Next winter when you inevitably are like “how do I work on my coxing in the winter”, “how do I get ready for spring racing while we’re inside”, etc. think back to this video because this is a great idea. It’d also be a great way to walk through your race plan in the spring if for whatever reason you can’t get on the water the day or two before (weather, someone can’t make it to practice, etc.).
Category: Coxing
Question of the Day
How to be more personal when coxing a race…?
There are tons of ways but here are my top three.
The best/easiest/most obvious way is to say your rowers names instead of their seat numbers. Calling a rower by their seat number is one of the laziest things a coxswain can do in my opinion (like, I truly can’t emphasize just how lazy I think it is) and it really grinds my gears when I hear them doing that. There’s just no excuse for it.
Related: Listen to Kaitlin’s recordings (here) as well as Connor’s (George Washington University – there are six, all found here) for examples of this. You always hear them address the rowers by name, not number.
Something I do a lot is call moves for pairs, which I talked a bit about in the post linked down below. I do it most often in the latter half of the race, usually between 1250m and 1750m since that chunk between your mid-race move and right before the sprint is when the boat can/will start to sag. Calling a pair out, especially when the race is close and saying “Quinn and Mik, you wanna be first across the line? Let’s get our bow ball in front over the next five...” or “sitting even, [ 5 + 6 ] go take your seats … on this one” are other examples of how I like to do it.
I read an interview awhile ago where Pete Cipollone said that one of his calls during the ’97 Worlds race (I think it was that one) was “on this one, the Americans have no fucking speed”. That was a direct quote from the coach of one of the countries they were racing against and it had gotten the boat really fired up so he turned it into a call that preempted one of their moves. That kind of “bulletin board material” – even though it’s not individually-personal, it’s still boat-personal – is a great thing to bring in the boat with you, provided you save it for the opportune moment for maximum effectiveness.
Maintaining the set while you’re on the rudder
When you’re steering around a turn and have to be (hard) on the rudder for two, three, four, five strokes, what does that do to the set of the boat (i.e. which direction does it fall) and how do you have the rowers compensate for it?
I’ve had to remind our coxswains about how this works a few times this year, in addition to getting questions about it via email, so I wanted to lay it out here to clear up any confusion.
You basically need to remember two very simple things: The boat is going to fall to the side that you’re steering towards and to compensate the rowers on that side need to lift their hands. This means that…
If you’re steering towards port the boat is going to fall to port. To compensate, the port rowers need to lift their hands for the duration of the time that you are on the rudder.
If you’re steering towards starboard the boat is going to fall to starboard. To compensate, the starboard rowers need to lift their hands for the duration of the time that you are on the rudder.
Once you’ve got your point and are off the rudder then you need to call the crew back to even handle heights. Don’t forget to do this or assume that the rowers will know when you’re off the rudder and do it themselves – they won’t.
The way I usually call it going into the turn is “on the rudder to port so ports let’s lift the hands for three strokes…” and then when I’m out of the turn I’ll say “OK, off the rudder, back to even hands on this next finish…”. I always specify how many strokes I plan to be on the rudder and I always specify when I want them to go back to even handle heights, that way everyone does it at the same time and at the same point in the stroke cycle.
Image via // Sofia Donnecke
Coxing How To Teammates & Coaches
Coxswain skills: Working with a bad coach
As a coxswain, having a good working relationship with your coach is crucial. It’s the same as what I’ve said in the past about your relationships with the rowers – you don’t have to like each other but for two hours every day you do have to be able to work together. There’s no foolproof way to do this either … some coaches just suck, plain and simple. What I’ve laid out below probably won’t work for you if you have a coach that is really disagreeable, has a huge ego, etc. but short of telling you to just quit and go join another sport, this is the best I’ve got.
Related: “Coach problems” tag
Most of this I learned the hard way my senior year when I had a coach who refused to coach my eight, constantly made disparaging comments towards me and my teammates, and refused to be questioned by anyone because he was the coach (which he reminded us of literally every chance he had) and there was absolutely no conceivable reason why we shouldn’t just blindly follow every instruction we were given. I, to the surprise of pretty much no one, rebelled hard against all of this because I thought it was bullshit and, to the surprise of pretty much no one, he responded by taking me out of the varsity eight, not just because I questioned him (which was my first mistake) but because I handled it with the same level of maturity that most 17 year old girls would … which is to say, in hindsight I could have handled it a lot better.
