Category: How To

How To Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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Hi Kayleigh!  I am a junior in college and due to a combination of good and bad experiences with coaches as well as a love for the sport,  I’m seriously considering coaching once I graduate and just had a few questions.  Would you say you need a specific degree to coach,  or is the saying “A degree is worth the paper it’s printed on” true? Do I have any chance of getting the opportunity be a grad assistant if I’m not studying exercise science, sports management or something else related? In general what advice would you give to someone who wants to coach? Thank you!

Ah, I love this question!

You definitely don’t need a specific degree. I studied exercise science because I went into college wanting to do research with/on athletes. (You know the show Sport Science on ESPN? I basically wanted to do all the stuff John Brenkus does.) I guess in some ways having that background has helped with coaching but I can’t think of a specific instance where I’ve actually used my degree in the four years I’ve been coaching. (Literally me.) Off the top of my head, the majors of the other coaches at the boathouse when they were in college were history, law (our head coach was a lawyer for 15ish years before he started coaching), theater, sociology, biology, political science, and English. Ultimately I think it’s less about whatever degree you have and more about how you apply the skills you learned while getting it … which I guess is true for most jobs.

Grad assistants and volunteer assistants are kinda the same and kinda different. Grad assistants sometimes get paid but they also obviously have the added hurdle of getting into grad school first. Volunteer assistants don’t get paid at all (NCAA rules, limit on number of coaches, etc.) and don’t have to be in grad school to coach there. I looked at a few schools that were hiring grad assistants but I’m just so burned out on school that I never pursued it. (Learning is great but school is blech so getting another degree, even if I can do it while coaching, is tabled for the foreseeable future.)

The best way to get into coaching is to just find a junior team that’s hiring coaches and reach out to them. They’re practically a dime a dozen so as long as you’ve got some rowing/coxing experience it shouldn’t be too hard to get involved. I definitely think starting out with juniors is the way to go because even if it’s with a top program, the environment is just more conducive to you being able to figure out your coaching style and trial-and-error stuff to find out what works. In some cases it’s something you can do while you’re still in school too. One of my friends started coaching his junior year and would coach the novices twice a week in the afternoons when they were in season and then four times a week during winter training. In the summers he helped out with the learn-to-row camps they offered and then after graduation he became their head coach for a year or two while working for a local company.

I was at a coaching conference a couple years ago, around the same time I decided coaching at the college level was what I wanted to do, and I asked Kevin Sauer (UVA’s coach) if he had any advice. He said that the best way to start coaching at this level is to go be a volunteer assistant because not only does it give you a lot of valuable experience but also because pretty much no team is ever going to turn down free help. I had a lot – like, a lot – of people tell me that was an awful idea (including other coaches I know who had been volunteer coaches … they compared it to indentured servitude) because you don’t get paid (the biggest deterrent, especially for people my age who are saddled with a ton of student loans and can’t really afford to work for free) and it’s not always a positive experience. One of the coaches I talked to told me that I’ll either figure out exactly what I want in a team or I’ll find out exactly what I don’t want and the latter kind of sums of my first experience with volunteer coaching.

I was initially really excited about it (and blatantly ignored any and all reservations that I had, which was stupid) and then spent the next few months thinking “I’ve made a huge mistake“. I wasn’t sure I wanted to keep coaching after that, at least at this level, but my high school coach encouraged me to keep looking and that’s how I found my current job at MIT. One of my friends rowed here so I knew a little about the team and I figured what the hell, I’m moving back to Boston anyways, might as well reach out. I think within like, ten minutes of talking to our assistant on the phone I was like … this is where I want to be. At the end of our conversation he said he still had two or three other people to interview but I flat out said (a lot more aggressively than I’d intended) that I wanted the job and that was pretty much it. It was very much a “when you know, you know” situation for me and I haven’t regretted it once since. (I could seriously go on for days about why this has been such a positive experience for me but I’ll spare you.)

Something I see repeated a lot (and that I agree with) is to not assume that just because you’ve been rowing or coxing for awhile that you can just jump right into coaching (especially at the collegiate level) and be good at it. You do have to humble yourself a bit and put aside your own success and recognize that that has little to no bearing on how good of a coach you’ll be. There’s definitely some work that goes into figuring out how to communicate the things that seem like common sense to you to a group of rowers (especially novices) who might not conceptually understand what you’re saying. I think that’s probably what I spent most of my first year coaching working out how to do.

