Tag: calls

Coxswain recordings, pt. 6

By readyallrow March 8, 2013

Purdue university men’s Lightweight 8+ 2012 Milwaukee River Challenge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=KbhgdqCq12M

There’s a lot going on here with the rowing that is pretty … bad … so I’m going to skip over talking about a lot of that and focus on just the coxing. This is also a long recording so I’m cherrypicking what I think is the most important parts rather than pointing out every single thing. Ultimately I think this audio was solidly average. There were a lot of missed opportunities but the stroke seemed happy with it so take what I say with a grain of salt. If your rowers like what you’re doing by all means, keep it up, but at the same time, recognize where improvements can/should be made too.

While they’re sitting there waiting to start, see how 7-seat is moving his oar back and forth a lot? This would have driven me nuts because it messes up your point, not to mention is really irritating (especially up in the stern) since it jerks the boat a little. That’s probably part of the reason why he has to tell 2-seat to tap it a couple times.

At 3:11 he says “we’re in the cute”, which is a good thing to let your crew know, especially in bigger head races like HOCR where the entire starting area is a humongous clusterfuck.

At 4:45, notice how he calls the 10 really sharp and concise (albeit a little forced) but returns to his normal voice in between counts? That’s a good way to maintain the intensity and keep the crew relaxed.

Between 4:56 and 5:07 is a good example of how to communicate with your stroke during a piece or race. They’re not having a conversation or anything, rather the stroke says what he’s feeling in one quick breath and the coxswain translates it to the rest of the crew. In that same vein though, as the race went on this started to annoy me because even though stroke-coxswain communication is important, I wanted this coxswain to be saying all the stuff the stroke was saying before the stroke said it. Everything he said, with the exception of a couple things at the beginning, the coxswain should have already seen and made a call for. The coxswain should not be coxed by the stroke, if that makes more sense.

When he says “we gotta pull something out” … *long pause* … “alright, we’re going for it” at 11:36, I was pretty convinced that he didn’t actually have a plan or know what he needed to do in the upcoming stretch. You can’t say in a semi-aggressive tone that they’ve gotta make a move and then stop talking. You also can’t say “alright we’re going for it” like you’re debating whether or not you should actually go for it. If now is when you need to make a move, get on their asses and tell them you’re taking a fucking move. When you’ve got contact on a crew like this and you’re trying to walk through them, this is where you take a 20 to get even or put your bow ball in front. A 10 might get you to them but it’s not going to get you through them, which is what you want. If you stop your ten and you’re only half a length through them, that’s going to give their coxswain an opportunity to counter whereas if you take a 20 and can get up to their 2-seat, you’ve essentially absorbed them and it will be harder to counter.

A pro-tip for going around turns like the one at 12:43 is to tell one side to power down to 1/2 or 3/4 pressure and the other to power up. It seems counterintuitive but it’s actually a lot more effective than having one side still at 100% and trying to get the other side to out-pull them. In most cases you should be able to get around in 5-6 strokes. This is something you should practice when possible though so the crew gets used to “powering down” for a few strokes and develops that muscle memory for what it feels like (because 1/2 pressure when you’re consciously thinking about it is a lot different than 1/2 pressure in the middle of a race when you’ve got a shitload of adrenaline pumping through you).

When he says “you’re missing a ton of water” at 15:06, my immediate reaction was “…no shit/OK? How do you want them to fix it??”. You should never assume they know what to do or that something is obvious, especially since it’s your job to tell them what to do and more importantly, when. They’re missing water, you want them to not miss water, but what about their technique needs to change? Just saying “get it in” isn’t going to do much, especially if you’ve already been saying that for 10+ minutes.

Last thing – unless you’re like, 5 strokes from the line, you’re not “almost there” … and even if you are, “almost there” is not a call you should make EVER.

Other calls I liked:

“Together, we move…”

“The boat felt alive…” He said this after the race but this is a great (motivational) call to make during the race when the boat’s running well and you’ve got a good rhythm going.

OARS Lightweight 8+ 2013 Youth Nationals Petite Final

Right off the bat I love that he reminds them to “look at the flag”. This is important and definitely something I recommend coxswains do. Remember, you go on the drop of the flag, not when the announcer says GO. If the flag comes down before he says GO, you go anyways. You can’t see that so it’s important that everyone else in the boat is watching for it.

