Day: May 12, 2016

Coxing Masters Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

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Hi! I have my last race coming up in a couple of weeks and I’m coxing four boats at it. The first boat is our Varsity 4A who I am very used to and have been coxing all year. The second boat is a LWT Novice 4 that was kind of thrown together last minute because we needed to boat everyone. The other two are masters boats for my club team that I’m obviously not a part of because I’m in high school, but they needed an extra coxswain and their coach is my old coach, so he asked me. Do you have any tips for coxing races generally and not super person-specifically, but still well? The two masters boats have real shots at medalling so I want to make sure I do my best with them, even though I’ve never met or worked with any of them before. The LWT4 doesn’t really have much of a shot just because who we’re competing against but I still want them to feel like they had a good end-of-season race. What do you think? Thank you so much!! PS: The two masters boats will be bowloaders and since I won’t have very good boat sense with them because they’re not my teammates, I don’t know how well I’ll do with technical calls.

I wouldn’t be super concerned with the masters boats – your main goal there should be to just steer straight. (Obviously that should be the goal every time you race but in this case it’s really your only responsibility.) I’d ask your coach if he has a race plan he wants them to follow and if he does, go over it with him so you understand it and then just execute it on race day. Don’t worry about technical calls or anything like that unless they specifically ask you to make some (this is something you should ask rather than waiting for them to bring it up).

Masters crews tend to fall into two categories – the ones who are doing it recreationally and should never (ever) be left to their own devices and the ones who are fairly competitive and a little more self-sufficient. If these guys have a chance at medaling then they probably fall into the latter category, in which case they might just ask you steer and handle everything else themselves. When I’ve coxed one-off races with masters boats they usually tell me up front that to keep things simple since I’m new to the boat all I need to do is get them from Point A to Point B and the bow seat will make whatever calls they need outside of rate shifts and transitions. It’s not the worst arrangement and it definitely takes a ton of weight off your shoulders when you’re meeting them for the first time the day of the race.

You have two jobs on race day … steer straight and execute the race plan. If you do those two things well then you’ve done your job. With your lightweight boat, if they’ve raced before then I’d ask them to tell you one thing that motivated them in their race or if they haven’t raced, give you something they want you to say to them during the race (either technical or motivational). That way you’ll at least have something you can fall back on during the race if it starts to feel a little dry. I’ve said this a lot but you can also incorporate them into whatever moves you take, i.e. “lets take 5 for the legs, here we go middle pair…” or “let’s take 10 to take two seats, go get your seat [3-seat]”. Stuff like that can bring a good energy to the boat and it literally takes no effort on your part.

Usually my approach to “generally” coxing a race is to just do what I know works. There were plenty of times in high school where my main boat would be my eight and then on top of that I’d also have a four that we put together that week as an extra entry so everyone could race twice. If it was a light four comprised of four people from my light eight then I’d cox them the exact same as I would the light eight. If it was four people in the 1V and I’d been coxing the 2V then I’d ask the 1V coxswain for a few calls that she’s been using and incorporate that into my race plan, which would more than likely be the same one that I’d use with my regular boat. Very, very little changes for me when I get into a new/unfamiliar boat, especially if I’m only gonna be with them for one race.

Q&A Rowing Technique

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I’ve been having some trouble for some time now that when I’m rowing at high rates and focusing on just being faster and tapping down and getting my blade in I’m burying the entire shaft of the oar pretty much. Not all the time but I would say 65% of the time. When the boat is set and we can all square up on time and have a direct catch then my blade just goes in but I’ve been told “Not the whole shaft, just the bury the blade” countless times. I’ve been focusing mad hard on trying to fix it but I really don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I wouldn’t mind seeing video of me rowing to nail it down and that might happen today but I just want to fix it already. My hands might be too low at the catch or too high (mostly depending on the boat being unset). When I was in a better set boat, my technique was a lot better and less of the shaft of the oar went in and I got the blade in. I can get the blade in on the drive and have a lot of power but it seems that I enjoy making things harder for myself by putting the shaft in the water. Any help or tips would be extremely amazing. I also seem to just do this on port side and when I rowed starboard it worked a little bit better but I was having a hard time transitioning from righty to lefty. Thanks again.

We’ve had a couple guys doing this recently, usually when we’re practicing our starts. Their tendencies have been to get a little grabby at the catch and lift with their upper bodies to get the blade in which causes it to get buried deeper than it needs to be (vs. allowing their arms to just pivot from their armpits and driving back with the legs first). When you’re rowing at lower rates focus on feeling the connection at the catch in your low back and hips and resist the urge to sit up right away. Once you’ve got that feeling “memorized” it’ll be easier to replicate when you hit the higher rates. Keep your shoulders relaxed and body over while you push back with the hips and the blade depth should correct itself.

Definitely ask your coach if he can get some video from the launch so you can see what you’re doing, not just with the handle at the catch but on the recovery as well. I know it’s hard to take good strokes when the boat’s not on keel but do your best to hold your body stable (not tense … stable) and your hands level, that way you’re in the best possible position to have a good catch. If you allow your body/hands to react to every movement of the boat you’re just adding to the problem and making it harder on yourself.

College Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Hi Kayleigh, I’m coming and asking you because at this point my team is desperate. I don’t want to give much away other than we are a college team with a head coach who is boarder line abusive with an assistant coach who doesn’t coach and knows way to much about our personal lives beyond way what we post on social media. Some people have gone to compliance and they didn’t do anything and when some went to the Title 9 office that ended badly for us. Do you have any advice on dealing with a bad coaching situation?

