Category: Q&A

College High School Q&A

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Hello, so going into the spring racing season, I knew that I wanted to improve as much as possible etc etc (coming off an unsuccessful fall) but then I also knew that there are things that I need to do as a junior (such as college touring). There’s a fair sized regatta at the end of my April break, but that’s also the only time I’ll have until August to college tour. Also what if I get asked by college coaches why I’m not racing? I know this is mostly my decision, but could you help me out?

Ooh, that’s tough. Between crew, marching band, SATs/ACTs, and all the other stuff I had going on, I didn’t have time to start going on college visits until the late fall (read: November) of my senior year. I had already narrowed down the schools I wanted to visit to three so that made it easier but I didn’t go visit any of them until pretty late in the game. I would have liked to have started the process earlier but I don’t think it hurt in any way going when I did. If you end up having to wait until August I honestly don’t think you’ll be too far behind the curve as long as you’re not trying to look at like, eight or nine schools. There were several kids that came in the fall to look at Cornell who were in similar positions as you so if you end up having to wait til then I wouldn’t stress about it – there are plenty of other people doing the same thing.

If you decide to go at the end of April then it can easily be explained to any coaches that ask that this was the only available opportunity that you had to look at colleges until August and looking ahead to the fall you didn’t want to try to juggle the start of your senior year, getting back into the swing of training, filling out applications, etc. with trying to travel all over the country to look at schools. As long as the regatta you’d be missing isn’t a championship of some kind, I don’t think they’d look that closely at it. You have to weigh the pros/cons though and decide if this is a race that you can afford to miss. Obviously that’s something only you and your coach would know but it does require some thought and consideration.

Ultimately you should do whatever you think will make the whole process as smooth and stress-free as possible for you. Don’t try to balance traveling to visit schools with a million other things because you’ll just end up overwhelmed and distracted, which will take your focus off of why you’re really there.

Q&A Rowing

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I’m starting to fall out of love with rowing and it scares me because I don’t know whether it’s because the sport is so stressful or it’s just because I’m not progressing, which is stupid, but I don’t know what to do because its been a huge investment for my family.

Are you not making any noticeable improvements because you’ve hit a plateau or because you’ve stopped trying? Be honest. If you’ve been doing the same types of training for awhile it might just be an issue of switching things up so that your muscles become un-bored. That’s what happens when you plateau – your muscles adapt to the training you’re doing to the point where they’re so used to your routine that they get bored and stop responding. If it’s because you’ve given up for whatever reason then you’ve got to make the decision for yourself whether or not you want to readjust your outlook and keep trying or if it’s no longer worth it to you and it’s time to move on. You should also consider whether or not you’re burned out. If you’ve been doing crew non-stop for a year or more then you’re probably just tired, mentally and physically, and that’s contributing to why you’re not progressing the way you want to be and why you feel like you’re just kinda over it. The solution to this is taking some time off, even that means just a couple days to start with. If you can, try to take the whole summer off from rowing and then once August rolls around, reevaluate how you’re feeling and go from there.

The investment that your family has made should be something you keep in mind because obviously that’s an important factor to consider but don’t base your decision off of that. You shouldn’t continue to do something just because you feel guilty over the amount of money, time, etc. that other people have put into it. If you’re genuinely not enjoying yourself anymore then that’s reason enough to take some time off. It’s OK to stop enjoying something you once loved doing but you’ve gotta be honest with yourself about it and recognize when you’ve reached that point. Talk to you coach and/or parents, tell them how you’re feeling, and get some feedback from them. See if you can negotiate a break with your coach so you can clear your head and reassess the situation. Sometimes looking at it from the other side when you’re not overwhelmed by a million different things can help you come to a decision.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I just started coaching, and am worried that I might be a little overwhelmed by dividing my attention between driving the launch and watching the rowers. Any advice on watching what’s happening in the boat while multitasking?

It’s not as overwhelming as you think it will be, I promise. The more time you spend on the water the more of a second nature it’ll become. Similarly to what I tell the coxswains, just make sure you look up and scan the river every 10-15 strokes to make sure there aren’t any crews in front of you or miscellaneous tree limbs, junk, etc. floating around. I would recommend taking the launch out for 10-20 minutes before practice one day and practice steering it while pretending to watch a crew beside you. That’ll get you used to steering straight while your attention is focused elsewhere while also giving you a chance to practice scanning the river every 20-30 seconds. If you can, get another coach to come out with you so you have someone to talk to, similarly to how you’ll be talking to the boat. Somebody recommended doing all of that to me when I was first learning how to use the launches at CRI and it was really helpful. If you were previously a coxswain, the transition won’t be that tough. The only difference is that the boat your steering now is about 50ft shorter. Think of learning to drive a launch like learning to drive a car all over again, except with a boat.