Definitely work your contacts though and keep your eyes and ears open for coaching or other volunteer opportunities in the summer as a way to get your foot in the door. One of the camps I coach at (Northeast Rowing Center) has college kids work as the counselors so that’d be something worth looking into if there are any camps being hosted near you. (If you want more info on NRC feel free to email me.) It’s super low-key and chill since your main responsibility is to make sure the kids get from Point A to Point B and don’t do anything stupid outside of practice and you get the benefit of being able to spend time with other coaches who could prove to be helpful connections in the future.

There’s probably a lot more I could say on this that I’m just not thinking of right now so if you have any other questions, feel free to ask!

Coxswain Skills: How to handle a negative coxswain evaluation

College Coxing High School How To Teammates & Coaches

Coxswain Skills: How to handle a negative coxswain evaluation

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Previously: Steering, pt. 1 || Steering, pt. 2  || Boat feel 

This might seem like an unconventional topic to put under the “things you should know how to do” umbrella but after spending many hours on coxswain evals over the last year and a half and occasionally feeling like pulling teeth would have been a more enjoyable experience, I think learning how to handle negative feedback/constructive criticism is an important skill that coxswains need to pick up sooner rather than later.

Feedback, both positive and negative, is essential to your growth as a coxswain. When communicated properly, it should touch on three main things – what you’re doing well, what you need to improve on, and areas where you’ve made improvements since your last evaluation. This is a big reason why I revamped how the info on our evals is communicated to the coxswains. Before the coaches just handed them the 20+ pieces of paper and left them to their own devices but now it’s all laid out in a single spreadsheet that hits the three points I mentioned before.

Related: Coxswain evaluations + my system for organizing them

Where going over evals becomes a contentious and unproductive process is when you take the negative feedback personally. Being told you aren’t doing something well can sting because of the amount of time we put into coxing but if someone is critiquing your coxing, they’re not critiquing you. You have to be able to separate you the person from you the coxswain and look at these situations objectively. On the flip side though, if you’re not putting in the necessary extra effort outside of practice (or hell, even at practice…) or you show up every day with a shitty attitude then you really have no right to complain about whatever’s being said, which I think more coxswains than not need to understand.

With that in mind, here are eight things (some of which may or may not be inspired by our coxswains ?) that you shoudn’t do when going over your evals.

Don’t get defensive

In most cases it’s the natural reaction to have but it can also come off as pretty immature. There’s a difference between defending your actions or making a case for why you did something a certain way and straight up making an excuse. You can defend something you’ve done one time (i.e. going through the wrong arch because you were unsure of which one to use due to construction on the bridge – a common problem on the Charles where this is always changing) but if you’re trying to defend something you’ve done multiple times (i.e. hitting the dock when coming in at the end of practice) then you’re just making excuses for why you haven’t adapted your steering to account for whatever was causing you to run into the dock in the first place (i.e. your speed, angle, line, etc.).

Don’t have an attitude or be sarcastic

Full disclosure, I started putting this post together after a particularly … uh, heated … meeting with one of our coxswains this past fall where this was the biggest issue I faced in trying to communicate with them the feedback that was on the evals. The bottom line is that you can be annoyed all you want but don’t be an asshole to the person taking time out of their schedule to go over this stuff with you because I promise, it just makes them not want to do it in the future … and if you have someone willing to go out of their way to discuss all of it with you, you are foolish if you don’t take advantage of it.

Don’t apologize 47 times for whatever mistake(s) you’ve made

Mainly looking at you, high school girls. Say it once sincerely and move on. Don’t make your coaches coddle you and have to keep saying “it’s fine” – I’ve had to do this recently and eventually it gets to the point where I’m like “I literally do not care if you’re sorry or how sorry you are, just do something different“. The more times you say sorry (especially for really trivial things that don’t require an apology) without actively changing your actions or behavior, the less your apology is going to mean when you really do screw up.

Don’t react immediately

If your immediate reaction to the feedback you’re getting is to blurt out “that’s not fair”, “I completely disagree”, etc. you will look so immature, even if the comments are unfair (which they rarely are) and you do disagree (which is fine but see point #1). Absorb the comments and think about what’s being said so you can try to understand why someone made that comment and then say that you’d like to come back to it later, either at the end of practice, tomorrow, etc., after you’ve had time to think about and process it.

