Month: March 2017
Video of the Week: Balancing act
Question of the Day
Hi! I am currently a junior in high school and it is my third year of coxing girls. As a junior I am looking into different colleges and I know that i want to continue coxing. In March, I am going to ID camp to try out for the Junior National Selection Team. Because of my birthday, I just miss the cutoff for trying out for HP, so having to trying out for the most competitive spot on the team is really nerve racking. Obviously I really want to make the team, so I wanted to know if there are any tips for becoming an even better coxswain and fully preparing myself for ID camp. I know that making this team can really help me be recruited into really good D1 colleges, and I have to grades for many highly competitive academic schools, so making this team is really important for me. Also, if you know anything that happens at ID Camp besides what they said on the website, please let me know because that would be much appreciated! Weight wise I am fine, luckily I was blessed with a good metabolism because I pretty much eat what I want and I float between 105-107lbs. Also, another thing that I am concerned about is my height. While I am 5’7″, as I mentioned before I am very tiny, but I’m scared they will discriminate against my height. Thank you so much!
Communication should be your biggest priority. You’re gonna be at a new boathouse, on a new body of water, with rowers, coxswains, and coaches that you’re unfamiliar with which means you’ve gotta figure out and internalize the plan and procedures ASAP. I assume the coaches will meet with the coxswains early in the day to go over stuff so you should look at it like any other coxswain’s meeting – if you have a question that isn’t answered, speak up and ask because it might have a big impact on how you do something later in the day. In situations like this I usually try to jot down a short list of questions that I know I’ll have, that way I can just tick them off as they get answered and then actually ask whatever’s leftover. (Did that for all my interviews with Columbia and it made things so much less stressful. Highly recommend doing it – it takes like, 5 minutes to do.)
A coach I worked with last summer who also coached with the HP/dev teams said that a big thing for the coaches was having the coxswains call everything “in two”, rather than “on this one”, just saying “weigh enough” on its own, etc. I’ve heard other coxswains mention that too so that’d be something to get clarified before you go on the water. It’s also a good reminder that you’ll probably need to adapt your normal way of doing things to fit their way of doing things. Your ability to do that without issue will most likely be something they look for, not only because adaptability is an important trait/skill for a coxswain but it’s also gonna indicate to them what your practice management skills are like. You’ll be out with a variety of people from a variety of programs who probably all do things a little differently – you’ve gotta be the one who standardizes it for everyone and says “OK guys, all my calls today are going to be preceded with “in two”…” so they
Obviously keep working on whatever you’ve been working on lately but don’t try to teach yourself new tricks before the camp. Do what works and do it well. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve said this but moving up the ladder as a coxswain is all about excelling at executing the basics. The better you are at that, the more opportunities you’re gonna have.
Coxswains, feel free to leave a comment about what you did at the camp but as far as I know, it’s just helping collect times from the 2k and then going out on the water for a row. Depending on the number of coxswains there you might row the whole time or you might get switched in halfway if there’s someone in the launch.
As far as your height, no one cares as long as you’re at racing weight (110lbs).
How to rotate through the sixes
This regularly gets asked by new coxswains at the start of each season so hopefully this helps you learn the order of the switches, as well as who’s being switched in and out.
It’s not nearly as difficult as it looks but it does help to familiarize yourself with the transitions before you actually need to call them.
Image via // Boston Magazine
Music to erg to, pt. 142
If you follow me on Instagram you probably saw that last Friday I wrapped up 2.5 years with MIT and on Monday started a new job at Columbia! I’m excited to finally share this since I’ve been sitting on the news since mid-December but back in October I applied for the Director of Rowing Operations role and was offered the job a week before Christmas. Leaving MIT was a hard decision – it’s no secret how much I loved being there – but this felt like a good next step.
The last few weeks have been kinda hectic though and I owe a lot of you replies to emails so keep an eye out for those over the weekend and throughout next week.
Coxswain Skills: Awareness
Previously: Steering, pt. 1 || Steering, pt. 2 || Boat feel || How to handle a negative coxswain eval || How to cox steady state workouts || How to cox short, high intensity workouts || Race steering || Steering a buoyed course || Evaluating practices || Evaluating races || Coxing erg tests
If you’ve ever been asked what the most important skill is for coxswains, what was your answer? The common one for inexperienced coxswains is “motivation” (can’t even eye-roll it anymore, it’s that ubiquitous), whereas coxswains who have been at it for a few seasons will usually say “safety”, which is both right and wrong because you need this dynamic skill first if you want to be safe.
The title of today’s post should give it away – it’s awareness.
The basic definition of awareness is being able to identify, process, and comprehend information about the situation you’re in. To get better at doing all three of those things, there’s a couple things you can do:
Learn to anticipate rather than react
Think ahead about how future actions (of yourself, other coxswains, the conditions, etc.) will affect the environment around you.
Go with your gut
If your gut says “don’t try to cross in front of that eight that is 200m away and rowing at full pressure”, don’t do it.
Avoid situational overload
This can be tough when you’re just starting out but educating yourself on what you don’t know/understand and learning how to prioritize information so you’re not going on a needle-in-a-haystack search through your brain to figure out what needs to happen will make your life a lot easier.
Don’t get complacent
The times I’ve screwed up the most during practice have been on slow days where it’s easy to just go through the routine motions rather than deliberately execute each action. Cockiness also plays a big part here. If you start assuming that everything is under control it becomes easy to stop paying attention to anything that isn’t right in front of your face.
Be alert
You know how they say don’t drive when you’re tired because it impairs your reaction time? Same goes with steering a 53 foot long shell. It’s your responsibility to minimize how fatigued you are by managing your time outside the boathouse well enough that you’re able to get an adequate amount of sleep in order to be rested and ready for practice. College freshmen with early morning practices tend to learn this in “trial by fire” fashion (guilty).
If you’ve ever asked me what you need to do to make it at “the next level” you know that I’ve said that being a good JNT coxswain, a good college coxswain, a good U23 coxswain, or a good national team coxswain is all about getting incrementally better at executing the basics. That starts with doing each of the things listed above. You’d be amazed at how drastically more competent and skilled you can become just by being aware of the little things and doing each of them well.
With all that said, what do you need to be aware of on any given day? Have you ever actually thought about it? Here’s a short, minimally detailed, and not even remotely comprehensive list to get you started.
Bridge arches (which ones can you use/not use and when)
Obstacles or obstructions on the dock
Other crews (on land and on the water)
Your surroundings
Traffic
Conditions
Noise levels of your environment (since this will impact your communication with your coach, other coxswains, and maybe your own crew)
Expectations and goals for practice/the race
Your language (what you’re saying and how you’re saying it)
Health of yourself and the athletes
The practice/race plan
Practice management
Coaching styles and the terminology used (different coaches do/say things in different ways, which is important when you’re at summer camps and with coaches you’re not familiar with)
Matching your tone with practice (not coxing steady state the same way you cox drills)
The purpose of drills, practice, pieces, etc.
Equipment
Steering (boat responds slower with less people rowing, will be affected by conditions, current, skill level of yourself and rowers, etc.)
Your level of understanding/comprehension of your coach’s instructions (if you recognize you don’t know what’s going on, say something)
Bladework, balance, timing, and general technique of the crew
Nearly every skill you could possibly want to work on this season – whether it’s steering, identifying technical issues, etc. – starts with awareness. It encompasses everything we do. If you still haven’t identified any specific areas for improvement for this spring, start here. When you do come up with your list of things to work on, you’ll have a leg up if you’ve already spent a few practices doing everything listed above.