About a minute in he says ““we’re ahead of everyone” … cool but by how much? If you’re going to tell your boat you’re ahead or behind, always tell them by how many seats. If you only say you’re up or down, inevitably someone is going to look out of the boat because they want to know by how much. Usually I’ll say something like “up on the field, three seats over Lane 3, two seats over Lane 5” and tell them where we are compared to the lanes on either side of us. When everyone is still clustered together it tends to be too difficult to say specifically where you are on five other lanes so a semi-specific overview is generally sufficient.

At 6:15 he says “come on, don’t let them take it…”, which can be a good or bad call depending on your tone. You’re in the midst of a very high-energy situation and you obviously don’t want to give anything up but you also don’t want to make it sound like you’re begging because that just comes off like there’s no hope. Instead of “come on” say “show me what ya got”, “right here, lemme see it”, “stomp on the feet, lemme feel it”, etc. Instead of “don’t let them take it” say “don’t give an inch”, “don’t yield to them”, “show ’em you’re not backing down”, etc. All of this requires a bit of “planning” ahead of time but if modifying how you say something results in a more positive psychological response by your rowers, it’s worth it.

SoCo Crew 2013 Youth Nationals men’s v8+ Heat

The very first thing I noticed – not even joking, the very first thing – is where the starboard buoys are at 0:27 (a foot or two off the blade) and where they’re at at 0:43 (nearly under the rigger). Come on guys. Gotta steer straight. It’s literally your primary/only job.

When you’re counting out strokes try not to just count out the strokes and say nothing in between. I’m definitely guilty of this sometimes, usually when I’m trying to concentrate on something else that’s going on (either where we are, something with the blades, etc.), but it’s something I’m always conscious of and working on. When you’re just counting strokes, especially during a 20, it’s so monotonous. Case in point, the beginning of this race was 50 seconds of straight counting. Go sit in front of someone and count continuously for 50 seconds and see how long it takes for them to get up and walk away. Personally I’m also really anti-counting up and then counting down when calling 20s. If you’re going to count up (1, 2, 3…) on the first ten, do the same with the second ten. Don’t start counting down (10, 9, 8…) because it makes it seem like you’ve hit a peak and you can start coming down now when in actuality you’re still building into the piece. Psychology, guys. Psychology.

At 1:23 he says “we need to get under 1:40 the whole time to win this…”, which might have been something they discussed beforehand but regardless, there are definitely better ways to make this call. Knowing your splits during a race can be both a blessing and a curse and as the coxswain it’s your responsibility to know how to work that information to your advantage. You should go in with a plan – are you going to negative split the whole time or try to hold a steady average? If you go into the race wanting be under a 1:40 you’ve got to communicate and remind your crew of that in an encouraging way. “We committed ourselves to holding a 1:38, let’s see that commitment right now. Sitting at a 1:40, let’s go, big press now … drive it, find that rhythm, 1:39, press swing … 1:38. Connect, press, sssend. YES! Let’s maintain this until we make our move at the 1000m. Commit, sssend. Commit, sssend.”

“I want it bad so we gotta have it…” is a bullshit call and not something you should ever say to your crew. Stop with the separation between you and the rest of the boat. Same goes for the “this is unacceptable” call at 3:17. Yea, maybe it is, but this still is not something you say to your crew in the middle of a race.

The counting between 6:06 and 6:46, randomly calling power 10s in the middle of another power 10 … dude, no.

The biggest thing I noticed in this piece was that the coxswain sounded so irritated the whole time, like he was just pissed to be there. Yea, you’ve gotta stay on them and pay attention to what’s happening around you but saying stuff like “this is unacceptable” or “I want it bad” during a prelim would make me seriously reconsider wanting you in the boat for semis and finals. I went and looked up the heats results from Youth Nats this year and in this race it was first place to semis, next two to the reps. Does going to the reps mean you’ve gotta row another race, yea, but sometimes you’ve gotta cut your losses and know that that’s the inevitable result instead of pushing your crew to beat a team that you’re (most likely) not going to catch. Anyways, I feel like this coxswain has a lot of potential that he’s just not taking advantage of. His voice is great and his intensity (when he’s channeling it properly) is solid but the calls and overall race strategy need work.

You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.

Coxing Q&A Rowing Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 1, 2013

You’ve posted before on calling rowers out in practice for what they’re doing wrong (e.g. “Three, you’re late”). Does the same count for technique? For example, my bow seat always opens with his back. Is it appropriate for me, when talking technique, to say something like, “Keep your knees over your ankles so you don’t over-compress and open with your back – that means you, bow seat,” even if I can’t see it actually happening, or does that sound antagonistic?