And coaches, if your coxswain goes this route … respect it and say “OK, let’s touch base later”, even if that means spending an extra 20 minutes at the boathouse. If you force the issue by saying”no, we’re gonna do this now” you’re just gonna make them resent the whole evaluation process and their confidence/abilities will suffer as a result.

Don’t dwell on it, let it affect future practices, or use it as a reason/excuse for why you have a bad practice the following day

If you were caught off guard by the comments then that’s fine and you should take some time to deal with that but you also need to commit to letting them go, particularly when it’s time to get on the water. No pity parties or “woe is me” attitudes because the rowers don’t give a shit and the coaches are just gonna get annoyed because we have other stuff to focus on.

Don’t ignore comments you disagree with

Not all feedback is useful but disagreeing with a comment doesn’t mean you can straight up ignore it, particularly when getting any kind of feedback is so tough in the first place.

Don’t waste the opportunity to discuss, strategize, etc.

It’s like at the end of a job interview when they ask if you have any questions. You should always ask questions. I’m currently in the process of going over our winter evals with the coxswains and I told them ahead of time to bring questions, comments, things they wanted/needed clarification on, an action plan for the rest of winter training, a list of goals based on the feedback that was given, etc. because this is the prime chance to discuss all of that stuff with me. I see and talk to them every single day but direct one-on-one time like this is rare, as I assume it is with most of you and your coaches, so don’t waste the opportunity to pick their brains when it’s offered.

Don’t be resentful

If your coach(es) or the rowers have been telling you something for awhile and then it comes up again in the evals, you can expect that they’re all thinking “well … we told you so”. This shouldn’t piss you off or give you cause to be bitter towards them, it should instead act as a wake up call (or a “come to Jesus” moment, as our head coach calls it) that you need to do some serious self-analysis and get your shit together. They are telling you this stuff for. a. reason. Don’t ignore them just because you don’t think it’s important because it will bit you in the ass later.

Obviously these critiques are about what’s being said but ultimately their effectiveness is measured by how you handle and respond to them. This will also dictate how future evals go – the more receptive you are to feedback and the more diligently you go about addressing whatever issues are brought up, the more likely the rowers will be to continue giving you feedback because they can see that you’re taking it seriously. If you come off as aloof or combative in response to what’s being said, you’re not going to get better because the rowers will stop giving you any sort of feedback because it looks like you’re not taking it seriously. It’s your call.

Image via // @merijnsoeters
How to train when you’re sick … as a coxswain

Coxing How To Training & Nutrition

How to train when you’re sick … as a coxswain

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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)

Coxing while sick is pretty damn unpleasant. If you’re not going through practice in a fog then you’re spending half of it hacking into the mic, which leaves you really sore and the rowers really irritated. I usually try to avoid coxing when I’m sick and I’ve been lucky that most of the coaches I’ve had were cool about giving us a break when we needed it but here are my three top tips for how to handle practice when you’re feeling under the weather.

Related: How to train when you’re sick (as a rower)

Turn the volume on your cox box up

I usually have it at about ⅓ volume but when I’m sick I turn the knob about ⅔ of the way up. If you’re losing your voice, have a sore throat, or your chest/torso is sore from coughing (this tends to be my problem) turning the volume up will continue amplifying your voice while letting you talk a little quieter and with less force than you normally do. This can be a life saver if you’re treading the line between having a voice and losing it. Just make sure you tell your crew you’re doing this since getting blasted by the speakers isn’t the most enjoyable way to go through practice.

Related: What coxswains can do to protect their voice

Be aware of the meds you’re taking

Cough suppressants, nasal decongestants, etc. are usually fine to take but just be aware if you start to feel loopy or anything before practice or while you’re on the water. If this happens, tell your coach or a teammate immediately. This really isn’t the time to wonder or care if someone’s going to be pissed at you. My freshman year of college I made the mistake of grabbing the wrong box (because I was in a hurry and not feeling well) and taking the “pop these if you want to fall asleep ASAP” meds before practice, which I realized while on the bus to the boathouse. I told my coach and our assistant drove me back to my dorm but after that I made sure everything was very clearly labelled “drowsy” and “non-drowsy” since reading boxes while sick and rushing out the door wasn’t always my top priority.