This goes along with what I said at the beginning about scanning the river for other crews – make sure when you go by them you slow down so that you don’t wake them out. There’s nothing worse than a coach that blows by and completely wakes out another crew that’s trying to do stationary drills or have a conversation with their coach. Always throw up a hand wave to the other coach(es) too. It’s just the friendly, polite thing to do. (Harry Parker waved to me once on the Charles and it was literally one of the greatest things ever.)

Also, slightly unrelated, when you go out make sure you have life jackets and a paddle in the launch with you. The life jackets are (obviously) for situations where someone or multiple someones end up in the water and the paddle is if your engine dies and you need to get to shore or back to the dock. (For more info on why coaches are required to carry those items, check out this post near the beginning where it talks about the Level 1 certification thing I went to.)

Coxing Novice Q&A Racing

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Hey! I’m a novice coxswain and yesterday we had our first race which we lost by a lot. I struggled with trying to motivate my boat when we really didn’t have a chance of coming back. I could tell everyone felt pretty defeated and I didn’t know what to say to keep them working hard. Do you have any advice on what sort of calls I can make if this happens again? (Fingers crossed it doesn’t)

Check out the two posts linked below. The first one is a video from the Harvard, Penn, and Navy race from last spring and the second is a question about coxing off of other boats when you’re doing pieces at practice. Both touch on similar issues of one boat being way ahead of the other(s) and ways to deal with that as the coxswain.

Related: VOTW: Harvard, Penn, and Navy

The toughest thing is not letting what you’re seeing come across in your tone of voice. If the rowers start to detect any sign of defeat in your voice it’s going to change the entire attitude of the boat. It can from “yea, we’re in this!” to “screw it, why bother” in a very short period of time if you’re not careful. Don’t start getting overly-motivational because that just makes it obvious that you think they have no chance but on the flip side, don’t get completely dour or silent either.

I was fortunate enough that I was only in this position maybe two times that I can remember and the thing that I told my crews both times was that regardless of where we finished, we were going to cross the line looking, acting, and rowing like a first place crew. Being down in a race is no excuse for letting your technique get sloppy or your attitude to become “woe is me”. Losing a race and having a bad race aren’t synonymous – you can lose and still have a good row. The crews that are ahead should always be just the tiniest bit afraid that you could come back on them at any given second. It doesn’t matter if you’re in first place or fifth place though, you should finish the race rowing as hard and as well as you can.

Related: My girls really like when I cox off of other boats, even if we’re just doing steady state. I’m in the 2V boat so they all want to beat the 1V at ALL times. I find it easy to cox when we’re next to another boat/in front of it. However, I never quite know what to say without being negative and annoying when we’re CLEARLY behind another boat. Yesterday afternoon we were practically three lengths behind the v1, and we STILL didn’t catch up even when they added a pause. What do I say at times like these? I always end up getting rather quiet since the overall attitude of my boat is pretty down. I feel like whenever I call a 10 or get into the piece at this point it does absolutely nothing, since my rowers have practically given up.

This is where intrinsic motivation is so important because, like you said, it’s easy for a coxswain to just run out of things to say to keep their rowers going. The rowers should have their own personal reasons for being out there (that their coxswain doesn’t know about) that they can rely on for motivation when they need a reason to keep going. I would try to remind the rowers in close races or races where we were down a few seats (particularly in the 3rd 500) to think about why you row … what do you do it for? … and then we’d take a BIG refocus 5 for that. I wanted to be able to feel their motivation in those five strokes. This would always gain us back a couple seats and from there, I’d cox them like normal until we crossed the line.

The best thing you can do is to find something that will put a bit of energy back in the boat and then capitalize on that. There is no “magic call” for this and it’ll very rarely be the same thing between boats – it’s gotta be completely unique to each crew, something that you only know because you know your rowers and what drives them. They key is remembering that all you’ve gotta do is ignite a spark and let the fire follow. Once you see the fire in your rowers, fuel it like you would during any other race.

