Author: readyallrow

Coxing Q&A Rowing Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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So I had a really bad coach this fall (who got fired so she’s gone now, thank god) but after a particularly windy practice, she proceeded to yell at me for telling ports to row with pressure/vice versa because something got caught in my rudder and my steering didn’t work. She said that if we were going fast enough, our boat would go naturally straight. I’m just curious as to if her comment was accurate. (BTW, on this day it was windy, there was a current, and the water was whitecapping). Thanks!

I’ve had one or two coaches say that to me too but in my experience it’s never really been true, mainly because there are too many tiny variances in pressure, technique, etc. that I can no longer account for due to the lack of steering. Plus, if your steering isn’t working why would you be rowing fast anyways? That’s stupid.  The only control I have over what the boat does is through a credit card-sized piece of plastic connected to two strings … if that somehow fails then I no longer have control of the boat which means I want to be rowing with only the necessary people at a relatively moderate pressure. “If you were going fast enough” makes me think your coach assumes everything would be totally fine if you were rowing all eight at full pressure. Because that wouldn’t end up with you running into a bridge pier or anything…

In situations like that my opinion has always been that the coxswain has the final say on what they do because they’re the ones in charge of the safety of the crew and the equipment. (If you’re a novice/inexperienced coxswain this doesn’t apply to you.) What looks like it might be fine and safe to the coach in the launch might make the coxswain extremely uncomfortable because from their perspective it’s not safe. Obviously the last thing you want is your coxswain to be is unnecessarily tense and anxious so it makes a lot more sense to say “OK the steering’s not working, how do you want to get back to the dock?” Not only does this engage the problem-solving part of their brains and make them think about the best way to approach this but it also lets them to say what they’re most comfortable doing which allows them to stay in control of the situation.

Coaches tend to look at stuff like this as “(potentially) broken equipment = money, time, wasted practice, dammit” which causes them to get frustrated (sometimes deservedly so, other times not) and become a little too controlling. This in turn results in them being short with the coxswain which can be a confidence killer and make them look/feel like that have no control over what’s going on (two things that, obviously, do nothing to help them feel like competent leaders, regardless of how experienced they are). I’m not saying every single interaction (good or bad) needs to be OMG-so-empowering for the coxswain because sometimes we screw up and we deserve to have our asses handed to us but more often than not it’s better to stay civil and turn the situation into a learning experience and then express your annoyance with them on land rather than let them have it on the water in front of the people they’re supposed to be in charge of.

For future reference, if you find that you’re unable to steer the first thing you should do is stop and reach under the boat to see if your fin is still attached. Even if you didn’t hear or feel something hit the boat you still might have run over something that pulled it off. (And yes, I know, sticking your arm in the water is not an ideal solution. Personally I’m not doing it unless it’s May – August when I know the water’s warmer and I’m guaranteed to not be wearing long sleeves and/or layers. In most cases though your coach will take pity on you and not make you do it if the temperature/water is cold.)

If the fin is there then the next thing you should do is see if there are leaves or something stuck in the rudder. If it’s rained recently then this is the most-likely cause of your steering problems and is pretty easily taken care of. I’ve had leaves, seaweed, rope (???), and one time a small tree branch get wedged up in the rudder but as long as you’re able to clear it out you should be all good. If the fin isn’t there then you’re shit-out-of-luck and you’ll have to use the rowers to help guide you home. I prefer to row by sixes at somewhere between half and 3/4 pressure depending on the conditions but if you’re less experienced then rowing by fours might be a better option for you. Unless my coach says to cycle through the sixes on the way home (typically what we’ll do if it’s raining or it’s cold, that way no one is sitting out for too long) then I like to stick with stern six rowing and then I’ll add in bow or two if I need help steering or going around a corner. Rather than have people power up here I prefer to have one side power down and the other side maintain their pressure. In my experience this always works better but feel free to play around and find out what works best for you.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

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How do you deal with running out of things to say in a long head race (4000m+)? I don’t know what to say so I either repeat myself endlessly or go quiet and then say something stupid…