Similarly, if you go to the doctor and they give you medicine (and clear you to continue practicing), be aware of any side effects that come with it. It is really hard to cox when internally you’re freaking out because you’re experiencing the shortness of breath side effect that supposedly only a very small fraction of patients experience with the new meds you just started taking. Had that happen (also in college, also during the same week as the drowsy drugs incident) while coxing a race piece and it was just a straight up awful experience.

Switch out with another coxswain (if one’s available) and ride in the launch

If you’re not sick enough to miss practice but you’re not feeling 100% either, this is your equivalent to the rowers biking instead of going on the water to give their bodies a break. If I or any of the other coxswains were ever at this point my coach would have us ride in the launch and take video for him. It was an easy way to keep us engaged in what was going on, which we all definitely appreciated since getting sick can be a guilt trip-inducing experience for coxswains.

If there are no other coxswains that can rotate in for you, you pretty much just have to suck it up and do the best you can. Presumably if you’re at practice to begin with, even if you’re planning on riding in the launch, you’re OK enough to cox so this shouldn’t be too difficult to do but just communicate with your coach and crew so they know you’re not feeling great and can take that into account if you’re not up to your usual standards.

Image via // @ryanjnicholsonphoto
How to train when you’re sick … as a rower

College Ergs How To Training & Nutrition

How to train when you’re sick … as a rower

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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

It’s inevitable that at the start of a new school year/semester or season (winter … always winter) a bug will make its way around campus and will eventually spread throughout the team. It’s happened on every team I’ve been a part of and never fails to make everyone downright miserable for the two weeks it takes to get over it. If you’re training while sick (or considering it), here’s a couple tips + reminders.

Related: How to avoid getting sick during winter training

Sleep, fluids, and easily digestible meals are the best way to combat a cold

Even though you’ll probably feel less productive due to lower energy levels, don’t skimp on sleep to make up for whatever work you’re not getting done. In theory it doesn’t sound like the worst plan in the world but trust me, the only thing that’s on the same level of regret as working through a hangover is working through a nasty cold. Accept that you’re sick and need to take a break. Communicate with the appropriate people to get an extension if you need it or to cover your shift at work and just go to sleep. Stay hydrated too by keeping your water bottle nearby and downing water, Pedialyte, etc. at regular intervals. If you can handle eating small meals, do so. Since moving to Boston, whenever I’m sick my go-to meal is chicken noodle soup from Wegmans so if you have one near you I highly recommend having a friend pick you up some. I don’t know what magical potion they put in there but I swear it speeds up my recovery time like no other. (Plus it’s delicious so there’s that too.)

You can train through a cold as long as you don’t develop a fever and it doesn’t make it’s way into your chest

You’ll typically hear this referred to as “above the neck” and “below the neck” symptoms. If you’ve got a runny nose, congestion, a sore throat, etc. then you’re typically OK to practice (unpleasant as it may be to do so). Backing off on the length and/or intensity of your workout for a day or two is usually smart in these cases just to give your body a bit of a break. Your standard cold isn’t going to have much impact on your performance but once your temperature starts spiking, you start experiencing widespread muscle soreness, or your cold turns into something like bronchitis (this happens to me every year without fail), you’ve gotta take it more seriously and go to a doctor or the student health center on campus. This is the point where similar to a physical injury, if you don’t take it seriously you could end up hurting yourself more in the long run.

All of this obviously requires communication with your coach so none of that “I can’t tell my coach I’m sick” bullshit. (If that’s where you’re at then you’ve got bigger issues than the common cold to deal with.) “But I have a 2k/6k/seat racing tomorrow and I have to be there…” Yea, no. Again, if your cold is minor tell your coach so they’re aware (do this BEFORE, not after) and then proceed with whatever you’re doing. Get plenty of sleep the night before, stay hydrated, fuel as best you can, etc. If you’re really sick, tell your coach (or have your parents do it if you’re in high school and think your coach will get pissed at you) and ask to make it up when you’re healthy.

Do your part to prevent the spreading of germs

This should be common practice anyways but make sure you’re diligent about cleaning the erg handles, weights, etc. after using them to avoid spreading germs (or something more severe like MRSA) to the rest of the team. Wash your hands, don’t share water bottles (don’t do this anyways but especially don’t do it when you’re sick), etc. Basically follow all the rules you were taught in elementary school about proper hygiene and you’ll be good. If you come to practice with a minor cold and someone else catches it, it’s not the end of the world but it should be a reminder that you need to take the necessary precautions to ensure it doesn’t spread any further.