Like a lot of things I’ve put on this blog, I didn’t have anyone telling me “this is how you deal with this” and the only advice I got was everyone basically telling me to just keep my head down, do what I was told, and don’t do anything that would, for lack of a better phrase, rock the boat. That kind of “advice” doesn’t really work for me so below are the things that I eventually came up with (some during the season, some years after the fact) that should hopefully make working with or around a bad coach a little easier.
Do what you say you’re going to do
If you’re going to be a coxswain then you’re agreeing to a lot of rules and expectations that are often unwritten and unsaid. Even if your coach isn’t explicitly telling you what you need to do, you still have a pretty defined set of responsibilities that you know you have to execute on a daily basis. If you aren’t doing these things they’re going to draw a lot of attention and the target on your back is going to become even bigger, which is why it might seem like your coach is always picking on you. It’s up to you to go directly to them and ask “what are your expectations of me…” so that you know what’s expected since they’re probably not going to take you aside to tell you themselves. Don’t expect it to be spelled out for you either … you’re probably going to have to read between the lines of whatever vague non-answer they give you in order to figure out what they really want.
Be transparent
I’ve talked about this before but if you screw up, own it and don’t be that guy that tries to cover it up or make excuses. You can save yourself a lot of grief by taking responsibility right off the bat and avoiding the fallout that comes with a coach who not only has to deal with damaged equipment and wasted practice time but on top of that, a coxswain who’s lying about whatever role they played in the incident. If you have a coach who is prone to kicking people out of boats seemingly on a whim and that’s what you’re trying to avoid having happen, you’re playing yourself. If/when you screw up, say “this was my fault, I take full responsibility for it” and accept whatever happens without making it a bigger issue than it already is.
Provide solutions, not complaints
It’s really easy to complain when you have a bad coach but as the coxswain, you can’t get sucked into that and you sure as hell can’t be the one starting it. When my coach would purposely drive his launch close to us so he could wake us out during practice, my default response every time was “are you fucking kidding me…” because … who wouldn’t respond that way? During one of our many post-practice therapy sessions, our assistant told me that it wasn’t worth getting frustrated over when we could instead just focus on rowing better so that the next time it happened we could row through the wake like nothing happened.
“Rowing better” is obviously always the goal but for us it became “we’re gonna do it because we know that you think we can’t”, which isn’t always the best mindset to be in (I hate the idea of feeling like you have to prove something just to get people to back off) but it really worked for us. We doubled down on handle heights, body prep, carrying the blades six inches off the water, etc. and literally every single opportunity we had, we rowed square blades. There were practices where, if we were on the water for 90 minutes, probably 60 of them were spent rowing square blades, regardless of what we were doing. If the weather was bad, even better – we’d row square blades through white caps if we had to. Our bladework got so good that the next time we got waked by his launch we didn’t even flinch and he actually stopped to watch us row by. Our assistant yelled over to him, smile on his face, “lookin’ pretty good, huh?”, which to this day remains one of my favorite moments ever.
That whole situation was pretty defining for me as a coxswain and reinforced the notion that every challenge or hurdle is an opportunity to step it up and showcase your leadership skills. You can take the easy route and complain, which I’ll admit is really tempting to do sometimes, or you can be the one that provides a solution by saying “nope, we’re not settling for this, this is what we’re going to do to turn this distraction into a tool that makes us better rowers”.
Anticipate and over-prepare
This was something I learned early on in my career but it’s benefited me the most when I’ve had to work with erratic, unorganized coaches who thought “coxswain” was synonymous with “mind reader”. Getting in the habit of talking with your coaches before practice about what the plan for the day is, what drills you’ll be doing, and what the technical focus will be is just part of being a good coxswain but if they don’t tell you (or you just don’t ask), it’s gonna feel like you’re constantly being put on the spot.