Yea, correcting technical issues is 98% of the reason why you call a rower out. Unless I’m just joking around with my boat I’d never actually say “that means you” though unless I’ve been calling for this change for awhile and the rower isn’t responding … and even then, I’d probably try to phrase it a different way. If I’m calling out someone in my boat with regards to technique, 95% of the time it’s because I’m seeing them do something that directly warrants the call so I’ll say “Sam, keep the shins vertical at the catch…”.

If you’re just making general calls because you don’t want to call someone out directly, it’s not hard to see how they’d be annoyed if you follow it up with “that means you” when you could have just not wasted time in the first place by telling them directly that they need to make a change. Like I said though, I’d probably phrase it differently and say something like “Come on Sam, that’s you…”.

Coxing Q&A Rowing Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 1, 2013

During races my coxswain always tells us we’re on, say, 5 seat when in reality we’re even or sometimes even behind. Other than that she’s a good coxswain but we can obviously tell that she is giving us the wrong information. We have politely asked her to be honest but she just keeps saying that she does it to keep our morale up. We’d all so much rather know where we actually are! How do we handle this? Thanks!

Ugh coxswains, stop doing this!! There it is in writing – rowers want the truth, not what you think they want to hear.

This goes past the point of just not listening to what her crew wants. For me, it’s now an issue of respect. Yea, you’re the one calling the shots but you’ve got to respect the rowers enough to listen to them when they ask you to do something differently because whatever you’re doing isn’t working. I’m glad you guys have asked her politely but now might be the time to ask her a little more firmly. Sometimes it’s necessary to be a little harsh to get your point across. Just tell her straight out that her coxing is great but she’s not helping you and it’s not boosting morale when she tells you things that you can blatantly see aren’t true. Tell her why it doesn’t help you and the reasons you have for wanting to know where you are, regardless of whether your position is good or bad.

If talking to her (again) doesn’t do anything, talk to your coach. You’ve given her several opportunities now to make a change and she hasn’t respected your requests. Hopefully your coach can understand where you’re coming from and talk to her. Maybe hearing it from a more authoritative figure will spark something.

Coxing Q&A Racing Rowing Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

By readyallrow March 1, 2013

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 a tough situation. I’ve been in this spot before and it took a lot of trial and error to figure out what works and what doesn’t. It’s definitely always easier coxing when you’re ahead of or at least close to the boats you’re rowing with, but when you’re behind it’s an entirely new ball game. Your personality plays a huge part in situations like this too – my boats, regardless of their experience, knew that I was always going to be very matter of fact and brutally honest with what I said.

I could easily tell when we were behind because we were being out-muscled and when we were behind because our rowing was atrocious. If we were behind because we were being out-muscled and I knew there wasn’t a chance for us to catch up, I’d start focusing on technique. If we can’t beat them, we can at least row better than them, right? While they should still be rowing hard, there is no point in constantly telling them they’re behind, they need to row harder to catch up, etc. because it’s demoralizing and the rowers don’t get anything out of it. If your coaches get pissed off and say you should have been pushing them harder, honestly, I’d just shrug and move on. I got so frustrated when one of my coaches said this to me once that I just threw my hands up in the air and was like, short of pulling the oar myself, what do you want me to do? There’s only so much the coxswain can do, and all three parties – you, the rowers, and the coach(es) – have to accept that.

If this is the situation you’re in, try to take the competition out of it (regardless of what the rowers want) and focus on the things you can control, like how well they’re rowing. It doesn’t have to be “OK well, we’re like three lengths behind so let’s work on catches now!” but if you notice you’ve fallen to the back of the pack, just casually stop talking about the other boat and start calling for crisper catches, quick hands away, strong cores, jumping on the first inch, controlled recoveries, clean finishes, level hands into the catch, etc. Every minute or two, throw in a burst and get really into it. Call it like you’re calling a dead heat at a race.

If the crew we were out with was one that we should be beating or staying with, all gloves are off, no apologies. I am not going to be nice and you can bet I’m going to kick your ass up and down the course until you row like I know you can. I don’t care if we get ahead of the other crew so much as I care about the rowing getting better. I still push for us to get ahead though, obviously. When this happens, I call the rowers out one by one. I make it a point to find out what makes them tick, what pisses them off, what motivates them, what are their goals, what do they want, etc. so that in times like these I can use it to our advantage. I’ll also use what I know about the other crew to push mine – “Amanda’s split was 8 seconds higher than yours Danielle. You know you’re stronger than her so start acting like it. Yea, there it is! Now, let’s get after that 5 seat…” When they do something you want, even if it’s the most minuscule, seemingly unimportant thing, you have to get pumped. Not to the point where it’s obvious you’re faking it, but get excited. Your excitement motivates the rowers and makes them want to work.

