Merry Christmas everyone!!  The next two weeks I’ll be in Florida so I might be slow to get back to you if you email me between now and January 9th. If you’ll be in Tampa at the coxswain camp, I’ll see you on Sunday

https://play.spotify.com/user/1241641027/playlist/318Lo7SD17BFwx9M9uwzJW

Got two good questions yesterday that if you haven’t checked out yet, you should go read – you can find them here and here. If you row in salt water, either regularly or on your training trips (like we do), make sure your cox boxes are included in the equipment that gets sprayed down after practice. Obviously don’t spray it with a hose but grab a rag or sponge and go over the connecter ports, the wires, etc. so there’s no residual salt left on there. It can/will corrode the wiring which can make your life more difficult when you end up having to yell for most of practice because your cox box no longer works.

This week’s recruiting post was on the process of being recruited as a coxswain and the “top 20 terms” post was on the quarter feather, which is a pretty basic “drill” (so much so that if you google it you’ll find pretty much nothing on it). If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s a good go-to for when you’re rowing back to the dock after practice or your coach says “pick a drill, your choice” (something we do pretty regularly with our coxswains).

Hope you guys had a great Thanksgiving! Kinda hard to believe that Christmas is less than a month away now but if you’re still looking for something for your rower, coach, and coxswain friends check out these links from years past for some ideas!

Related: Gifts for Coxswains (2012) || Gifts for Rowers (2012) || Gifts for Coaches (2012) || Gifts for Rowers & Coxswains (2013) || Gifts for Everyone (2013) || Holiday Gift Guide (2014)

If the person you’re looking for is a bookworm like me, any of these books would make a great gift too. My personal recommendations are Boys in the Boat, Mind Over Water, and The Amateurs.

Related: Books on Rowing, pt. 1 || Books on Rowing, pt. 2

Also check out Tuesday’s recruiting post (“Interest from coaches + coming from a small program“), as well as Wednesday’s “Top 20 Terms” post which was on “suspension” (a term that I don’t think I fully grasped until at least a year or two into my coxing career).

Monday’s VOTW was all about analyzing your force curves on the RP3s and starts off by showing the curves in real-time as someone is rowing on the machine before getting into the details of what each one actually represents. It’s interesting stuff and good to know if your team utilizes that feature on the RP3s or C2s.

Tuesday’s recruiting post was about scholarships and when getting one isn’t an option. It talks about need-based aid and how it can compare to (and sometimes be better than) another school’s athletic scholarship offer and includes a link that shows ALL schools that offered varsity rowing programs in 2014 alongside some helpful data such as cost of attendance, average scholarship award, amount of financial assistance offered, roster size, etc.

Wednesday’s “Top 20 terms” post was on body angle. It’s not something that I’ve gotten a ton of questions on but if you have any after reading that, feel free to ask.  Last week’s post was on rush(ing) so if you haven’t checked it out yet you can do so here.

Yesterday’s post was a continuation of last week’s post on training while sick, except this one was geared at coxswains. Rowers tend to get more of a break when they’re sick than coxswains do so sucking it up tends to be the go-to solution but there are a couple things you can do to make practice a little less miserable if you’re sick.

Busy week on the blog – finally got around to tackling several questions that have been waiting to get answered for awhile, in addition to posting Tuesday’s recruiting post on highlight videos (for rowers and coxswains – definitely recommend coxswains check this out) and the worst recruiting emails coaches have received (don’t do any of these…).

Monday’s VOTW on “the physics of boat acceleration” was pretty cool and got shared quite a few times on Twitter, FB, and Tumblr so if you haven’t checked it out yet, you can see it here. Last but not least, this week’s “Words” was about individual limitations vs. performing to the level of the crew – a good reminder that “when every part of each body says stop, inexplicably the boat still continues”.

I’ll be walking along the course with coxswains today at 11am and 2pm so if you want to join us, we’ll be meeting on the Boston side of the BU bridge, right across from the BU boathouse. Email me or tweet me (@beantownkmd) throughout the day if you have questions.

Also, f you haven’t signed up for Uber yet, you can sign up with my code (pg5yb) and get a free ride worth $20. I highly recommend doing this because it’s gonna be cold and why walk more than you need to, especially when you’re tired from racing? Alternatively, if you’re driving and don’t want to deal with the hassle of finding a parking spot on the street (lol good luck with that, welcome to Boston!), you can download the SpotHero app and sign up through this link to get $5 off. I just found this app last night and used it to reserve a spot (yes, you can reserve a spot) in one of the garages in Harvard Square which was a lifesaver since I’ll be rowing out of Weld. Highly recommend.

Several posts this week, including a couple questions on Sunday/Monday (here, here, and here), Tuesday’s recruiting post on some “basics” for contacting coaches (which you might not have thought of before), and yesterday’s post on the default things you should always be looking for during practice (and occasionally races). Those four things should eliminate any possibility of you thinking “I don’t know what to say”.

If you haven’t checked out this week’s posts yet, you can find them here and here. Tuesday’s recruiting post was on the general timeline you should be following your junior and senior year, as well as what you should be considering when looking at schools and teams. Thursday’s “coxswain skills” post was a follow up to last week’s steering post and talked about “always steering” vs. “never steering”, what “small adjustments” really means, and steering on auto-pilot.

If you didn’t see yesterday’s post on novice coxswains, check it out here. Even though it’s about novices it’s geared towards those of you who are varsity/experienced coxswains so I really encourage you to read it when you’ve got time. To reiterate what I said on Tumblr, make it a point to help the novices out because you were in their position once and there’s a pretty good chance that you were wishing someone would clue you in on what being a coxswain meant, what you were supposed to do, etc. Remember that feeling and then help the new kids to NOT feel like that.

I’ve been in Maine at the Northeast Rowing Center this week and won’t be home until Sunday afternoon (after which point I plan on passing out for several hours) so if you’ve emailed me this week I probably won’t have time, energy, or good enough WiFi to reply until Sunday night/Monday.