One way to combat this is to pay attention to patterns. For example, on Mondays you do AT pieces and the drills are almost always catch/front end related. Tuesdays and Thursdays are steady state days and you’re usually left to your own devices. Wednesdays are sprint work and the drills typically relate to whatever you struggled most with during the race on Saturday and during steady state yesterday. Fridays you do a race walk-through. If you can recognize the patterns in your training plan then it becomes a lot easier for you to execute practice with little to no direction or instruction given by your coach. It also helps you prepare your calls ahead of time, familiarize yourself with drills, etc.
The best way to not be caught off guard is to be prepared for whatever might get thrown at you, which means you should know every drill, forwards and backwards, and the purpose of every workout (general rule of thumb: steady state = technique, sprints = power).
The final thing to keep in mind is that the most mature (and hardest by far for some of us) way to deal with a bad coach is to not talk back to them. You will be tempted but don’t. It might make you feel better in the moment to argue or get the last word in but in the long run it’s just gonna hurt you because you’ll essentially be undermining your own authority. Be cooperative, try to be cordial and pleasant (even when it means gritting your teeth to do so), and always, always be on top of your game. The lighter you keep the overall atmosphere by doing those three things, the better the rowers (and you) will be able to focus on the task at hand in spite of the fact that your coach is making it harder rather than easier.
Image via // @rowingcelebration
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How to sit in the boat
Previously: Steer an eight/four || Call a pick drill and reverse pick drill || Avoid getting sick || Make improvement as a novice || Protect your voice || Pass crews during a head race || Be useful during winter training || Train when you’re sick (as a rower) || Train when you’re sick (as a coxswain)
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to sit in the boat. Seems obvious at first – you just … sit in it – but if you’re working on establishing boat feel or trying to figure out how to not slide into the black hole that is the bow of a four, there are some tricks to it. I’ve talked about these in various posts before but I’ve tried to combine them all here so they’re in one place for easy access.
Bowloaded fours
When it comes to how to properly situate yourself in a four, I see way more coxswains doing it wrong than doing it right. The purpose of these boats (compared to ones where you’re sitting in the stern) is to distribute the weight more evenly throughout the bow and eliminate the wind resistance that comes from having another body sitting straight up. In order to be effective in those two areas you have to actually be lying down. If someone is looking at your boat, they should see you like this, not like this. You being flat in the boat also helps keep it on keel. If you’re sitting straight up like the coxswain in the second picture and the boat is falling from side to side, you are most likely the main contributing factor.
If you’re having difficulty lying completely flat or are avoiding it because there’s no way to prevent yourself from sliding into the bow when the boat surges then you need to adjust the back (or neck) rest to accommodate your height. This is the equivalent of the rowers foot stretchers … they wouldn’t not change their foot stretchers just because the lineups aren’t set and they didn’t row in that seat yesterday or might not row in it tomorrow so in a similar vein, there’s no excuse for you to not adjust the back rest.
If you’re short, move it forward towards the bow to decrease the amount of extra space between your feet and the end of the boat. If you’re around my height (4’11”) then you still might not be able to reach the very tip of the boat with your feet but you’ll be far enough forward that your feet will be closer to the narrow end of the hull which will make it easier to brace them against the sides of the boat.
If you’re tall, you’ll need to move the back rest back towards the stern. For those of you who are more vertically blessed than the rest of us then that might mean moving it back so you’re right against your bow seat’s backstops, which also means that you must lie down as far as you can because their upper bodies/elbows will probably travel in the plane directly over your head. There’s pretty much no way to be a tall coxswain and comfortably cox in a bow loaded four though (at least that’s what I’ve heard from friends) so sacrifices will have to be made.
If the back rests in your shell aren’t the solid planks (which are amazing) and instead are those mesh nets (second in awfulness only to those stupid neck bars that some Resolutes have), make sure that you tighten them enough so that there’s no tension in your upper body when you’re lying down. The first time I coxed a four with one of those I didn’t think to tighten it and came off with the worst headache and a really sore ribcage because I was tensing my body so much to keep myself in a good position to see and not slide around. The next time I was in that boat I pulled the straps about 75% and that ended up being perfect (and not entirely uncomfortable…). If you don’t have one of those mesh nets I’m almost positive you can buy them online from the boat manufacturer but I’ve also seen crews DIY their own from old t-shirts (it involved grommets, carabiners, and thin rope or bungees), which is easier to do that it sounds.
