Hi! I have a couple of questions. I recently switched schools and I’ve noticed that my new team doesn’t check pitch and spread. Is this weird? And if I were to say something like “and send!” would I call that at the catch?
Are you in high school or college? If you’re in high school I wouldn’t think it’s too weird. I don’t think I ever saw my coaches do anything with the rigging (although it’s possible they messed with it when we weren’t around). I know some high schools that pay way to much attention to that kind of stuff for the level their kids are rowing at and others who don’t pay any attention to it. It couldn’t hurt to ask your coach just out of curiosity. If you’re in college and they don’t check it, that’s probably a little more rare since you’re starting to row at a level where those minor changes can actually have a big impact on your stroke.
With “and send” you would say “and” at the catch and then “send” at the finish since that’s when the boat actually sends. Instead of saying “and” though, make a call for the catch. “And” doesn’t really do anything, even though I get why you do it. If you say something like “jump”, “press”, or whatever other words you can think of, that has the ability to initiate a stronger response from the rowers which in turn will make the drive more powerful and the run a little longer. You want to say as few words as you need to in order to get your point across but the key to doing that is making sure every word means something. If you can eliminate the useless words and replace them with something more likely to elicit a response, you’ll be a more effective coxswain.