Another thing I’d say to them is something our coaches said to us after a particularly rough practice and before all of our races: who do you row for? They’d ask us two to three times, louder and more aggressively each time, WHO DO YOU ROW FOR? My interpretation of that was that they were always reminding us that what we’re doing is bigger than any one individual. You’re rowing for each other, your teammates, and for the pride you have in your program. Pride and dignity should be two huge forces that drive your crew and you want to be able to cross the line with both of those things intact regardless of where you finish.

Talk about the importance of mental toughness with them too. Remind them that just because there’s a voice in your head telling you there’s no point in continuing to row hard doesn’t mean you have to listen to it. Also remind them that the other four or eight people in the boat aren’t giving up, which means they can’t either. The only time you should ever assume anything during a race is that you’re the only one doubting yourself. Always assume that the other four or eight people are 100% confident in your abilities as individuals and as a crew. That should be enough to change your mindset really quick.

Related: Words.

Finally, talk to your crew about your race and find out what they were thinking, how they felt, and what you could have said to keep them going. Get their feedback and use all of that to help shape your calls for next week. Whenever you feel them starting to slip off the pace (this applies to practice too), use what they said to you about your last race to keep them going hard in this race.

Q&A Rowing Technique

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Hey Kayleigh, I was hoping you could lend some advice on spacers, the correct positioning of your body in relation to the pin, and how to change these things either before you are out on the water or while you are out on the water. I was told that when in doubt to take a spacer off… is that the rule of thumb? It is different due to the type/make of the boat? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Changing the positioning of the spacers effects the height of the oarlock, which will then correspond to how easy or hard it is for you to get your blade out of the water. To adjust the spacers, all you’ve gotta do is pull them off (which takes some muscle) and reposition them either below the oarlock to add height or above the oarlock to lower the height. This is how it’s done across the board, regardless of the type or make of the boat. I’d recommend doing it on land, if you can, when the oarlock itself is dry. It’s much easier trying to get them off when the boat’s not tipping to the side and your fingers aren’t wet and slippery. Doing it on the water pretty much guarantees you’ll lose one if you do manage to get it off and unless your coach or coxswain has spares out with them, you’ll be stuck rowing with the oarlock lower than you want it. I’ve never heard the rule of thumb about removing spacers and couldn’t find much when I Googled it so that might just be what your coach has found worked best in his/her experience.

Where your body is in relation to the pin (aka your catch angle) relates to the positioning of your foot stretchers, your flexibility, and your skill level. Whenever you hear someone talking about rowing through the pin or rowing through the “work”, what they’re referring to is where your hips and seat are in relation to the pin when you’re at full compression. You want to make sure you’ve achieved your full body angle ahead of the pin so that when you reach full compression, the relation of your seat to the pin is accurate. When you’re sculling I think you’re supposed to be even with the pins but with the larger sweep boats you’ll typically go a couple centimeters past that (a couple being 1 or 2cm). If you’re (excessively) in front of the pin then you’re going to have a very steep catch angle, which is going to cause you to have mostly ineffective stroke due to the excessive load you have to contend with. It also puts a lot of unnecessary stress on your low back. If you don’t reach full compression then you’re going to be behind the pin and have a very shallow catch angle, which is also ineffective since you’re not loading the blade enough.

Regarding your foot stretchers, if they’re too far up (closer to the stern) then you’re likely to be too far in front of the pin and if they’re too far back (closer to the bow) then you’ll be too far behind it. If that’s the issue then you can easily fix that on the water by removing your feet, loosening (but not removing) the wing nuts, and moving the stretchers forwards or backwards. You can do it on land too if you’ve got the boat upright in slings. I wouldn’t recommend trying to do it with the boat on the racks because there’s always that risk that you’ll loosen everything too much and the stretchers will fall on your face.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I’ve been having problems with one of the assistant coaches. Overall, his attitude towards me has been one of dislike/disappointment. Part of this may be due to him not knowing I’m a novice cox and expecting me to be at the level of an experienced one (I’ve been with the varsity a lot #coxswainshortage), but most of it is definitely due to a few bouts of incompetence earlier in the season.