As long as you have a plan I honestly don’t think that running out of things to say is possible. If you look at the race as one 4000m piece instead of several 500m chunks filled with landmarks, technical focuses, individual reminders, etc. then yea, you’re going to make things a lot harder on yourself. Breaking it down into more manageable sections though lets you focus on different things which ultimately makes it easier to plan out what you’re going to say. Keep in mind that “plan out” doesn’t mean the same thing as “script”. You can not script a race and think that you’re going to be able to recite everything you came up with on the land once you’re on the water. It’s just not possible. My goal whenever I’m racing is to have a handful of calls that I know I want to incorporate based on recent stuff we’ve done at practice, things we’ve talked about as a crew, etc. and then the rest of the race will be filled with the basics – landmarks, positioning, time, and general stock calls – that I’ll call on the spot as the race progresses.

Related: Race plans for practice pieces

If you feel like you’re going to forget something then write a brief outline of the race on a Post-It note and tape it to the boat. I’ve done that for the last two HOCRs just as a backup in case I need it and even though I haven’t had to rely on it too much it’s good to have in case you get caught up in something outside of the boat and need to quickly re-focus to what’s happening inside the boat.

As far as saying something stupid, I think we’ve all been there. The thing you learn though is that very rarely does anyone in the boat remember the things you said that you thought were stupid. It’s very, very rare that the crews I cox have been able to remember much, if any, of what I’ve said during a race once we’re back on land. The only reason we remember it is because we’re the ones that said it so it sticks with us longer. It’s really not that big of a deal though. If you thought it sounded stupid just remember that for next time and work on finding a better way to communicate whatever it was you were trying to say. If you need inspiration, check out the coxswain recordings I’ve posted. There are a lot of great calls in there, most of which I’ve tried to point out.

Mental health + rowing

College Coxing High School Teammates & Coaches Training & Nutrition

Mental health + rowing

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This week, Feb. 22nd – 28th, is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week. I’ve talked about eating disorders on here before and wanted to link those posts here for those of you who haven’t seen them before or for those who might want to revisit them again.

National Eating Disorder Awareness Week: Intro

Eating disorders defined + explained

Warning signs + symptoms

Coxswains

Lightweight Rowing

Your experiences

More so than probably any other set of posts on the blog, I think I’m most proud of these ones because of the discussion/realizations that they sparked. It was scary when I got so many emails initially saying “I have an eating disorder, I’ve been dealing with it for awhile” or “That describes me, I know I have bad habits when it comes to food, I think this might be me, what do I do?” because eating disorders aren’t something you mess around with. There’s obviously a huge mental component to it and with the stigma around mental health issues in the US it’s no wonder why so many people don’t know where to turn or what to do.

I remember spending a good deal of time thinking “Oh shit, what did I get myself into” when I first wrote those posts because I didn’t want to say the wrong thing or give the wrong advice but I learned really quickly that what a lot of the people needed was someone to talk to and just some genuine encouragement to seek help. It’s been so exciting to hear back from a lot of those people and hear them say that they did talk to their coaches, parents, doctors, teammates, etc. and are working on normalizing their relationship with food and their bodies. That alone takes more willpower and strength than any 2k you’ll ever pull.

Below I’m posting an excerpt from an email I got at the beginning of the year from a rower-turned-coxswain who has really motivated me to make sure that I’m doing my part to keep this discussion alive.

“You were the first one that I confessed to after my coaches. Things have gotten worse (broken foot, plus being put in the B boat and freaking out forever until we won the second novice race) and better (not being able to work out sucks and I already eat healthy – sometimes borderline orthorexia), my weight is nerve-wracking and anxiety-inducing still, and everything still feels “off” (energy levels, thyroid, mood, ability to lose weight is nonexistent I swear it drives me crazy) – but that’s definitely a byproduct of almost seven years of disordered eating. And after talking to you and feeling your understanding and support, I was brave enough to open up to so many other people in my life who have been incredibly supportive.

