Day: May 6, 2015

Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

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How can I get back my passion for rowing? It used to be my life and there was nothing else I wanted to do. At 15/16 I wanted nothing more than to be in the position I’m in now. Recently though I’ve been finding myself falling out of love with it, I even thought the other day I can’t wait for the season to be over. I don’t know if it’s the negativity on my team becoming contagious or what but I hate myself for it.

This has been a recurring theme in a lot of  the emails I’ve been getting lately. I want to believe these types of feelings are all temporary simply because of the time of year with school winding down and championship season heating up but there are some people I’ve talked to who just sound seeeriously burnt out on rowing. This is why I tend to caution people from being all “crew crew crew” 100% of the time because eventually you are going to get sick of it. Like everything else in life, there has to be a balance. I wouldn’t hate yourself for feeling like this though – even on teams without rampant negativity issues, this is a pretty common thing to experience at some point or another.

Taking time off is always a good way to get perspective on situations like this. Sometimes that means taking a day or two off from practice, taking a week off before starting your summer workouts, or taking the entire summer off and not thinking about or doing anything rowing-related. You’ve gotta decide which one is best for you and then talk it over with your coaches so they can be kept in the loop with what’s going on. If you aren’t sure you want to talk to your coaches just yet (you should eventually though…), try talking with one of your team captains. You’re your best advocate though so if there’s something going on with a teammate or just on the team in general that’s contributing to you feeling like this, it’s up to you to speak up to the appropriate people and make them aware of what’s going on so the issue can be addressed. Same goes if you need to take time off. You have to get over the idea that somebody might be mad that you want to sit out a practice or are contemplating not returning next year – you have to do what’s right for you in the long run.

When I’ve felt this way about crew I usually find that it’s not actually the sport or my teammates that’s pissing me off, it’s something else that’s causing me to experience a lot of stress which is in turn being exacerbated by everything going on at practice. Things that wouldn’t normally be a big deal (like missing the stroke you’re supposed to come in on or having a brain fart during a piece and flubbing a call) end up making you feel like shit because you’re hyper-aware of all the stressors around you. Even though crew itself might not be the problem it’s an easy target to pin everything on just because the environment in general, expectations we have for ourselves, etc. always have us a little tense and on our toes. On its own most of us have figured out how to manage that but when you combine all that with other external factors things can get pretty overwhelming and you end up feeling how you’re feeling right now. Zeroing in on the root cause of the problem is a good way to figure out if crew really is the issue though or if it’s something else that you can work on fixing or learning to manage better. This combined with taking some time off is usually the best way to get back in the swing of things, at least in my experience (with what I’ve seen from friends/people I’ve coached and how I felt when I quit crew for awhile).

Coxing High School Novice Q&A

Question of the Day

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Hi! First off, your blog is so helpful! I’m finishing off my novice year as a rower this spring, but I am switching to coxing full time for the fall season. Do I get another novice year as a coxswain too? Second, my coach told me to only touch the rudder when the blades are in the water, and I understand that. But does that mean that I touch it for the drive, put it to straight on the recovery, and then touch it again on the drive? Or should I only touch it once on the drive and that should be enough? Thanks!

It’d be best to ask your coach because I feel like most teams do “novice” a little differently, at least based on the questions and stuff I’ve been asked through the blog. On my high school team if you were a rower you could “repeat” your novice year if you were only able to complete X% of the spring season. I can’t remember the amount specifically but I think it was like, if you only raced once or twice and/or had something that prevented you from participating for more than half the season (grades, medical issues, etc.) then you were allowed to be a novice again the following year. As a coxswain though, it never mattered if we were novices or not when we had that boat. In addition to the other boats I had, I coxed the novice 8+ my freshman year, my senior year, and once or twice my sophomore year when their regular coxswain was out. It’s kind of like masters rowing – there’s different age categories for each class but the coxswain’s age doesn’t count. We viewed coxing novices the same way and there was never an issue at the regattas we attended. In your case, my guess is that since you’ve already rowed for a year but have never coxed that you’ll probably be with the novices simply because you’ll all be “new” in the sense that they’ve never rowed and you’ve never coxed (full-time), even though you have a year of rowing experience under your belt. Talk with your coach(es) though, they’ll be able to tell you for sure.

Steering on the drive is the standard rule of thumb but every boat is a little different so you’ve gotta find what works for you. When you’re racing or doing pieces you should definitely only be steering on the drive since you want to minimize how much you’re disrupting the set but during practice, it’s really not that big of a deal if you steer on the drive and recovery as long as you tell the rowers so they can adjust their handle heights to compensate. (I briefly mentioned that in the post linked below too.)

Related: How to steer an eight or four

As far as how to steer on the drive, yes, you typically touch it on the drive, go back to straight on the recovery, and then touch it again as necessary on the subsequent drives. This is also known as pulse-steering. Personally I think it’s annoying and tedious which is why I don’t do it. Unless I’m racing I’d rather just hold the cable through the drive and recovery of one full stroke rather than pulse steer for two or three. Like I said though, find what works for you and stick with it. Some boats are a little more touchy so pulse steering works fine but for others, like our Empacher, you basically have to hold the cable as far up as you can through the full drive and recovery (and occasionally say a few Hail Mary’s) if you want to make any of the turns without ending up in the middle of the river.