Now, however, I’ve improved significantly, but he still has very little patience for me (compared to other coxes) when I ask for clarification on the water and is very reluctant and disdainful when I ask for advice (on land). In addition, there’s significant communication issues, as he (and the other coaches) use plastic-cone megaphones, and whenever I can’t hear clearly and ask for clarification (or can’t hear at all), they always interpret it as me not paying attention, which further reinforces his bad image of me.

Today especially was a terrible practice, as all these elements and more were at play. My boat and one other were under his sole supervision the entire time we were on the water. He was pissed at one of the other boats not with us at the time, and he was quite clearly projecting that anger onto us. Due to various factors (seaplanes, head coach not present, pointed his megaphone at other boat) the communication issues were at an all time high, and his short fuse made me afraid to ask for clarification. As a consequence, I felt quite helpless, especially as he seemed strangely angry whenever I did manage to do what he wanted. In addition, it seemed as if he were merely along for the ride, as said NOTHING other than the drills and pieces we were supposed to be doing. Help!

Dear coaches, you wanna know who can hear what you’re saying when you use those stupid cone things? NOOO ONEEE. No one knows what you’re saying because your words are muffled and not in any way whatsoever louder or clearer than if you just shouted them from across the river. Those cones suck. Stop using them, particularly if you’re the type of coach who gets pissed and/or irritated when your coxswains ask you for clarification or to repeat your instructions because they couldn’t hear you the first time you said them. And again, just to reiterate the point, the reason they couldn’t hear and/or understand is because – say it with me! – THOSE. CONES. SUCK. Seriously, just save everyone the frustration and buy a megaphone.

Have you talked to your head coach about this? I could tell you how to deal with each of these problems individually if it was like, a one-off situation but it sounds more like the issues you’re having with the assistant have turned into habitual problems. When it gets to that point, that’s when you need to consult whoever’s above them (in this case, your head coach) and bring to their attention what’s been going on. If you haven’t brought any of this up, I would try talking with your head coach privately and explaining the situation. Since he actually knows your assistant he might be able to give you some advice on how to work with him or what the best ways are to go about communicating with him. At the very least, hopefully he can talk to him and point out the fact that what he’s doing isn’t effective for anyone (and that he’s being an asshole).

If he doesn’t know that you’re a novice I would definitely point that out to him so that he does know. I can understand expecting you to cox at a higher level if you’ve been working with the varsity crews (that’s understandable and pretty reasonable, regardless of why you’re with them) but you’re also going to make mistakes simply because you aren’t experienced enough yet to know better. That’s to be expected of any novice coxswain, provided you learn from the mistakes you make and make an effort to not repeat them in the future. He should be making an effort to teach you how to avoid making those mistakes too instead of getting annoyed at you if/when it happens.

Whatever “bouts of incompetence” you had before really doesn’t matter now, particularly if you’ve stepped up your game and improved your skills. If he seems reluctant to give you advice when you’re just talking face to face, honestly, I feel like I can pretty much guarantee that it’s because he doesn’t know what to tell you. I’ve had plenty of coaches do that before and the older/more experienced I got, the more I realized it was just a way to avoid saying “I don’t know”.

I’ve definitely had days where stuff outside of crew has pissed me off enough that I’ve brought it to practice with me but I do try really hard to not project that on to the people I’m coxing or coaching. It’s just not productive or fair. If another boat does something that makes me mad or makes them worthy of being made an example of then I’ll try to explain to whatever boat I’m coaching why I’m mad, why what they did was wrong, and what they should have done instead. That’s a much better use of your time as a coach because at least the rowers will learn something.

The best thing you can do as the coxswain in that situation though is to keep your boat under control and not do anything to aggravate his already short fuse. Having to tip toe around your coach is pretty shitty but sometimes it’s the best thing for you and your crew to do. It might and probably will be very tempting to back talk him and just blurt out “dude, what is your problem” when he’s treating you unfairly due to something completely unrelated to your boat but you have to resist the urge and just keep your mouth shut. By no means does that mean you have to accept it, just don’t engage it at that moment.

One thing you should never be afraid of though is to talk to your coach about something and if you are, that’s when you need to go over their head and talk to the head coach about all of this. Feeling helpless as a coxswain is quite possibly the worst feeling you can experience (been there, felt that, it sucks), especially when you already feel like none of the coaches have your back or are willing to help you out when you need it. The best advice I can offer you in this situation though is to talk to your head coach, either on your own or with a couple guys from your boat, and let him handle this. It sounds like it’s gotten to the point where it’s more of a personnel problem that he needs to handle than anything else.

