing in the middle of a crowded street in Brooklyn where both privacy and silence were nonexistent. I had to walk a couple blocks before I was finally somewhere semi-quiet (or as semi-quiet as Brooklyn can get in the middle of the afternoon) but because I was still straining to hear what he was saying, I spent the entire phone call distracted and nervous. When I hung up a police officer that was standing nearby actually asked me if everything was OK because I was so visibly uncomfortable. Talk about awkward…
Make a list of 2-3 questions, plus any follow ups you know you’ll have.
You know they’re gonna ask you if you have any questions at the end and you know they’re gonna expect you to have at least one or two so you might as well write them down ahead of time. This makes the segue from conversation to Q&A much smoother since having it all right in front of you allows you to just read it out loud instead of fumbling with the wording in your head or spending half the conversation trying to come up with something to ask (been there, done both).
Whenever we get to that point in the conversation and the other person asks if I have any questions I usually say something like “I do actually, I’ve got a list of three that I put together last night. Two of them are important ones regarding _______ and _______ and the third is just a general question about _______.” The first two questions are always the same and the third is something that is unique to the program I’m interviewing with. The reason the first two are always the same is because I want to have some way of comparing all the programs I talk with so I can narrow down whether they’d potentially be a good fit or not. The reason I tell them that I have a list of questions that I put together last night, this morning, or whenever is because it shows I put time, effort, and thought into preparing for the phone call. Preparation is key and in situations like this it’s a great way to communicate how serious you are about whatever it is you’re interviewing for (be it a job, recruiting slot, etc.).
If you had some questions but they were all answered throughout your conversation, don’t freak out and think you have to scramble to come up with something just for the sake of asking a question. Usually if this happens to me I’ll respond to “do you have any questions” with “I did have a couple but you actually answered both of them when you were talking about _______ and _______.” If you have any follow-ups that you thought of while you were talking, feel free to bring those up but don’t be afraid to say that they already answered your questions. The biggest no-no though is not having any questions, period. If they ask you if you have any questions and you say “nope … *crickets*” then it can/will give them the impression that you weren’t that interested to begin with or you weren’t paying attention to anything they were saying during the 10, 15, 20+ minutes you were on the phone. I used to think it was so dumb that you had to ask questions at the end of a phone call like this but it actually does make sense when you think about it. They’re trying to learn more about you, you’re trying to learn more about them … how else can you do that than by asking questions?
Oh, one more pro tip … write your questions on a sheet of computer paper or something similarly sized in black permanent marker. Don’t use a fine-tip marker on a notebook-sized piece of paper or write your stuff in pencil on a hot pink Post-it – use something you’ll be able to see from across the room if necessary. Make sure it’s legible too. There’s nothing more embarrassing than scribbling down a question and then not being able to read it when it comes time to actually ask it. The reason I write my questions on a large sheet of paper is so that while we’re talking I can make notations on what’s being said, either in response to the question(s) I asked or just in general.
Go to the bathroom.
Don’t laugh, I’m totally serious. Last summer I had a phone interview scheduled for pretty much immediately after we were supposed to get off the water at Penn AC. It was hot as hell that day and I’d drank a ton of water that morning so naturally, I had to pee really, really bad. I got off the launch and started walking up to the the boathouse when my phone rang. Pretty sure I wasn’t even a step off the dock yet. For about half a second I struggled with “do I let it go to voicemail (and seem unprofessional/unprepared), go pee, and call him back” or “do I answer it and potentially not be able to pee for another 20 minutes”. I answered it and spent at least 3/4 of the phone call mentally cursing the hot temperatures, 32oz Nalgenes, and the fact that this was the ONLY coach who actually called right at the time he said he would. You wanna know what being nervous does to you when you have to pee? It makes you have to pee even more. Longest 20 minutes of my life.
Moral of the story: if you’re the one being called, don’t schedule phone interviews that coincide immediately with the end of practice and don’t drink anything 30 minutes or so beforehand if you have a small bladder. If you’re the one making the call, go to the bathroom right before, even if you feel like you don’t have to go. Trust me, some day you’ll remember this advice and you’ll thank me for it.
Spend a minute or two before you make the call (or five-ish minutes if you’re the one being called) to get prepared.
I usually give myself an extra few minutes if I’m the one expecting the call because very rarely do people ever call when they say they will and you never know if they’re going to be a few minutes early or late. I have a routine that I like to go through to relax and get myself focused that’s actually kinda similar to what I do on race day. I stretch (all I do is stand up and reach my hands up towards the ceiling and then roll out my shoulders to shake off some of the tension), sit on my couch, go through the questions I have, take a couple deep breaths, and remind myself that it’s just a phone call … I’m not launching rockets or anything so there’s really no reason to be nervous.
Give off an air of confidence, even if you’re nervous.
Fake it ’til you make it, right? Speak clearly with good diction and appropriate volume, ask direct questions, and actually engage in conversation. Don’t give one word responses or let the person you’re talking to control the conversation. During one of my in-person interviews the coach I was meeting with commented on how he could tell I was a coxswain over the phone because of how I spoke (clearly, concisely, with confidence, etc.) and it made me laugh because I admitted to him how uncomfortable talking on the phone makes me. He said he never would have guessed which actually helped a lot with future interviews because I recalled him saying that and that alone made me feel more sure of myself and less nervous overall.