Thank you for always reminding us to take care of ourselves. Whenever I start to slip up and make bad decisions the NEDA week posts are my go-to reading. Your frank, honest attitude and advice about telling people who make those insensitive comments to your readers are so refreshing and they always remind me to take care of myself. When I freak out about weighing more than the four (for two boats!) other, shorter coxswains on my team and losing my spot, you always remind me that I cannot steer and motivate a boat if I do not take care of myself. Thank you for always, always, stressing your advice with weight with “healthy” and “sensible” and “obligatory reading.” Because sometimes you don’t want to admit your darkest parts to yourself until someone else makes you face them.”

Coaches, I really encourage you to talk about these issues with your teams (regardless of whether you coach men or women) because this stuff is real. There are probably rowers and coxswains on your team right now who are dealing with an eating disorder or walking that fine line between trying to be healthy and experiencing disordered eating. If you’re not comfortable doing it, reach out to a nutritionist at a local hospital or within the athletic department and have them come talk to the team. Trust me, it’s worth losing 45 minutes of practice time for.  I’ve said this a thousand times but part of being a good teammate is looking out for each other. If you think that one of your teammates might be dealing with something like this, don’t jump the gun and accuse them because when has that ever been a logical and successful approach? Instead, just let them know that if they need someone to talk to you’re there if they need anything. More often than not that’s all it takes, just knowing that someone is willing to listen without being judgmental.

And on that note I also wanted to link back to this post on suicide awareness. Last week the rowing community lost a high school rower named Draven Rodriguez. Some of you might know him as “laser cat meme guy“, others of you might know him as a teammate and member of Shenendehowa Crew. I remembered reading the story about the yearbook and his cat (seriously though, how great is that picture…) last year but I didn’t know he was a rower until this weekend when someone messaged me on Tumblr about it. They said they didn’t know him personally but as a fellow 17 year old rower they were upset and shocked and didn’t know how to react.

Related: Suicide awareness + prevention

I’ve never known anyone who’s died (at least not that I’ve been close enough to that would evoke some kind of response) so I don’t really know how to react in situations like this either. I think the only thing you can really do is use this to reinforce to yourself that everybody’s got their own shit that they’re dealing with and you never truly know how someone is feeling at any given moment. Be supportive of your teammates, even the ones you might not be friends with, and if you’re going through something find someone you trust to talk to about it. You can always email me of course (sometimes it’s a lot easier to talk to someone who doesn’t know you personally … I totally get that) but I would encourage you to reach out to someone at home too, whether it’s a sibling, parent, coach, friend, teammate, teacher, etc. just so that you have a support system nearby if/when you need it.

I know that this is a pretty random post and not at all about rowing or coxing but like I said earlier, I think we all have a responsibility to do our part in eliminating the stigma that surrounds these issues by talking about it with our teams and teammates. I encourage all of you to read the posts I’ve linked to in here and find some small way to do your part, either by making the decision to seek help if you need it or by reaching out to a teammate who might be having a hard time. At the end of the day, all of this is a lot bigger than crew and I hope reading through all of this helps to hammer that point home.

Image via // @rowinginmainz

Video of the Week

Video of the Week: What makes an Olympic rower, 1908

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You’ll have to click over to watch this week’s VOTW which gives an idea of  what rowing was like at the 1908 Olympics. A reader sent me this around Christmas (thanks Rob!) along with two other videos from the same series that I’ll be posting in the coming weeks. All three discuss rowing at the three London Olympics (1908, 1948, and 2012) and were made by the River & Rowing museum in Henley.

This week’s video talks about rowing at the first London Olympics in 1908 and gives some history of what the early games were like. Fun fact, these games weren’t actually supposed to be held in London. Rome originally won the bid but were re-located after Mt. Vesuvius erupted three weeks before the opening ceremony and funds had to be diverted towards rebuilding Naples.