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I’m over coxing weight by some, but I’ve been working on it and it is going down (healthily). My coaches know that I’m over and they aren’t putting me in good boats because of it (only thing). We have a race soon and I’m getting closer to 110. I know my coaches have issues with my weight but they haven’t brought it up with me, but I think they will soon. What should I say/do? And if they don’t, should I tell them if I’m at 110 or talk to them about my issue/what’s going on?

I think it’s really stupid to keep a coxswain out of a boat just because of their weight if they’re only a couple pounds over (a couple being five or less), especially if you’re in high school and especially since you’re close to the minimum, which most coaches apparently don’t know the definition of.

Related: What coaches look for in a coxswain

If they say something about it just be honest with them and let them know where you’re at now (do. not. lie. about your weight) and that you’ve been working on it. There’s not much more you can do (or that they can expect you to do) other than continue exercising and eating healthy. If they don’t say anything then whether or not it gets brought up is up to you.

Unless they’ve specifically said to you that the reason you’re not in any of the good boats is because of your weight, then I’d talk to them to figure out why you’re in the boats you’re in now and what you can/need to do in order to move up. If there’s a specific boat that you want to be coxing, tell them that your goal is to cox that boat for your upcoming race, that way they know that you’re actually striving to be in a certain boat and not just saying “I weigh 110lbs now, put me in a good boat!”.

Coxing How To Q&A Racing

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I coxed a race last weekend and was told that while my coxing was good, it sounded more like a piece than an actual race. Can you give some tips on how to really up the intensity while coxing a race? I thought I was communicating a sense of urgency pretty well through my tone, but I’m not sure if it came across as well as I had hoped. Thanks! Your blog has been an absolute godsend since this is my first year coxing.

I’ve done that too, mainly during scrimmages or heats if we’re comfortably beating the other crew or already sitting in a qualifying position. I don’t think there’s anything wrong necessarily with coxing races like that but it obviously depends on the race and your crew. For me, I always talked to my crews and established that for any race but the final, if we were ahead by a large enough margin that we could afford to back off a bit, I was going to tone down my coxing to a steady state level and they would follow suit with their rowing. There’s obviously a lot of other things that go into this but the goal was to make sure we were leaving enough in the tanks for the finals so we could go hard for the entire piece, regardless of the margins. One of the things that I’ve worked hard on over the years is getting my crews to match the intensity of their strokes to the intensity of my voice (…or vice versa, I never really have figured out which one it is).

Related: Since were still waiting for the river to be ice-free, I’ve been thinking about what I need to work on when we get back on the water. I’ve decided that coxing steady state pieces are harder for me to cox. I think it’s because I don’t want to talk too much but I’m also scared of not saying enough or being too repetitive. Do you have advice for coxing steady state workouts?

In the post linked above from a couple weeks ago I talked about the “coxing intensity scale” (which is now officially a real thing…) and where I usually fall on it depending on what we’re doing. “On the coxing intensity scale where 1 is your warmup and 10 is a race, I’m usually around a 6 (relaxed but focused tone) for the majority of each piece. I’ll bring it up to a 7.5-8 when calling 5s, 10s, and 20s though so that the rowers stay engaged and alert (and I don’t die of boredom) and then when it comes down to the last 6k, 2k, or whatever I’ll try to cox it like an actual race (somewhere between an 8.5 and a 9).” Think back to your most recent steady state piece during practice and rate yourself – where would you fall on that scale? Now think about your race. Rate yourself and then ask your crew to rate you. See how your numbers and their numbers compare to how you rated yourself during a steady state piece. This should give you a good comparison so you can get an idea of how the crew viewed your coxing during the race. I’ve definitely had races before where I thought I was coxing them really well and then we got off the water and they’ve said “you could have pushed us harder”. Talking to them though and getting feedback on how they interpreted my calls, my tone of voice, what they want/need, etc. was always the first step for me in the “do something different” process. Your first year or so of coxing is always a big test of your communication skills – the best thing you can do for yourself if you think your coxing didn’t come across as intended is to find out why.