Going back to the “sliding into the bow” problem, it took me forever to figure out how to deal with this. I can lay completely flat in every four I’ve ever been in but if I move the back rest up to the point when I can actually brace my feet against the boat then I end up with my chest right against the steering lever (the one that moves left and right), which as you can imagine makes it really difficult to steer. The solution was to throw an old soccer ball (the smaller ones that are 18-24″ in circumference work great) or a small beach ball into the bow of the boat to put my feet against. This lets you keep the back rest closer to the stern while giving you better control over your body and not compromising your ability to steer. Please don’t listen to your coaches when they tell you to just throw a life jacket in the bow because that’s stupid and not a legitimate solution. One, they’re split down the middle and have a giant hole in them and two, it is incredibly easy to get your feet tangled in them. Worst case scenario, if you flipped and your feet are caught up in a life jacket, how easy do you think it’s gonna be for you to get out of the boat? Not very. Don’t use life jackets.
Related: Coxswain Skills: Boat feel
Eights
It’s pretty easy to brace yourself in an eight but you’ve gotta know how to sit in the seat for this to actually work. You can casually sit in the boat during less intense stuff but when you’re doing pieces, drills, etc. you should make your body is “one with the boat” so you can feel what’s happening and so you’re not getting jerked around. The way to do this is to press your feet into the footboards on either side of your cox box (like you’re trying to push something away from you) while pressing the small of your back (that inward curve right above your butt) into the back of the seat. Doing these two things allows your body to move with the boat rather than in response to it.
Side note, I had a rude awakening when I was coxing in Florida over winter break when I got in the boat and realized our Resolutes don’t have these footboards. I’ve never been less in tune with a boat than I was that week, which was really frustrating for me because I felt like I was missing out on a lot of things the boat was doing. Having your feet flat on the bottom of the hull just doesn’t provide the same … feeling … resistance … I’m not sure what word to use … so it was tough to establish any kind of boat feel when I was in there. Similarly, when we were doing high rate stuff, like starts at 38-42spm, I felt like a rag doll. It took a lot more effort than I’m used to to keep my body stable, despite having what I consider to be pretty solid core strength. So Resolute coxswains … how do you combat this?
When it comes to your upper body, similar to the rowers you want to keep everything loose. Rather than tensing your shoulders to prevent your upper body from moving around you should instead use your core to keep everything stable. (More motivation to do core workouts.) I’ve heard of pressing your elbows into or around the gunnels to keep you from moving but I tried that in Florida and it just hurt so I can’t vouch for that method personally.
The positioning of your fingers/hands is the final component to how you sit in the boat. I know I’ve been talking about this a lot recently but you shouldn’t be gripping the steering cables with a full fist (this creates unnecessary tension in your shoulders and causes you to oversteer).
Related: Coxswain skills: Steering, pt. 1 (Oversteering)
Instead you should hook your thumb, index, and middle fingers around them (see the picture illustrating how I do it in the post linked below) and then finish by hooking your pinkies over the gunnels. This helps you maintain full contact with the boat while preventing you from oversteering due to the limited range of motion you now have thanks to how you’ve weaved the cables between your fingers.
Related: Coxswain skills: Race steering
What advice do you guys have for sitting in the boat? If you’re a tall/short coxswain in a four, what’s your method for positioning yourself?
Image via // @henryfieldman
College Coxing How To Racing Video of the Week
Video of the Week: How not to enter stake boats
Urban Dictionary defines a shit show as “A description of an event or situation which is characterized by an ridiculously inordinate amount of frenetic activity. Disorganization and chaos to an absurd degree. Often associated with extreme ineptitude/incompetence and or sudden and unexpected failure.”. See also: the video above.
Related: Stake boat tips and tricks
Just gonna take this opportunity to share this post linked above on getting into stake boats, as well as this post on other how to scull your bow around (linked below) so that you don’t find yourself in the same situation as this coxswain.
Related: How to scull your bow around
This is … well, embarrassing, obviously … but bigger than that, it’s a pretty big indication that somewhere along the line there was a major failure on the part of the coaches to ensure the UCSD coxswain was properly prepared when it comes to getting into stake boats. Being late to the line (which they must have been given that everyone else looks like they’re already locked on) probably didn’t help either.