The other boat is irrelevant anyways. You’re not going to improve unless you focus on what you are doing and how you are rowing. I’d remind your rowers of that since it sounds like they might be more concerned with beating the 1V instead of becoming better athletes. Yes, the competition is good, but only when it encourages you to get better. When all you care about is beating someone, everything else falls to the wayside. Also, keep in mind that if they were beating the 1V every time they went out they probably would be the 1V … but they’re not, they’re the 2V which means their expectations need to be realistic given the lineups and whatever else.

Whatever you do, don’t get quiet. Regardless of the situation you’re in, you can’t give up. If the rowers have given up it’s your responsibility to get them back into it. If that’s something you’re struggling with then I’d talk with them and spend some time sorting out your priorities. Set goals for your steady state so that they aren’t only focusing on beating someone because that is rarely the goal for workouts like that.

Coxing Q&A Racing Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 28, 2013

I want to try to get this straight [no pun intended]: When boats are racing, if our bow ball is on the other boat’s stern deck, you call that or say like “riding their stern?” and when it’s cox to cox it’s “lined up?” And if the cox is next to the other boat’s 6 seat or is it when our bow ball takes their 6 seat? Thanks!

The specific wording might differ from coxswain to coxswain, but yes, you’re basically right. When our bow ball is on the other boat’s stern, I’ll say “sitting on their stern deck”. If the coxswains are lined up I’ll say “sitting on their coxswain” or “it’s coxswain to coxswain”. Most of the things I say with regards to this is something along the lines of “[rower’s name] is sitting on [seat #, bow/stern, etc.].” If we are walking on a boat and are behind them, I’ll use the bow ball to say where we are until I get even with the coxswain, then I’ll start using myself to say where we’re at.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 25, 2013

I just read your post about intimidating your opponents, which is perhaps one of the greatest things I’ve seen, but I wanted to ask what are some of your favorite/most effective calls?

If we’re under a bridge or something, I love to say “attack now” because I think the echoing of my voice just heightens the intensity of the call. I borrowed “Do not sit, do not quit” from Pete Cipollone and use it during pieces or races to remind my boat that we can’t take a single stroke off. I also like quick, monosyllabic calls like “pop”, “BOOM”, “sharp”, etc. basically because I can say so much without actually having to say anything. I also like directly calling out people in my boat so doing bursts for or with each pair is a good way to do that.

I think the effectiveness of your calls lies not within the call itself though but in how you say it. It’s like when your parents tell you to do something in their normal voice and it’s like “yea ok, gonna get right on that” and then there’s the times when they tell you to do it and you can actually sense Satan in their voice. That’s one of the reasons why I try and constantly reiterate that it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that makes the difference. If there’s no passion or intensity behind your voice, how and why would you expect the rowers to respond with intensity in their rowing? In the posts I’ve done on coxswain recordings I’ve tried to point out good and bad examples of this so check those out if you need some inspiration on what an effective tone sounds like.

Related: Coxswain recordings

The way to really make a call do something for your crew is to match your tone of voice to what you want to get out of the rowers. If you want the rowers to relax, your voice has to be relaxed. If you want them walking on a crew, the intensity of your voice should be increasing with each stroke that you get closer to or walk away from them. Your tone of voice is by far the biggest asset to your crew and how effective you are at utilizing it is what in turn makes your calls effective.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 24, 2013

What are some calls you make during a 2k when you know the other crews can hear you to get in their head and psych them out?

I usually tend to ad lib as we go along and just go with what I see but usually I’ll pick out something I notice about their rowing and try to capitalize on that. Sometimes I’ll say something about the entire boat (their rowing is sloppy, they’re looking at us, they went out too hard, etc.) or my personal favorite, I’ll pick out a specific rower in the other boat and then talk to the rower in that same seat in my boat. I’ll tell them something I notice about that rower and then tell the rower in my boat to get us up to or past that seat.