When you put all of that stuff together, that’s what will help increase the intensity of your pieces. Intensity isn’t just about being loud or being aggressive. If “intensity” were a tangible object, like an onion or something, your volume and tone would only be the two outermost layers. Underneath all of that are the calls you’ve created, the “insider knowledge” on each of your rowers, what you know about technique, strategy, etc., in addition to all the other skills you’ve been practicing. When you combine all of that with a more-aggressive-and-at-times-louder-than-usual tone, that is what creates a sense of intensity in the boat. For more on that, definitely check out the posts in the “tone of voice” tag.

Related: My rowers told me after practice today that I should focus on the tone of my voice and not be so “intense” during our practices. I don’t really know how to fix that actually. Like I don’t think I am so “intense” but rather just firm and trying to be concise with the command I give out. They said that they really like how I cox during a race piece because my intensity level fits the circumstances. But they also said that if I cox in a similar tone to race pieces, they can’t take me seriously during the races. But my problem when I first started coxing was not being firm enough and getting complaints about how I should be more direct on my commands. Now when I am, my rowers say this. I don’t really know what is the happy medium. Like I listen to coxing recordings and I feel like I am doing fairly similar tones.

Also check out the post linked above. Although the question that was being asked is the opposite of what you’re asking, what I said in my reply definitely applies here. Another thing that really helps with the intensity during races (or any hard piece) is making sure you’re projecting your voice rather than just yelling. Listen to some recordings too – there are some great examples of what “good” intensity in the majority of the ones I’ve posted.

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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What do you do when you’re in stroke and you’re the only person keeping the boat off port and the coxswain won’t say a word because my attempting to pry the boat off the water is throwing off the stroke thereby throwing off the entirety of the boat. Nobody really wants to address the problem, like the coach attributes it to a different technical issue, when really its quite obviously laziness with the handle heights on the recovery.

Trying to pull the boat off of port yourself isn’t going to fix anything and in most cases will probably make the problem worse (as I’m sure you’ve found out). I don’t understand why your coxswain hasn’t said anything about this – they do know it’s their responsibility to notice and point this kind of stuff out, right? Regardless of whether it’s because of lazy handle heights or whatever technical issues your coach is pointing out, the coxswain should be making the necessary calls to correct the issue and maintain the changes.

Related: Coxswain skills: “So, what did you see?”

I assume you’ve said something to him/her about this but if you haven’t, maybe try talking to them on land before practice one day and just saying that they’ve probably noticed how difficult it’s been for you to maintain a consistent stroke rate with the boat constantly sitting over on port, so could they make an effort to throw in some calls during the warmup (and throughout practice, if necessary) to direct everyone’s attention to maintaining level hands, not washing out, catching together, etc.

Related: Setting the boat

If they don’t know what to look for, tell them to check out the posts from the “setting the boat” tag (linked above), as well as the other posts linked in here. If they still won’t say anything, talk to your coach and tell them that the set has been a continual problem over the last few practices and it needs to be addressed but the coxswain is having problems doing that (for whatever reason). If there’s a more experienced coxswain on the team, maybe also ask them if they’d mind talking to the coxswain about how to handle issues like this. The rowers are the ones that obviously have to make the change but like I said earlier, it’s the coxswain’s responsibility to be pointing this stuff out and calling for those changes.

As annoying as it is that the boat is continually down to your side, you have to stop trying to fix it yourself because pretty soon (if it hasn’t already) it’s going to start coming off as you being really passive aggressive and assuming that you’re the only one in the boat not contributing to the problem. One of my friends had the same issue with one of her crews and one of the rowers tried to do what you’re doing except she jerked her handle up on the one stroke where the boat was semi-set, which abruptly threw it over to the other side. This resulted in one of the other rowers smashing her pinky on the gunnel so hard that it actually broke the skin and bone. Lots of blood, lots of screaming, and lots of name calling followed. (If you’ve ever had your finger(s) smashed between the handle and the gunnel, you know how bad it hurts.)

That day the team had a niiice looong discussion on land about how to set the boat, why the boat needs to be set if you want to be able to take good strokes, how everyone needs to make an adjustment when the coxswain says “starboards lift the hands, ports bring ’em down (or vice versa)”, and how the passive-aggressive jerking of the handle needed to stop. Hopefully you haven’t reached that point yet but I’d tread lightly going forward.

