Month: July 2014

Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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I’m kind of confused looking over the USRowing Rules. Can you please give a summary of what I should know? Thank you, I really appreciate it. PS Your blog is an amazing resource I wish I found out about earlier than I did. Thanks for all you do.

Anything specific or is it just all the legalese that’s not making sense? To be honest, in twelve years I’ve never once actually read the rule book in its entirety. My coaches gave us specific things to review (mostly the rules of racing) but pretty much everything you need to know is clearly stated at the coaches and coxswains meetings. Try to stay up to date with the rule changes though – they’re always one of the first PDFs posted on this page on USRowing’s site.

Follow up: The protesting “process” and when to do it is kind of confusing. Thank you!

Check out the post linked below (scroll to the very bottom of the post).

Related: What happens at a coaches and coxswains meeting?

The only major difference between the rule book and what I wrote is that in the rule book it says it’s $50 to file a protest. I think that might differ at regular regattas (aka not the big ones like regionals, nationals, etc.) because I’ve seen it range from costing nothing to up to $30, so just pay attention to what they say at the meeting (or ask if they don’t mention it).

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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I just got the confirmation that I’ll be coaching Juniors for the fall! I’m so excited, but nervous at the same time. I was wondering if you had any tips on effective coaching (or at least tips on staying patient, which I’m afraid will be my issue)? Thanks so much! Your blog has helped me out quite a bit lately.

There are going to be times when someone you’re coaching (or coaching with) makes you go from zero to rage in two seconds flat and 98% of the time you can’t say a single thing about it (because of parents, your spot on the totem pole, etc.). It’s inevitable. In situations like that, the best thing you can do for yourself is just close your eyes, take a deep breath, rage it out in your head for a few seconds, and then get on with whatever you were doing. Being impatient or getting easily frustrated doesn’t make you a bad coach as long as you’re not going off on people Bobby Knight-style every time something happens.

When I first started coaching, if I had $100 for every time I thought this, made this face, or wanted to do this I would be a very wealthy person. I’m not a patient person at all so having to teach people how to do something and watch them initially do it so poorly despite what I thought were the most basic and simple instructions I could give them made me very frustrated on a pretty consistent basis.

When you hit that point where you’re thinking “I’m gonna lose it on this kid” because he can’t seem to do anything right, take a step back and re-evaluate. There’s a good chance that he’s just as frustrated as you are because he can tell that he’s not doing or understanding what you want. This is the part where you have to remind yourself that you’re most likely not actually frustrated at the kid, you’re frustrated with yourself because what you think should be working … isn’t. That was my problem. I was never actually angry at anyone for not understanding something, rather I was getting progressively more and more frustrated with myself because I wasn’t used to my (pretty solid) communication skills failing me.

Because that was an unfamiliar feeling, I didn’t know what to do and that pissed me off. What I concluded though was that instead of getting mad you have to get creative. For example, I found out that I am really good at coming up with analogies to explain what should be happening at different points in the stroke. That happened completely on the fly one day and I’m pretty sure I had no idea what I was saying as I was explaining it but it worked (about 50 million times better than anything else I’d said up to that point) so that became my go-to fallback for when somebody doesn’t understand something.

Have a plan but keep it flexible. If you’re one of those people that can function on the fly with no prep or schedule or planning … cool. I’m kinda jealous of anybody that can do that. Everybody does things a little differently though and has their own system that keeps them at their “most effective” but even if you’re not the planning type of person, try to sit down at least once or twice a week and come up with a rough idea of what you want to do at practice over the next couple of days. It doesn’t need to be planned out in 10 minute increments or anything like that but you should at least know the drills you want to do throughout the week and why you want to do them (to reinforce something you did the other day, to highlight and work on something you noticed a few people having trouble with yesterday, etc.), as well as the pieces you want to get in so that when someone (your coxswains) says “Hey Mike, what are we doing today…” you can say “X and Y to start [reasons why] and then we’ll finish off with Z [reasons why]” instead of “I donno yet, we’ll see once we get out there”. (As a coxswain, I hate you if you’re that kind of coach. It’s infuriating. If you want your coxswains to be on top of their game, you need to be on top of yours.)