Image via // @tristanshipsides

Coxing How To Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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Hi, I love your blog! I just started coxing this year and it has been so helpful and informative so far. My question: for my team’s first regatta this fall, I coxed the 3V which I was pretty proud of considering I’m a novice cox and the 1V and 2V are coxed by upperclassmen. However, for the next regatta, I found out I got moved down to the 4V. I want to know why and how I can get back in the 3V, but don’t want to annoy my coaches or seem like I’m resentful or overly focused on myself instead of the team as a whole. I’m not super upset by the switch but I’d really like to be back in the 3V for the spring. Also, I was told to be more “bitchy” in the boat, but I want to make sure I’m constructively assertive and not mean or unnecessarily aggressive. Do you have any suggestions for how to talk to my coaches about this or to get back into a higher boat, or tips for being “bitchy” in a helpful way? Sorry if this question has already been answered! Thanks so much!

Just talk to your coaches. Approach it casually and maturely and say “I didn’t mind being in the 4V but my goal for the spring is to cox the 3V. Is there anything that prompted the switch when we raced and if so, what can I do to work on that so I can have a better shot at the 3V?” Trust me, it really is that simple. As long as you don’t come off entitled or anything like that when you ask, they’re not going to care that you brought it up. If anything they’ll probably appreciate the fact that you’re talking with them about it because it shows your commitment to getting better.

As far as “being bitchy in a helpful way”, I think you first have to narrow it down to what’s actually being referenced. Are they saying you need to be more assertive with your execution in general or something smaller, like your calls just need a bit more “punch” behind them? I’ve heard people say “be more of a bitch” in reference to so many different aspects of coxing that I honestly don’t even know what they mean anymore (and truthfully, it’s really starting to aggravate me). If your rowers are speaking in a general sense, I tend to interpret that as them saying they want you to be more on top of them about the little details – aka hold them accountable for the changes they need to make, the rate/splits they’re supposed to be at, etc.

I was just talking about this with our coxswains yesterday when we went over their coxswain evals and what I told them was that they need to know not just the standards and expectations that we (the coaches) have for each crew but they also need to know the standards and expectations that the rowers have for themselves and then aggressively hold them to that. That combined with knowing the appropriate technical calls to make (and when) and understanding the focus and purpose of each drill/workout so you can cox them accordingly is how you present yourself as a “constructively assertive” coxswain.

Coxswain Skills: Steering, pt. 2

Coxing How To Novice

Coxswain Skills: Steering, pt. 2

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Previously: Steering, pt. 1 (Oversteering)

Depending on who you talk to when you first start coxing, you’ll either be told that you should always be steering or that you shouldn’t be steering at all. Both of those are correct-ish but are still pretty vague and can be interpreted a couple different ways, which leads to either some aggressive oversteering or watching a coxswain steer directly into a boat in front of them because you said not to steer. Obviously that’s not what you meant but to a novice who doesn’t know any better, they’re going to take you literally even when common sense dictates that maybe they should steer to port to avoid the boat that’s directly in front of them.

When you’re told that you “shouldn’t be steering” what that actually means is that you shouldn’t be overcorrecting (aka making more adjustments/corrections than are necessary). The ultimate goal when it comes to steering is to do it just enough that the boat responds but not so much that the rowers can sense that it’s happening. Outside of steering around long bends or sharp turns, they shouldn’t be able to tell (by the boat going off-set or seeing the zig-zag trail in the water behind you) when adjustments are being made. This is where knowing how your shell responds to the rudder and how far you have to move the strings before the rudder moves can come in handy.

Another important thing to remember  is that “small adjustments” doesn’t relate to how far forward you’re moving the strings, it has to do with much the rudder moves. You’d think the two would be one in the same (and in most cases they are) but I’ve been in boats where the steering cables are really loose and I have to move my hand forward a few inches (aka not a small amount) just to get the rudder to move a quarter of an inch. If you know this is the case with certain boats then make sure you let the other coxswains know, especially if they’re new to the team and/or haven’t coxed that particular boat before.

Related: Hi I’m a novice coxswain (like really novice, my first day of actual coxing was today) and I have a steering question. Should I steer when the rowers are on the drive or on the recovery (blades in or out of the water)? I have looked it up a couple places and found conflicting answers. Today I just steered during both because I figured for my first time it was more important not to hit anything than to have perfect “steering technique”.