Related: Coxswain skills: Race Steering
Also, given the entanglement that happened pretty much immediately after the start, check out that race steering post too for a refresher on how to hold the cables, steering straight off the line, etc.
Question of the Day
Hi Kayleigh! Obviously rowers need to adjust their foot stretchers, spacers, shoe height, etc. but I never know when the right time to let them do that is. If the dock is pretty empty then I will let them do it before we shove off but when it’s busy and a lot of them need to adjust I just don’t know when to let them adjust. How have you usually done this in the past? Thanks!
Good question. The amount of time you have to spend doing this lessens as you get further into the season because the lineups aren’t going to change as much (and presumably the shell you’re rowing won’t either) but how I’ve always done it and how our coxswains tend to do it is to tell them to hold off on making any adjustments and then we’ll row 10-15 strokes away from the dock before stopping and letting them do their thing. When we launch in the mornings, the coxswains will always stop just upstream from the dock to either wait for the other boat (since our two eights usually practice together) or to wait for instructions from the coaches (since we tend to run the warmups) so they’ve always got a minute or so to make whatever changes they need.
Even if you’re going out on your own and your coach tells you to go right into the warmup and they’ll catch up to you, you can still stop for a second before getting started. Just be quick about it and don’t waste time, that’s the main thing. The coaches aren’t gonna care that somebody needed to move a spacer but if they look over and see you just idly sitting there with no one making any obvious adjustments, that’s when they’ll get annoyed. Same goes for if you stay on the dock to do this … if you’re taking five minutes to launch there better be someone noticeably struggling with whatever they’re adjusting otherwise I can guarantee we’ll be muttering “WTF are they doing…” to ourselves on the launch.
Despite having four teams rowing out of one boathouse, it never gets that crowded on our dock, even when three of the four (or all four) teams are practicing at the same time … and even then, that only happens once or twice a week. (Having two finger docks with four available sides to launch off of definitely helps too.) Ideally you want to get on and off quickly regardless but if there are three or more people trying to adjust their stretchers, slides, etc. then I/our coxswains will just stay on the dock and everyone else can just maneuver around us. Sometimes it’s just easier that way.
Coxswain Skills: Race Steering
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
It’s officially racing season which means your steering is going to be under heavy scrutiny for the next ten weeks. If you steer a straight course you’re not going to get any recognition (and if you do it’s minimal) but any slight deviation towards one buoy line or the other will likely draw the ire of your rowers and/or your coach, depending on their vantage point. You’ve got a lot of “number one” jobs on race day but steering straight is THE number one priority of all your “number one” priorities so make sure it’s a skill you’re honing every day at practice.
Related: How to steer an eight
Steering during a race is, for the most part, exactly the same as steering on any regular day, at least in my opinion. There are very few things I do differently and the things I am doing differently are simply a result of my heightened levels of awareness. One of the hallmarks of steering is that the speed in which the hull responds to the rudder is directly proportional to the speed of the hull itself. The faster you’re going, the faster it’s going to respond to you making adjustments which means that your adjustments have to be that much smaller in order to avoid oversteering and serpentining your way down the course.
Related: Coxswain skills: Steering, pt. 1
One thing that helps avoid oversteering is making sure you’re holding the strings correctly. Don’t just grip them with your full fist like you’re holding a broom handle or something – you’ve got to ground yourself in some way to the boat otherwise you’re not going to know when you’re making conscious adjustments or when your hands (and in turn, the rudder) are reacting to the boat surging, falling off keel, etc.
This is how I grip the strings when I’m coxing. I didn’t do it here because it would have been impossible to take the picture but in addition to positioning my fingers like this, I also hook my pinkies over the gunnels. This forces me to make millimeter adjustments at a time and nothing more, which is great for when we’re doing straight-shot pieces or I’m racing. If I want/need to make a larger adjustment then I have to take my pinkies off the gunnels and since 99.9% of my steering these days is auto-pilot, that conscious movement of moving my finger “wakes me up” to the fact that I’m steering and forces me to evaluate why I’m doing it.
(During a regular practice I don’t hook my pinkies unless we’re doing pieces, mainly because I have small hands and it’s uncomfortable stretching my finger like that for an hour and a half. If you’re working on limiting how much you hit the rudder though you should spend more time with your pinkies hooked than unhooked.)