The reason I say keep it flexible is because there are gonna be practices where you wanna change it up a bit based on what you’re seeing so far, what your coxswains have seen the last few days, what you saw last night when you finally had time to sit down and watch last week’s race footage, etc. Deviating from the plan is totally fine as long as it’s done in an organizational manner that doesn’t throw off everyone else (your coxswains). Being too attached to your schedule can result in you doing stuff just to check it off and say it got done instead of you actually spending time coaching the kids through the drills, pieces, etc.

Oh, and if you’re like me and need (and like) to have a plan in order to be your most effective, don’t take shit from anybody who tries to tell you that that’s wrong, stupid, “not how it’s done”, etc. That goes the other way too – if writing stuff down and adhering to a strict schedule makes you over-think things and spend too much time focusing on unnecessary stuff, that’s fine! Feel free to speak up and say that but don’t let anyone tell your way is wrong just because it’s different from theirs. Be flexible and open to trying new ways of doing things but if you find something that works, don’t be afraid to stick with it.

Last thing. Every so often when you’re out on the water, take a second for yourself to just enjoy being out there. This job is always going to be frustrating to some extent but for every frustrating thing that pops up, there’s going to be ten things that happen that remind you of why you do it. Those five seconds where you hang back in the launch just to take a deep breath and shake out the tension in your shoulders help keep you sane, especially on the days when it took ten extra minutes to get off the dock, traffic is ridiculous, your coxswain is steering like she closed the bar, and now it’s snowing in September because let’s be honest that’s just how the weather’s been this year. Don’t let all the crazy shit that’s going on make forget why you’re out there.  Enjoy the little moments because at the end-of-the-year banquet, that’s gonna be the stuff you laugh about.

College Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

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I am going on an official visit in the next couple months. The only thing I’m worried about is my guide. I am a really shy person and I have heard of people being taken to parties and I really don’t want to end up in that situation.

Eh, just be up front and say you’re not really into partying, what other cool things around campus can they show you? If you get a weird vibe from whoever you’re staying with just because you said you don’t want to go out then that should probably tell you something about what the people on the team are like. The key though is to not be a prude about it, regardless of your personal feelings/upbringing, and act like you’re above going out or whatever. I and I’m sure plenty of other people would be totally cool with someone saying they don’t want to go to a party but if you act like you’re better than us just because you said no then that’s not exactly going to put you in a favorable light.

Bottom line, it’s up to you to speak up and say “no thanks” if you don’t want to do something. You’re a big kid now so use your words. Do some research ahead of time and see if there’s anything happening on campus or around town while you’re there that you could go check out. Then you can either suggest that immediately or propose it as an alternative if going to a party gets brought up first.

Personally, this is what I think: I’m not going to begrudge anyone who wants to go out and have a good time while they’re on campus (and away from their parents) but this official visit is your chance to see the school through the eyes of someone who actually goes there. You might as well take advantage of that while you can. There will be plenty of opportunities to drink shitty beer in dingy frat house basements once you’re actually in school.

Coxswain skills: Cutting corners

Coxing

Coxswain skills: Cutting corners

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If you’re steering and coming up a turn, you’ve probably heard your coach say something along the lines of “don’t cut the corner”, which means that you’re taking it (or setting yourself up to take it) too sharply. This tends to happen most often on rivers where there are big sweeping turns, for example, like the one between the BU bridge and Riverside on the Charles. I am so guilty of cutting that one nearly every time I’m going downstream.

In this picture you can see two lines, a dashed red one and a solid black one. The dashed one represents a course that would be considered “cutting the corner”. What tends to cause this to happen is we look out of the boat and see a turn coming and instead of waiting until we actually hit the point in the river where the turn starts, we instead start turning the shell immediately. As a result, because we’ve started steering early this will cause us to end up on the wrong side of the river once we’ve completed the turn (as indicated in the picture). This can be very dangerous depending on how heavy the traffic is on your body of water (that includes power boats too, not just other rowers) so it’s important to take your time and make sure you’re taking it at the proper angle. If you’re not sure if this is something you’re doing, a good indicator is to judge how far you are from shore when you’ve completed the turn vs. when you started it. A few feet is negligible but if you were five feet off the bank at the start and you’re finishing in the middle of the river, that means you cut it a bit.