If someone says that you should always be steering that doesn’t mean that you should constantly be moving the rudder back and forth, rather it means that you should always be anticipating what adjustments need to be made based on what the boat is doing, what’s happening up ahead, the wind/water conditions, etc. Hearing “you should always be steering” tends to lead to the oversteering problems I talked about last week though so a better way of saying that would be that you should always be thinking about steering in the context of the things I just mentioned but only actually doing it when you need to.

The experienced coxswains out there will know that the more proficient you get with steering the more it becomes an “auto-pilot” skill. For me, I tend to only consciously think about steering a few times per practice and it’s usually only when there’s a lot of traffic around me. If there’s minimal traffic, conditions are good, and we’re rowing well I might come off having not thought about it at all. Part of it is knowing the river and part of it is just knowing based on sight/feel when I need to make an adjustment vs. having to actually think about and process what needs to happen.

It’s a little tough to explain but you’ll eventually get to the point where you’ll get off the water and your coach will say “nice course today!” and you’ll think “… uh … I don’t even remember steering, let alone what course I took”. This isn’t something that’s just naturally going to happen though. If you aren’t consistently practicing your steering skills then “eventually” could be a couple seasons (or years) away, whereas if you’re regularly focused on all the things I’ve talked about previously that go into steering an effective course, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be fully confident in your steering abilities within two seasons or so after you start coxing.

Image via // @grimey_grim

How To Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Adjusting your foot stretchers

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Adjusting your foot stretchers seems like it’d be a really simply thing to do – and it is – but without fail someone always manages to just completely screw it up and either rip out the entire footplate, lose a wing nut, or both (and 50% of the time one or both of those things happen when you’re on the water.) The most important thing to remember is to not remove the wing nuts when you loosen them – just keep them on the bolts and only loosen them as much as you need to in order to move the stretchers.

Related: Adjusting the seat tracks

Varsity rowers and coxswains, this would be something worth going over with the new novices on your team if it’s not something your coach hasn’t already mentioned or shown them.

Coxswain Skills: Steering, pt. 1

Coxing How To Novice

Coxswain Skills: Steering, pt. 1

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Steering is the most, if not the only, visible role we have as coxswains. It’s something I’ve talked a lot about on here (you can see all those posts in the “steering” tag here)  but since the new season’s just getting started I thought it’d be beneficial to go over a couple of the basics for the new novice coxswains. This should also serve as a reminder for those of you who are returning as experienced varsity coxswains and give you some stuff to touch on with the novices.

If someone asks you what your most important task is outside of keeping your crew safe, your answer should always be “steering an effective course”. I don’t like to say “steer straight” because there’s always that one person that takes it way too literally and emails me saying “but I cox on a river with a lot of turns, how do I steer straight then?”. Steering an effective course covers all the bases, regardless of whether you’re coxing on a straight-shot body of water or a more serpentine one like the Charles.

More so than telling your rowers what to do and WAY more so than motivating them, learning how to steer properly should be your biggest priority when you first get on the water. This entails a combination of things – knowing how the steering system works is obviously the main one but also knowing how the boat responds to you touching the rudder and where you need to steer more/less on the water you row on (aka turns and straightaways) are the other two components. Varsity coxswains, you should be clueing the novices in on both of these since you’ve been in the boats before and know which ones respond well and which ones don’t. You also know which turns require you to stay on the rudder longer (i.e. the downstream Eliot turn on the Charles) and where you should only need to make slight adjustments as necessary to hold a point (i.e. in the basin).

Related: Mike Teti’s “Three S’s of Coxing”

Steering too much (aka oversteering) is the most common problem coxswains, especially novices, have. This is usually a result of getting impatient because the boat doesn’t feel like it’s turning. Remember, it’s not going to respond right away – it takes a stroke or two (or more, depending on your shell) before it starts to turn so you’ve gotta wait and not shove the rudder all the way over to one side thinking that’ll make it turn faster. All that does is cause you to, as I call it, “drunk steer”, meaning you’re zigzagging down the course in such a way that would make me think you’d fail a sobriety test if given one on land.