That aside, it’s time to think about how steering is integrated into your race plan. The most trouble you’re going to have with steering during a race is going to come in the first 3-5 strokes and this is usually a result of sloppy bladework by the rowers. If they’re trying to muscle the boat off the line instead of taking clean, crisp strokes then the boat is going to be offset and your point will get thrown off.
If conditions are poor (wind, chop, etc.) then this will only exacerbate the amount of steering you’ve gotta do. The only way to try to avoid having this happen is to practice your starts and make sure those first few strokes are clean and together before you add the power in the fourth and fifth stroke. The calls you make here should emphasize this too.
We have a five-stroke start and last year our varsity coxswain would call it as “pry, complete, complete, accelerate, go“, where “pry” = light on the seats, pick the boat up out of the water, “complete” = hold the finishes, complete the strokes (aka don’t get so amped that you’re just throwing water around), “accelerate” = start adding power, and “go” = full commitment with the legs, time to haul on it. The more time you spending getting those first five strokes down (or however long your start is), the easier it’ll be on race day to get off the line with minimal touches on the rudder.
Don’t be afraid to tell the rowers too that the cleaner the start the less you’ll have to steer off the line. I’ve said this numerous times but I have no problem telling my crew that if they want me to not steer during a race then I expect them to take good, clean strokes so I don’t have to steer. I’ll take full responsibility for the other 195ish strokes but they’ve gotta work with me on the first five. I know I can hold a straight point without thinking about it so the less distracted I am by having to think about where I’m going, the more I can focus on executing the race plan.
The last thing to think about is the buoys, assuming the course you’re on has them. I’ve touched on how to get a point on buoyed courses before but ultimately it’s up to you to figure out what strategy works best for you. Some coxswains rely on their peripheral vision to maintain an even spacing between the shell and the buoys on either side of them, others focus on where the buoys converge on the horizon (aka their stroke’s head) and just aim straight towards that.
There is no right or wrong strategy so utilize the time you have to practice on the course (if you have any) to see which one is easier for you. The first time I steered a buoyed course my coach told me to just go out and steer like I would if there weren’t buoys there and this allowed me to do whatever came naturally when it came to holding a point rather than explicitly focusing on where the buoys converged or where they were on either side of me in relation to the shell.
Not having buoys, while annoying, isn’t the end of the world. Like I said at the beginning, the only differences in my steering on race day is that I’m more aware of and subtle about my adjustments. That’s basically the “trick” for steering on an un-buoyed course. Grip the strings like I showed earlier, pick a point off the starting line (or aim at the markers at the end of the course if there are any – i.e. on the Charles there are 8ft tall lime green markers strapped to the trees on the Boston side across from the BU boathouse), and only make millimeter adjustments as necessary or as dictated by the weather conditions/bladework.
Image via // @rowingcelebration
Why you should go to a summer camp (and what to do/not to do)
On Sunday I posted the 2016 Summer Camps list that includes many options for rowers and coxswains if you’re looking to stay active over the summer. The benefits of going to a camp are obvious for rowers but are sometimes less so for coxswains, particularly if there isn’t any coxswain-specific instruction built into the camp, so below I’ve listed some reasons why you should consider attending one and things you should do (and not do) to make the most of the experience.
Reasons to attend a camp
Unlike for rowers, camps give coxswains the opportunity to make substantial improvements in nearly every aspect of coxing in a relatively short period of time. Your steering isn’t going to go from 0 to 100 in five days but you do have roughly 20 hours (two hour practices x two practices a day x 5 days) in just about the most low-key environment you’ll ever be in to try something different so you’d be foolish to not take full advantage of that. That doesn’t just apply to steering either, it applies to every single aspect of your coxing – calls, practice management, communication … all of it. If you are at a camp where there are coxswains on staff or there’s coxswain-specific instruction built into the program, ask questions about the things you want/need to improve on and then pick two or three to implement and work on throughout the week. Keep trying new things until you find something that works and then once you’ve found whatever it is, go all in on working towards making the change stick.