What you should actually do in these cases is simply wait to start your turn. You always want to go straight just a little longer than you think you should before tapping the rudder. For me, when I’m going downstream on the Charles, the few times that I’ve actually nailed that turn are when I’ve stayed straight just long enough to make me question whether I’ve stayed straight for too  long. There’s this momentary uncomfortable feeling you get and you’ll think you’ve made a mistake but that’s actually the best indicator, at least in my experience, to let you know when to start going. (That applies to a lot of things in coxing, not just how to take turns…)

(In that illustration I actually made the black line a bit farther out than I wanted so if it looks like the “correct” course is going a little wide … it is.)

Another common example for cutting corners is when you’re rowing two or three across and the crew on the middle and/or outside squeezes the crew on the inside as they come around a turn. In cases like this, if you’re the inside crew you have a couple options. 1) Stop rowing until it’s safe to pick it up again, 2) drop down to fours or pairs so you’re still moving but can avoid the other boats until they fix their course, or 3) keep rowing and force the other coxswain to fix something so they don’t hit you. There are a few others but these are the main ones. Option three tends to come off as super passive aggressive but … why should I stop rowing just because you can’t steer? Personally, I think this is the best option all around because it forces the middle/outside coxswain to fix the problem as it’s happening (instead of trying to think about what to do differently after the fact) and it puts the coxswain on the inside in an uncomfortable position that they have to learn to manage and deal with without freaking out.

From a coach’s perspective, it also forces communication between the coxswains because there’s really no fixing this situation without one telling the other what they need them to do. That means that you can’t get super pissed at the other coxswain and suddenly decide you’re just not going to say anything to them. (This is waaay more common with female coxswains but I’ve seen guys do it too.) If you’re getting pushed over it does nothing for anyone if the only person you say something to is your stroke seat. You have to actually look over to the other coxswain and say “Hey Emily, can you stay wide coming around the turn here, you guys are starting to push me over…”. To the coxswain(s) being asked to maintain the spacing, just listen and adjust. Don’t back talk to the other coxswain, don’t get snarky, and most especially, don’t blatantly ignore them. Put your hand up to acknowledge you heard them and then move over a little. If you’re in the middle and fairly close to coxswain on the outside, you’ll need to look over and say “Hey Alex, I’m coming over to starboard” so you don’t end up merging into their lane while they’re still in it.

An example of when situations like this become dangerous is after it’s rained and there’s a lot of debris along the shoreline. We ran into this problem a lot this year because of all the rain we had. If there weren’t full-size tree trunks floating down in the middle of the river, they were stuck just under the waterline along shore. Additionally, if the water level is high then the branches of trees that are right on the bank tend to be lower, which means you can’t just row under them like you normally do. Both of these present problems where equipment and/or people could be damaged if you steer or get pushed into them, which is why coxswains in the middle and outside need to be equally as cognizant of what’s in the inside lane so they’re not putting their teammates in a bad situation.

If you’re one of the crews on the outside, coming around a turn like this means you have to take it wider than you normally would.  It’s going to take a little longer (I donno, 10ish strokes at most maybe?) but it’s not a race so it’s really not that big of a deal. I think it’s good to spend an equal amount of time in all the lanes though (inside, middle, and outside) because it’s good practice for head race season. You might not always get your desired lane on the course and it’s important to know how to handle both tight and wide turns so you can get through them cleanly, safely, and without a penalty. Don’t just go through the motions when you’re at practice, really think and compare what you have to do differently depending on which lane you’re in. What’s the difference in the number of strokes it takes to get around the bend between the inside lane and the outside one? For your crew, is it more effective to have one side increase the pressure or can you comfortably make it around solely on the rudder? Those are the kinds of things you should be paying attention to (in addition to everything else).

Image via // @oh.genevieve

Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Assault on Lake Casitas

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Steve Gladstone really isn’t kidding when he says they start slow and build towards the finish. Around 4:00 in the video it looks like Belgium has a maybe a seat of open water on the entire field but you can see from that point on where the Americans slowly start walking through the field. With 250m to go, the rest is history.

Related: Books on rowing, pt. 2

The end is actually pretty interesting when the two announcers discuss how they challenged the national team coach’s chosen double and beat them for the chance to represent the USA in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. You gotta admit, that’s pretty damn impressive.