Between fours and eights, fours tend to be the easiest to oversteer because there’s less of a “delay” in response time between when you move the strings and when the shell actually turns. One of the reasons why developing boat feel and understanding technique is such an important part of coxing fours is because it can also help you limit unnecessary (over)corrections with the rudder. Being able to gauge the impact the rowers have (or will have) on the shell will allow you to be able to anticipate the corrections you’ll need to make to your steering and limit it to only what needs to be done.

Related: Coxswain skills: Boat feel

Another cause of oversteering is not anticipating what’s up ahead. You should be looking over your stroke’s shoulder every couple of strokes to see what’s going on in front of you so you can start adjusting your course sooner rather than later. “What’s going on in front of you” includes any upcoming turns in the river, other crews that might be stopped, moving slower than you, etc., and any debris or obstacles like an errant log or a buoy. Failing to acknowledge this ahead of time leads to that “oh shit!” moment where you have make a last-minute adjustment to avoid putting yourself in a dangerous situation. Those sudden changes can also cause you to panic and throw the rudder to one side (thinking again that that will make the boat turn faster and get you out of harm’s way). This will only exacerbate your oversteering and could put you in an even worse position if you end up on the wrong side of the course (aka going against the traffic pattern) as a result.

A more rare cause of oversteering is not knowing what to say to the crew so in order to feel like you’re doing something you steer … a lot. This isn’t something I’ve come across too often but I’ve had coxswains bring it up in emails so I think it’s worth addressing, if only to say that the “less is more” theory applies not just to what you say but also to how you steer. If you don’t have anything to say or are struggling to come up with a call, don’t feel like you need to compensate for that by going all Grand Theft Auto on the steering cables. The rowers and your coach will appreciate a quiet coxswain who steers well a lot more than a coxswain who is struggling on both ends.

Image via // @rorycruickshank

Coxing How To Q&A Racing Technique

Question of the Day

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Hi! Love your blog! I was just wondering if you have any tips as far as steering a buoyed course and what to do during the first strokes of the race if for some reason the rowers’ powers are uneven and the boat gets lodged towards one direction. Thank you!

Short answer: For steering buoyed courses, check out the post linked below, particularly the part on vanishing points. If one side pulls you over at the start then you don’t really have any option but to fix it so make whatever small adjustments you need to make to get you back on course and tell each side to keep it even. During a sprint race you obviously don’t want to tell anyone to back off so you should avoid resorting to that unless the pressure difference is so egregious that that’s your only option to keep the boat pointed straight.

Related: Hi! Since the spring races all start boats at the same time, do you have any tips on steering straight? I can tell when I’m veering off my lane, but for some reason, I can’t/don’t know how to fix it! I remember you saying it’s all about the small adjustments, then straightening out, but I can’t seem to get it. [Ex today: all 3 boats lined up, me on the outside, I end up too far out away from the other 2]. Tips? Thanks!

Long answer: You know those “if this then that” flowcharts? That’s pretty much what the rest of this post is. Hopefully it’s not too difficult to follow but let me know if it is and I’ll try to draw it out to make it easier to visualize/understand. (I almost had to do that anyways just so I could keep track of my thought process.) Something to take away from the “big picture” of this post is that when something’s not right, it’s usually the result of something else not being right and to figure out what that is you have to work backwards through what you know and are feeling and seeing in order to put all the pieces together. This requires a lot of thought but if you can work through all that and figure out what the problem is, it’s pretty satisfying.

The first thing to do would be to make sure everyone’s rowing the same pressure at the start. Obviously this isn’t something you can really do on race day though (other than give them a reminder before the race) so it’s important to pay attention to that when you do starts at home during practice. If you notice one side out-pulling the other, even if it’s only the tiniest amount, speak up and say “hey ports, starboards had a little more power off the start on that one so on this one let’s try to match them so we aren’t getting pulled off course”. I have no qualms whatsoever with telling them to not interfere with my ability to steer because if they expect me to give them a fast course then I expect them to not make that tougher than it already is/can be. Few things irritate me more than someone else being responsible for me steering a bad course. If it’s just me steering poorly that’s easy to fix because all it requires is me telling myself to do something different but if I know I’m not oversteering and the reason we’re off course is because four or eight people can’t all row full-pressure at the same time, that’s frustrating because it’ll still end up being my fault and now I have to play puppeteer to get everyone to do what I need. Most of you will probably know what I mean by that and for those that do you know that is NOT fun and NOT easy.

