Category: Video of the Week

Video of the Week

Video of the Week: The Philosophy of Rowing

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Here’s a quote from this talk that I really liked:

“In rowing, the transcendent moment is called “swing” and those of us who have rowed for lifetimes have maybe experienced swing three or four times. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does it really is a different dimension. It’s where all eight bodies in the boat are absolutely in sync and every stroke is as perfect as it can be and then all of a sudden the race is over and you don’t remember anything about the race except that you ended up two boat lengths ahead. It’s an extraordinary kind of experience, really quite an oxymoron, it’s a physical out of body experience or a mental out of body experience. It’s part of that transcendence.”

Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Jerry Seinfeld on “the silver medal”

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I was going through my YouTube likes the other day and came across this standup bit of Jerry Seinfeld’s where he talks about winning – “winning” – the silver medal. It might not be the best idea to post this right after the season has ended but it’s hilarious and the laughing that I guarantee you’ll do will definitely make you feel better about being “first out of all the losers”.

High School Video of the Week

Video of the Week: The Tiger Navy at SRAAs

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Everywhere I’ve coached I’ve bragged about Marietta – I’ve compared every team to them because they set the bar so damn high in terms of expectations, sportsmanship, pride, coaching, etc.  and now not only do other teams have to continue to try to live up to that, any crew I coach from here on out has to live up to this lightweight 8+. What makes me prouder than anything else is that I can finally stop bragging about the boats I coxed at Marietta and start bragging about the one I helped coach. I mean, I’ll still talk up my boats when I can but it’s more exciting now to brag about the things these guys have accomplished. I don’t really know why. My coach and I were talking about this on the bus ride home and when I said that he just smiled so I assume he knows what I mean and/or felt the same way at some point when he started coaching.

So, what’s the takeaway from this season? There are too many to count but the biggest one is that coaching girls is hard. Like, way harder and way more frustrating than coaching boys but it is a ton of fun in ways that coaching guys never could be. I definitely have a new appreciation for it. The payoff is that eventually everybody figures each other out and solid relationships are built, you’re given the nickname “Mom” that you without fail start responding to (even when it’s being yelled in the middle of a crowded regatta), and, if you play your cards right, you end up with a text that says there’s a massive slice of Reese’s PB cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory with your name on it in the hotel room across the hall that you get to eat while listening to a group of girls tell you about their way-too-complicated love lives. I’ll be honest though, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

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Racing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Why Losing Matters

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“My favorite part about losing is that it gives us a focus on our passion.”

We’re coming into the toughest part of the season so I really recommend that you take a few minutes (seven, to be precise) and watch this video. It’s from Natalie Dell’s Ted Talk at Penn State a couple months ago. Losing, as much as it sucks, is an important part of competing and it’s also an important part of winning. It’s something you have to (and inevitably will) experience in order to appreciate the races where your bow is the first to cross the line.

There’s something to learn and takeaway from every loss so don’t waste that opportunity by solely focusing on the fact that you didn’t win. It might take a few days, weeks, or months before you can sit down and analyze what happened (and that’s OK) but in order to improve as an athlete, it’s something you’ve gotta do. And like she says in the video, you can win a race without coming in first. If it’s the first time your team has medaled in that event, a PR for your crew, etc., that’s a win. Some wins come with tangible rewards but the majority are mental, emotional, and psychological – sure, the tangible ones are easier to display but most of the time it’s the rewards you can’t see that keep you coming back for more.

Coxing Video of the Week

Video of the Week: Lessons on leadership from Canadian national team coxswain, Brian Price

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Being a leader is one of the essential parts of being a coxswain. It’s important, especially if you’re just starting out, to learn, know, and understand that being a leader is so much more than just being able to yell louder than everyone else and tell them what to do. One of the biggest takeaways that coxswains should get from this is what he says about “earning respect”.

Related: Respect

For the older coxswains (particularly upperclassmen who may be coxing underclassmen) or anyone who is just getting into coaching (especially people like me in your mid-20s), one of the things you should think about is how your leadership style has evolved as you’ve gotten older and how it’s changed as you’ve started working with rowers and coxswains who are younger than you.