Related: As a novice coxswain I still really struggle with the technical aspect of practices. This summer I joined a boat club and spent two weeks out on the water learning to row, hoping that the first-hand experience would help me understand how to fix some common problems. Now that I’m coxing again, I still get really confused when something is wrong with the set. I don’t know what other advice to give other than handle height suggestions and counting for catch-timing, especially when it doesn’t seem to be up or down to one side consistently (like rocking back and forth with every stroke). I was wondering what advice you would give to your rowers in a situation like this, and how you can recognize and remedy some common technical problems.

Your best option for getting the issue resolved is to just stay on the coxswain about making calls for focusing on the handle heights and having your coach talk to the crew about whatever technique issues he thinks are the problem. All you need to do is focus on rowing well and maintaining a pace that everyone can follow. Eventually they’re all gonna have to realize that if you can’t get your blade out of the water because the boat is always down to your side, the pace is always going to be inconsistent and/or they’re not gonna have anyone to follow.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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Hi. So I am one of 4 coxswains on my team. We primarily have 3 boats: 1 V8+, 1 N8+ and 1 V4+. I have the second most experience coxing of the four of us, yet my coach is putting me with novices. Over the last few weeks I have only been coxing the V8+ and V4+. Our first race is on Sunday, and I have only been in the Novice boat one time since we got back on the water. The coxswain who has the least experience is practicing with varsity this week, but I feel like I should be there since I’ve been working with them the most, and we seem to have found a good rhythm. I want to talk to my coach about it, but I don’t want to sound like I think I’m entitled just because I’m older than the other coxswain. Thanks!

I’ve been in that exact same position before, as the novice coxswain and the experienced one. When I was a novice my coaches put the new coxswains with the 1V, 2V, and JV8s and the varsity coxswains with the N8+, F8+, and whatever fours we had. The purpose for doing that was to give the novice coxswains an opportunity to learn how to steer, practice the basic commands, etc. with people who already knew what they were doing. (Novice coxswains + novice rowers = the deaf and blind leading the deaf and blind, leading to verrrrry frustrated coaches). Learning to steer is infinitely easier if you can practice with people who can already row reasonably well and know how to maintain the set.

Practicing the basic calls is easy too because if you make a mistake the coach doesn’t have to worry about everything going to hell as a result. In most cases, the stroke can talk the coxswain through the warm ups or drills and answer any questions they have, which is also really helpful. It also gives the coach peace of mind that if they somehow get in a bad situation (on the wrong side of the river, stuck in some branches on shore, coming into the dock wrong, etc.), the rowers can talk themselves out of it while the coxswain absorbs what is happening so they know in the future what they should do instead (alternatively, the stroke can tell the coxswain what needs to happen and the coxswain can repeat those calls to the crew, thus learning what they need to say and who they need to say it to).

As the varsity coxswain in the novice boat, this is really for the coach more than anything else because it gives them the chance to work directly with the rowers without having to worry about the coxswain not knowing what to do and/or steering them off a cliff. They can also have you go through the drills with the rowers without having to explain every detail of how it’s done first, which allows them to concentrate their focus on developing the rowers’ technique. Having really good communication skills and lots of patience are also qualities that would entice the coach to put you with the novices. My patience was never that high but I made up for it with my ability to explain what we were doing, how it was done, etc. in a way that new rowers could understand.

Since it seems like a couple of the coxswains are switched around and not just you, I would maybe wait until after this weekend to say something if your coach maintains these lineups through the end of the week. My assumption would be that he wants both the novice eight and the novice coxswain to get a race under their belts without being hindered by one another, meaning the novice eight can focus on rowing their race while being coxed by someone who knows what they’re doing and the novice coxswain can practice steering a straight course with a crew that has good enough technique to not get in the way of that. That way when they eventually get in the same boat, both will know roughly what to do thanks to having the opportunity to first work with people who actually do know what to do. This will also give you the opportunity to work on your communication skills and introducing the novice crew to what racing is really like, in addition to explaining some of the things that you learned as a novice that the coach might not be able to explain.

After this weekend if your coach doesn’t switch you back to your normal boats, then you can approach him and ask if the lineups you’re in now are permanent or if they’re just temporary. I feel like that’s a pretty normal thing to want to know so I don’t think posing that question makes you appear entitled at all. As long as you don’t come off all “WTF this is BS, I’ve been here longer, I deserve the top boat” and get all whiny about it, you should be fine. I asked my coaches the same question two years in a row and they answered it pretty casually both times.