If the amount one side is out-pulling the other is small then I’ll just tell the other side (ports, in that example) to increase their pressure but if they were out-pulled by a lot then I’ll tell the stronger side (in this case, starboards) to back off on the next one. This serves two purposes. One, it lets me steer straight and two, it helps me figure out why we went off-course in the first place. Was it just adrenaline from the starboards, is the lineup stacked on that side, or were the ports being lazy on the last one? To figure out which one it was I’ll ask them how it felt (I’ll usually ask my stroke as soon as we finish and then the boat once we stop rowing or my stroke and I finish talking). If they say “good”, “fine”, “better”, etc. then I’ll leave it at that and talk about it with my coach later. (If we do more starts after that one then I’ll just remind them to remember how the last one felt and try to replicate that.) If the starboards say they felt like they were rowing at three-quarter pressure but the ports say they were at full then that usually means there’s some kind of imbalance, in which case, again, I’ll bring it up to the coach (although instead of doing it after practice I’ll do it on the water so he can address it immediately).

This usually necessitates doing another start so on this one I’ll watch the puddles of both sides, particularly those of my bow pair since they tend to have a bigger impact on where the boat goes – hence why we use them to get our points and not our stern pair. (For those keeping count, watching the puddles would be the fourth thing you’re doing simultaneously at the start … any ideas on what the other three are?). If the starboard puddles are deep and dark then I know they’re probably at or close to full pressure. If the port puddles look shallow or the strokes look short then I know they likely aren’t taking effective, and by extension, full pressure strokes (which begs another question – is it because they’re washing out, rowing it in, not burying their blade deep enough, etc.), even though the rowers might think they are because of how hard they’re getting their legs down. If that’s the case then I just tell the ports to get their blades in, keep the blades buried, etc. (This is usually when someone on that side says “I am/we are”, in which case I get to lean out and say “really, because I’m literally watching your blade every single stroke and you’re not doing either of those things”, which then leads to them getting pissed off for one reason or another that I most likely don’t care about. That’s another thing I’m pretty adamant about – if I’m specifically watching the bladework and I tell you you’re doing something (or not doing it, in this case), don’t argue with me because there is a pretty solid chance you will lose that battle. It has nothing to do with me (or your coxswain) being cocky or thinking we’re better than you or whatever other ridiculous excuse you can come up with – it’s LITERALLY OUR JOBS to know/understand this stuff and point it out to you. It can be a very “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation but at least by saying something no one can say you didn’t try to fix the problem. )

Anyways, if you determine that one side’s taking more effective strokes than the other, that’s a relatively easy fix because all you have to do is figure out what technical thing they need to fix and then … do it. If by watching the puddles you only notice one or two outliers (i.e one really strong one or one really weak one) then again, that’s also an easy fix … just tell them to either ramp it up a notch or stop being that person that pulls me off point every. single. time. by thinking that “go hard off the line” means that you abandon all common sense and forget that “go hard off the line” doesn’t work if seven people are rowing at 100% and you’re rowing at 150%. There’s a good chance that most of the coxswains reading this (particularly if you cox guys) are thinking of someone specific right now because we’ve all had that person in our boats at one point or another . (And rowers, if you are that person … please stop. Seriously. Stop.) In the majority of cases you’ll find that this is what solves the problem though. It’s very rarely ever an entire side out-pulling or getting out-pulled by the other – sometimes it is but that usually happens when you’re trying out new lineups, which is why it’s important to communicate with your coach and let them know that one side seems to be stronger than other based on XYZ that you noticed during practice.

So … the bottom line is that if you’re veering off course during your first few strokes you can’t freak out about it as it’s happening, just make an adjustment and fix it. Before and after the race though when you’re practicing at home you should pay attention when you do starts so you can address the issue if/when it comes up and figure out what’s causing it, that way in the future you can avoid losing valuable seconds during your starting 5 + high strokes by having to consistently readjust your point.

How To Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Adjusting the seat tracks

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We had to do some track adjusting towards the end of the season with the IRA four and since it became a slightly more involved process than I thought it’d be I figured it’d be worthwhile to share this video to show how it’s done. Keep in mind that you should talk with your coach first if you think there’s an issue with your tracks (i.e. they’re not aligned, they’re too far forward/back, etc.) before you mess with anything, just to avoid damaging them or making any unnecessary changes.