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 29

Coxing High School Racing Recordings

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 29

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Capital Crew 2014 San Diego Crew Classic Men’s Junior 8+ Grand Final

One thing that I think every coxswain can always work on is being calm when they’re down on other crews. He does a really good job of just telling the crew where they are without freaking out about it. This is one of the things I really like about the George Washington recordings too – he doesn’t let the place they’re sitting in phase him or have any kind of effect on the delivery of his calls. Keith, the coxswain in this recording, is the same way. Having a coxswain like that is a huge advantage for a crew because if the coxswain is calm, the crew is calm and when the crew is calm they can be downright dangerous.

Right off the bat, I really like how he calls the first few strokes of the start. It’s very rhythmic which is great because it helps the crew establish the boat’s rhythm almost immediately vs. the start just being an all out clusterfuck and the  crew not getting into any kind of sustainable rhythm until 20-30 strokes in. You shouldn’t be saying anything about the other crews during your high strokes though (like he does about 20 seconds in). Focus on your own boat and tell them where the other boats are once you’ve finished your entire starting sequence (start and settle to base pace). Telling them anything before that means nothing because it’s all moving so quick that who’s up and who’s down can literally change every other stroke. Give it at least 200m before you say anything.

At 1:18 he makes tells them that they’re “sitting in 6th place right now…”, which … not that sitting in sixth in the grand final is bad or anything but it’s always good to try and spin it positively so the rowers don’t get discouraged or frantic or whatever. If you’ve got contact on all the boats a call like “sitting in sixth, we’re in this…” is always a reliable go-to. Similarly, one like this also works well: “Sitting in sixth right now, [position on crews X, Y, and Z], we got plenty of water to work with, plenty of time to walk into these guys. Let’s relax and focus on getting our catches in one stroke at a time…”

I’m a huge proponent of calls where you’re calling out a specific rower and saying “you lead this”, which is what he does at 2:20 when they take a five and he tells one of the rowers to lead the send in the boat. If your 3-seat has been working on being direct to the water during practice and you call a five for sharp catches, tell your 3-seat to lead that five. Make the connection between who’s been working on what during practice and incorporate that into your calls. Same goes for power – if your middle four has some nasty ergs, call on them to lead the charge and use their 6:10s or 5:50s or whatever to move the boat.

Overall this is a really good piece. I like how he uses his voice, mainly by smoothly changing his volume and/or tone to fit the situation, and how he uses the rowers and almost gets them to work off of each other by saying “you lead this”, “X, pass it up to Y”, etc. He also does a really good job of keeping the crew informed of their position on the course and against the other crews. I can’t say this enough guys, do not underestimate the importance of your crew knowing their location at any given point during the race. It’s like free motivation, so you might as well take it and use it.

Other calls I liked:

“Gimme give together … smile … and light ’em up…”

“Get hungry boys…”

Oregon Rowing Unlimited 2003 San Diego Crew Classic Men’s Varsity 8+ Grand Final

He does a good job at the beginning here of instructing the crew (mainly “Ben”) in a clear, calm voice. At the start when you’re getting your point you want to make sure that your instructions are concise and easy to hear/understand. Save the “uh’s” and “um’s” for later. Don’t get antsy if you have to keep making small adjustments either – you don’t want to inject that kind of nervous energy into the boat before the race even starts.

Overall their starting sequence between 1:38 and 2:27 is pretty solid. You could argue that he’s counting a little too much but I’ll give him a pass because his tone and clarity is spot on.

At 2:39 they’re about sixty seconds into the race and probably have about 1700m of race course left so “get ready for our move to keep us in contention…” isn’t really a call you need to be making that early in the piece. Being three seats down is still in contention because, as I said, you’ve probably got three-quarters of the course left to work with. Don’t get freaked out if you’re dead even or ahead after your start. If you really feel the need to tell your crew your three seats down on everyone, at least say something like “3 seats down, that’s alright, we’ve got plenty of time to reel them in…”. Keep it positive and then go right into coxing them. You’re right in the pack so you’ve got plenty of things happening around you that you can use to your advantage and to help get your crew going. Focus on that and less on the fact that you’re down a few seats.