Yikes. If neither of those two things worked then you should probably consider escalating it to the athletic director or assistant AD. If things are that bad then there’s no way they wouldn’t want to know, not to mention the fact that they should know about it. Situations like this are always tough and the tendency to sweep it under the rug or side with the coaches over the athletes, even if there’s a valid reason to look into the coaches’ actions and behavior, can be frustrating (especially when the go-to response lately involves saying something about “entitled millennials” not being able to handle a coach being “tough” on you). That shouldn’t be a reason to not speak up though if you feel like lines are being crossed.

I’m not sure what you mean by “it ended badly for us” in terms of going to the Title 9 office but I feel like whatever it is, it’s probably not legal just based on what Title 9 is. For those not familiar, it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. Here’s an example of what a Title 9 policy looks like (this is ours):

“MIT is committed to providing a learning, living and working environment free from gender-based discrimination. Gender-based discrimination, including sexual misconduct (a term used to describe a range of behaviors including sexual harassment, non-consensual sexual contact/sexual assault, non-consensual sexual penetration/rape, and sexual exploitation), intimate partner violence, and stalking committed by MIT students, staff, or faculty will not be tolerated. This applies to academic, educational, athletic, residential, and other Institute operated programs.”

So … yea. Obviously I don’t know all the details but if the issue wasn’t addressed and you were retaliated against for speaking up (especially if it was by your coaches), that’s a pretty serious problem in itself. Like I said though, I’d start with scheduling a meeting with the AD or assistant AD and calmly, rationally, etc. explain what’s going on. Keep it as straightforward as possible (make a bullet-pointed list if you have to), don’t elaborate for effect or anything like that, just lay out the facts and let them deal with it. Don’t be afraid to stay on them about this too if you haven’t heard anything or it feels like things have stalled.

As far as how to deal with this during practice … tread lightly, get in, and get out. I’ve had bad coaches but nothing to this magnitude so I don’t know how helpful that advice is but whatever you do end up doing, try to keep a level head throughout the situation and just channel your frustration into your strokes.

Feel free to email me if you wanna share more details – sometimes understanding the context of the situation helps me come up with better advice. Definitely keep me updated though, I’m interested to hear how things turn out.

Coxing Q&A

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Hello! I’ve seen you mention before that coxswains are supposed to be completely silent during seat-races and that was a huge surprise to me because I’ve been a high school coxswain for three years now and we always talk during our seat-races. We race our boat against the other boats making calls like those that we’d make during races. My coach is a retired olympic rower so I figured he knew how to run seat-races but then I read what you said and it seems to make more sense to have a seat-race be all about the rower. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on this (having coxswains cox the seat-races). Thanks!

Ah, I assume you saw my comment on Reddit the other day. I don’t think coxswains should be talking during seat races because seat races are supposed to be about which rower can make the boat go fastest under neutral conditions, not which rower can make it go fastest with someone motivating them along the way. To me that’s just a regular piece and would qualify as “unofficial” seat racing, which is something we do on occasion too. We’ll do normal pieces if we want to compare a couple guys and if the times are close and warrant it, then we’ll set up a day to do actual (no-talking) seat races.

Related: How to: Cox a seat race

Check out the post linked above – it’s all about how the role and responsibilities of coxswains when rowers are seat racing. There’s a lot more info and details in there but here’s what it says about actually coxing the pieces.

Do know what you are and aren’t allowed to say. 99.9% of the time, coxswains aren’t (and shouldn’t be) allowed to say anything more than the stroke rate and the time/distance. If during a normal sprint racing you are talking 98% of the time, during a seat race you should be silent 98% of the time. When I’ve coxed seat races I would tell the crew the stroke rate every 30-45 seconds, point out 250, 500m, and 750m, and let the crew know the time (i.e. 1 minute down, 2 minutes down, etc.). All of that was regulated by the coach too – I didn’t just randomly decide to say those things or when to say them, I was told to give that information and only that information at specific times during the piece (usually 1000m pieces).

You cannot cox them at all. No motivation, no technique, no moves, nothing. In the boat, the most important thing you have to stay on top of is making sure the stroke rate stays consistent and doesn’t surpass whatever cap the coach has given you. If the cap is no lower than 28spm and no higher than 30spm, it’s your job to communicate with your stroke if he/she is under or over that. The only thing you can do to get the stroke rate back in that range if it’s outside of it is to keep reading off the numbers until they get it where it needs to be. You can’t cox or coach them on how to get it there. (In any other situation you should not do this. Seat racing is the only time when reading off stroke rates like this is OK.)

Everybody does seat racing a little differently. Some people take coxswains out of the equation entirely and just do pairs matrices or pieces in straight fours. Sometimes they do regular pieces and call it a day and other times they get super official about it and do it the way it’s laid out in the post I linked to (which is how I’ve done it several times so it’s what I’m most familiar with). I’ve seen them done all three ways though and the most effective/efficient ones are the ones where the coxswains just steer and stay quiet. Pairs matrices/straight fours are fine but then you’ve gotta worry about the rowers being capable enough to steer in a straight line. That usually just ends up being an unnecessary distraction and in some cases can tamper with the validity of the races . When I’ve seen coxswains be allowed to cox the seat races like a normal piece, for whatever reason it always ends up being more disorganized and frantic. Like I said though … everybody does it differently based on what they think works (or is the easiest and least trivial).