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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Hey! I’m a High School Cox and I attended a College Crew Camp this week. One of the rowers that was assigned to my boat would deem my coxing as ‘terrible’ and would yell out in the middle of pieces – and not just stuff like “C’mon!” as some girls do, no she tried to call her own power 10s, right after I would call a power 10. Do you know how to interact with rowers like that? I wanna try to be polite and not someone totally rude and mean. I wanted to say something like “If you’re able to talk on the boat you’re not pulling full pressure!”. In case this ever happens again, any tips for dealing with over-bearing rowers who think they should cox?

Honestly? Here’s what I would really love to see a coxswain do in a situation like this, especially if it’s something that’s been a continual issue. Regardless of whatever you’re doing – I don’t care if you’re in the middle of a 1500m piece or doing cut the cake drills – stop. Just weigh enough and check the boat down. If the rower in question isn’t in stroke seat, stand up and get their attention. Look them dead in the eyes and tell them they have two options: one, shut up and focus on the one job they have or two, get up and switch places with you since they seem to think they can call the piece/drill better than you can. Take your mic off and hold it out to them too. I guarantee you, they won’t take you up on it. Give them one last chance and when they don’t take you up on it again, tell them fine, they’ve made their choice. If they have something to say then they can say to you/the boat after practice but until then, the only person making the calls in the boat is you. Then sit back down, let it go, and get on with practice.

Standing up for yourself (as a coxswain, as a person, whatever…) doesn’t mean you puff your chest out and try to act tough by saying something like “if you can talk you’re not pulling hard enough” because that literally has no effect on the offending person. (It’s also the most played out, unoriginal retort in coxing.) Too many (young, female) coxswains think that they have to be this universally nice person otherwise no one will respect them and that’s not how it works. Yes, you should be a kind, respectful person but that doesn’t mean you should be a doormat. Using this situation as an example, if you let this rower get away with yelling things out during pieces and being disrespectful towards you then that’s only going to make the other rowers think it’s OK to do the same thing (or at the very least, that they could get away with it if they did do it because the most you’ll do is say “if you’re talking you’re not rowing hard enough”). Obviously what I suggested at the beginning isn’t something you should be doing on a weekly basis (it’s really only a one-time thing because if delivered properly, one time is all it takes) and obviously you should never resort to personal attacks (do I really even need to say that?) but at some point you’ve got to draw the line and get over the fear that “they might not like me if I say something”.

Nine out of ten rowers (or maybe it should be seven out of eight…) that you cox won’t do stuff like this. In one-off cases where it’s been a frustrating practice or someone showed up to practice wearing their “I’m gonna be an asshole today” hat (for whatever reason), the best way to handle it is to still be firm with them and say “Hey, I get that you’re having a tough day/we’re having a tough practice but don’t take that frustration out on me/the rest of the boat by yelling things out like that. It’s not productive and only distracts people. If you have something to say or want to make a suggestion for how I could call it differently, either wait ’til we stop for a water break or wait ’til practice is over.” Most of the time when this happens, it’s just that person spouting off because they’re pissed about something and you’re an easy target. Just let it go. Well, let them know they need to back off first and then let it go.

What I think a lot of rowers don’t understand is just how frustrating this is for coxswains. The equivalent, to give an example, would be something like this: Imagine you’re on an erg and then all of a sudden your coxswain jumps in out of nowhere and yells “NO! What is this? That’s not how you do it! You’re supposed to do it like this!” and then grabs onto the handle and tries to wrestle it away from you while you’re still erging. You try to keep going but there’s this annoying person preventing you from doing that because for some reason they think they know how to do it better than you do, even though you spend about 10x the amount of time on the erg that they do since that’s your job as a rower. The same goes for coaches that try to yell over the coxswain during pieces – imagine someone sitting in the launch with you and constantly fighting you for custody of the megaphone, right in the middle of you saying something really important to the boat you’re working with. You have to think about it from their point of view and how you’d feel if someone were to do that to do you.

I could go on and on about this topic because it’s one of the ones that makes me go from zero to rage in about ten seconds but I think you get my point.

College Coxing Q&A

Question of the Day

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I am going into my senior year as a rower and am looking at colleges. One college that I’m really interested in only has a club team. Do you think they would let me be a coxswain even though I have only ever been a rower? I am 5’4 and around 125 lbs.

Definitely. Most club teams are pretty lax when it comes to the rowing norms since a larger majority of the team is comprised of people who have never rowed (or in some cases, have never participated in sports) before. You could probably even keep rowing if you wanted to.