Related: It’s OK to not be in first place

Of all the things you can could or should take a ten for, timing is absolutely not and never will be one of them. He calls for this at 2:50 but all he does is count the strokes. In general, if you’re not going to add anything to the burst you’re calling, just make it a silent one or better yet, don’t call it. If the timing’s off, make an active call to correct it and do it on this one.

3:57 when he says “you’re in a battle for third place right now” was a missed opportunity. If you’re gonna say that to your crew, follow it up with a move. Saying “you’re in a battle” and then not going after those other crews with a ten or twenty is like a pretty good example of “stopping short” in crew. If you’re gonna say that, go all the way with it. Also, “you’re” not in a battle, “we’re” in a battle. Stop separating yourself from the rest of the boat.

One of the things that he does well is build the intensity with his voice throughout the race. In the beginning he starts out fairly chill (maybe even a little boring) but by the time they get to 1000m and are even-ish with the lead crews, you can tell he’s really getting into it. You don’t have to always been at 100% during a race and frankly, you shouldn’t be because that doesn’t leave you anywhere to go when you actually need to ramp up the energy and intensity. It’s better to start high, back off a bit, and then slowly build towards the end, that way your calls are actually punctuated by something rather than being one-note the whole race.

By this point (6:35) I think they’ve take four or five bursts for timing. STAHPPP. There’s no excuse for that unless you’re a novice crew. If your crew’s timing is off you better be able to say “catches together now … catch chaaa, catch chaaa” and have them immediately respond to it. It’s like a snap-of-the-fingers kinda thing, it should be an automatic reaction. It really shouldn’t take more than two or three strokes max to get it back.

Another thing he does well is tell them where they are on the other crews. He consistently says “2 seats down, 1/4 seat up, 1 seat up, 2 seats up, etc.” which is exactly what you should be doing when the race is close like this. Don’t assume that just because you’re beside a crew the rowers know where you’re at.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

College Coxing Q&A Recruiting

Question of the Day

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I’m a junior that’s looking to cox in college. I started as a freshman rower and have had an increasingly difficult time as my team has gotten stronger. I’m regarded as the cox on the team (we race 95% sculls) and want to switch clubs but it just isn’t feasible. If I could switch, I wouldn’t be in the top boat to get recruited. I’m not looking forward to another season as a weak rower this spring, I genuinely love to cox. Would walking on work well for me even if I want to go to a d1 school?

You don’t have to be in the top boat to get recruited, it’s just one of those things that helps because in most cases it’s an indicator of a lot of the qualities and skills that coaches want to see in their coxswains. It’s not a necessity though.

It doesn’t really sound like you’re enjoying it very much so I guess I gotta ask, why are you still doing it? You’re primarily a sculling team, you’re not a strong rower, you’re not trying to be recruited, you’ll probably be a walk-on in college … it just doesn’t seem like there’s really anything keeping you on the team right now. If you’re doing it just to be able to say to a college coach that you did it for four years, don’t. Quality over quantity.

Just a thought but it might be worth considering how important it is for you to stay on a team that doesn’t seem to be able to really use you (at least in the way you want to be used) when you could spend your time in other ways, be it doing another sport or just working on your grades, studying for the SAT/ACTs, etc. There’s pretty much no reason why walking on wouldn’t be an option for you though, regardless of how many years of experience you have. Most D1 programs have good walk-on programs (at least the ones I’ve seen do) so it’s obviously something to consider doing if you know you want to keep rowing/coxing when you’re in college.

Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Rowing Pains

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Anybody else read/watch Babar the Elephant as a kid? This episode is about rowing (and responsibilities) and it’s such a cute show with one of those classic “tells a story while teaching you a lesson” storylines that you kinda can’t help but love it. If the characters weren’t elephants and rhinos you could probably mistake it for your own team because at one point or another we’ve probably all been in the same position as them.