If you primarily cox bowloaded fours be prepared to spend the majority of your time in eights at just about any camp you attend. This gives you a chance to actually see the blades and make the necessary connections between what the coaches are saying and what the blades are doing and how they look.
The last day of the camp typically involves some kind of “racing”, whether it’s a head race-style time trial or your typical spring season side-by-side pieces. You can never have enough practice doing either of these and since this is, again, the most low key, no repercussions environment you could possibly be in, this is a good time to work on getting comfortable steering next to other crews, working and communicating with other coxswains, your time management skills (i.e. you launch at this time, you need to be at the line at this time, and it’s your job to effectively manage the time in between so you’re not too early or late), etc.
Things to do
Get. over. yourself.
At every camp I’ve coached at there have been multiple coxswains come in thinking that they’re hot shit because they cox their team’s top boat and they quickly learn that “good” is a subjective word. You should come into these camps with a humble attitude and be open to receiving feedback on how you’re doing, things you could/should do better, etc. Don’t be that guy/girl who argues with people more experienced than yourselves just because you cox the 1V. Congrats, we all coxed the 1V … that argument means nothing to us.
Be proactive
Go on Google Maps and look at the body of water you’ll be on before you get there. See if you can find a course map that shows what the traffic pattern is, if there are any bridges, etc. Can’t find one online? Email and ask if they can send you one. Bring your recorder and take it on the water every time you go out. This applies during the school year too but there is literally no excuse to not record yourself every day. If you end up not doing anything worth listening to then you can delete it but that’s better than coming off the water after a really solid day and wishing you’d recorded yourself so you could get feedback on it later. Have a notebook as well for all the reasons I talk about on here ad nauseam and also because there will likely be talks and one-on-one sessions offered by the coaches on a variety of topics that you’ll want to take notes on. Also arrive with specific and attainable goals that are reasonably achievable in the given time frame. Don’t try to cram “2 month-long summer program” goals into a 5 day camp.
Seek out coaches yourself and talk to them
We’re not going to come find you. This is your chance to pick our brains about what they look for in recruited coxswains, what being a coxswain on a college team is like, what they like about their current coxswains, how could you improve your coxswain-coach communication skills based off the practices you’ve had together so far, etc. Most of these coaches have decades of experience and when asked the right questions, they’ll be able to give you some really great feedback and advice.
Things not to do
One of the first things I remember Marcus saying at the Sparks coxswain camp was that everyone should be prepared to accept that some, if not all, of what they’ve learned up to this point will be dispelled (such as motivation being the most important job a coxswain has since that’s what lazy coaches tell you so they don’t have to do any work – FACT). This means you’ll probably be asked to do things you’re not used to doing or things that might not make sense right off the bat. Don’t come back with “this isn’t what we do on my team” or “that’s not what my coach said”. There’s an appropriate way to have that conversation and none of them start with either of those two sentences.
Do not – do NOT – complain about what you’re doing or being asked to do. If you’re new to coxing (hell, even if you’re not) and you spend more time complaining about coxing eights when you’re used to being in fours or coxing women when you’re used to coxing men than you do learning how to handle new situations then you might want to reconsider what you’re doing there. This probably isn’t the sport for you if you can’t commit to something as low-key as a summer camp when opportunities to learn and get better are being handed to you left and right. If you’re just going to rebuff everything … well, it must be nice having that kind of money to just throw away.
Camps are what you make of them so whatever you take away is more often than not going to be a direct result of how prepared you were coming into the camp, how present you were each day, and how committed you were to going outside your comfort zone in order to get better.
Image via // New York Times
College Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches
Question of the Day
Hey Kayleigh! I love your blog so much and wanted your input on three different issues I’ve been navigating for the past year. I am a freshman and still adjusting to college rowing, so any advice you have is much appreciated.
1. I do a good job steering when we’re just doing steady state or drills, but when we do pieces (especially at higher rates) I totally fall apart. I’m not sure if I freak out because I’m thinking too hard about what to say and then forget to steer or if I’m just bad at steering off of other boats or if I psych myself out and try to not touch the rudder at all but end up pretty far away from the other boats – it seems like all of these things happen to me sometimes. What can I do to improve my steering on pieces?
2. Thoughts on coxswain-rower relationships?
3. Advice for balancing rowing, school, and social life?
Thank you!!!
Check out all of these posts – they all touch in some way or another on the things you asked.
Steering: Coxswain skills – Steering, pt. 1 and pt. 2 and this QOTD
Relationships: QOTD, QOTD (I assume you mean in the dating sense so that’s what those address), QOTD, RESPECT, and Follow up to the RESPECT post (those ones address “relationships” in the more professional sense)
Balancing everything: This is a long-ish post but it basically details how I failed miserably at this and what I realized (years later) I should have done instead. Also check out this post.
Something that most coxswains don’t realize you can do is tighten the slack on the steering cables. Even if they don’t seem that loose you can almost always get them a little tighter. Don’t attempt this yourself though (especially since it’s easier done in some boats than others) – ask your coach or boatman if they can do it for you. Keep in mind this might make it a little tougher to take turns but it’ll help you steer straighter when you’re racing or doing pieces and ultimately that’s the bigger priority.
I talked about this in one of the posts I linked but if you can, put yourself in the middle of the other crews you’re doing pieces with (assuming you’re out with two other crews – if not, go between the other crew and the shore). This forces you to be aware of your steering and limit how much you’re touching the rudder so that you don’t interfere with their courses or clash blades. Steering a straight course is more important than making calls so if you need to not talk or talk less in order to focus more on perfecting your line, tell your crew you’re doing that (before you go on the water, preferably) and focus on that for the first piece or two.
Also spend time off the water going over everything you’ve been doing and coming up with a bank of calls that way you don’t have to think about what to say, it’s already there in the back of your head. In high school and college I’d write stuff down in my notebook and then go back and highlight the stuff that I wanted to use as calls but since I started at MIT I’ve been (semi) organizing stuff I hear in recordings, things the other coaches say, etc. into a spreadsheet that’s broken down into calls for the catch, finish/release, bodies, racing, bladework, etc. It might be worth spending some time doing something similar, that way you can see everything in one place and you won’t have to rack your brain to come up with stuff or try to remember that thing your coach was saying to 5-seat about his catches.
As far as relationships go, just be mature about it and don’t start unnecessary drama if things don’t work out. This tends to be easier said than done when you’re in high school but by the time you’re in college most people (most … not all) have figured out how to not be dicks when they stop dating someone so it should be a little easier to manage provided neither of you acts like a 12 year old. On the flip side, keep it professional when you’re at practice and make sure you’re not avoiding calling them out on stuff in the boat if they need to make a technical change or won’t shut up because they’re talking to their pair partner or whatever.
Balancing crew, school, and a social life is one of those fun “here are three things, pick two” situations that everybody deals with at some point or another. The best piece of advice I can offer is that the sooner you start to feel overwhelmed by school or crew, speak up and talk to your professors, advisers, and coaches. Most of the time they’ll be willing to work with you but you can’t wait until the last minute to say something or avoid saying anything at all because you’re afraid you’ll look bad, weak, etc. Yea, some people are assholes and they’ll say “too bad, deal with it” (which truthfully, despite learning this the hard way, isn’t the worst thing … you do have to figure out how to handle things when life is throwing everything it has at you) but the sooner you acknowledge things are starting to go downhill the better prepared you’ll be to handle it. Make sure you’re familiar with the available resources on campus too – mental health services, tutoring (either through the athletic department or the relevant academic department), etc.
Social life-wise, if your school has frats/sororities and you’re into that, consider rushing. Greek life is HUGE here at MIT (I think all but one or two of our guys are in one) and it’s a good way to get involved with something and meet people outside of crew. Also look into low-key, non-academic clubs/groups that relate to other hobbies/interests you have since that’s a built in way to meet people and do something fun. If you like singing, join an acapella group or if you think you’re the next Amy Schumer, see if there are any comedy clubs on campus or in the city that you can join. You can also do something as simple as getting a few teammates together to watch and analyze the Bachlorette … religiously … every week … which some of our team may or may not have been doing the last few months.
The point is, don’t put all your eggs in one basket and make sure you schedule some down time that has nothing to do with school or rowing. Even during days or weeks when you’re completely swamped with work, you’ve still gotta give yourself an hour or so each day to unwind otherwise you’ll go crazy and burn out hard and fast.