If we’re locked in with them in a dead heat, I simply tell my crew that this is where we’re gonna break them, right here, this stroke. I make sure I say it loud enough that the other boat hears me and I always make it a point to look directly at their coxswain when I say it. That’s the only time I’ll let on to another crew that I’m about to take a burst, just to tease them and let them think they can counter it. (It’s never worked because we’re calm whereas they’re frantic.) Sometimes I expect us to be able to get past certain crews pretty easily and we don’t, so I’ll end up saying something like “We’re gonna walk and we’re gonna walk NOW!!”.

One time I was so bored at the starting line so I just picked one of the coxswains beside me and stared at her the entire time we were staging and while the official was doing the countdown start. She kept giving me the weirdest looks but I know I got in her head because as soon as the official said “GO” I snapped forward like everything was normal and she was still at the start, completely confused. They were about three seats behind us from the very beginning because of it. I definitely thought she was going to protest it but she didn’t. One of the officials who was on the starting platform behind us came over to us after we crossed the line and said that was one of the most intense and crazy tactics he’s ever seen a coxswain use to psych out their opponents and congratulations, because clearly it worked.

Coxing How To Q&A

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 24, 2013

The other day I was stuck in the center lane. Let’s just say it didn’t go so well. How do you concentrate on boats on either side of you/your point, your rowers, making calls and stroke rate? Ack, overwhelmed!

This is why I always wanted to be in the center lane – it forced me to focus on everything and really helped me get better at multi-tasking while coxing. Now I think I can probably do eighteen things at once and not even blink. It is overwhelming though, especially if you’re a novice and still trying to learn how to steer and talk at the same time. My biggest thing with being in the center wasn’t so much what I was doing, because obviously I knew what I was doing (as in, what adjustments I was making), but what the other coxswains were doing. I knew that I could steer a decent line and keep away from the other boats, but what about them? Can they do that? Or am I going to have to constantly be worrying about whether or not they’re going to steer into me?

Trust between coxswains is huge so you’ve got to establish before you get out on the water that each person is going to be aware of the other boats and make it a point to try and maintain a certain distance between all of you at all times. If you notice someone is getting a little too close for comfort, don’t be afraid to call over and say “Hey, watch your starboard blades!” or simply “Move to port!”. With girls this is always such a bigger issue than it needs to be because I think it gets interpreted as the other person being unnecessarily bitchy but it’s not like that. Even if it comes out in what may sound like an angry tone, unless she’s already asked you eighty times to move and you aren’t listening, most of the time it’s not meant in a bad way. If someone asks you to move, just do it. It’s for their safety and yours.

When I get out on the water, I just have this mindset of this is what I have to do and there are no other options. Once I got the hang of steering, I pushed it to the bottom of my list of things to pay attention to and basically went on auto-pilot. The only time I actively think about steering is during steady state when I don’t have to talk as much or when there are a lot of other crews around, in which case I tell the rowers “OK guys, traffic’s a little heavy so I’m just gonna steer for a bit”, that way they know that I’m focusing on something and not just being unreasonably quiet. I’m always aware of what I’m doing but at the same time I’m not, if that makes sense. It’s like driving a car – you know what you’re doing but you’re not always actively thinking about it. You can hold a conversation while singing along to the radio while driving and not think anything of it. That’s how I approach coxing. Every 20-30 strokes or so I’ll pop my head out to the side and see if there’s anything up ahead and then make any necessary adjustments, but other than that I don’t worry about my steering too much.

The #1 thing I focus on is the rowers. Hands down, always, they are (and should be) my priority. I’m constantly moving my eyes back and forth between starboard and port, bow and stern. I’ve gotten to know my rower’s tendencies pretty well so I remind them of things I know they’re working on and then just ad lib the rest. I basically just tell them what I see. It really is that simple. If you see someone’s timing is off, tell them. If you see someone washing out, tell them. If you see someone rowing it in, tell them. None of that requires any extra brainpower on your end so it takes minimal, if not zero, effort for you to make that call.

As you get more experienced you’ll be able to talk without stopping while doing everything else you do and not think anything of it. I actually surprised myself a lot this past fall when I’d record myself and then find later when I listed to it that I talked for 25, 30, 40 minutes straight with a decent amount of intensity during race pieces or hard steady state. At least 85% of what I said wasn’t anything complicated either – it was all what I saw, pointing out locations, etc.

With stroke rate, I don’t pay attention to it unless we’re doing a drill or steady state that requires us to be at a specific rate. If we’re doing that then I’ll glance down every few strokes to make sure we’re on pace but I usually won’t say anything unless it’s starting to fall off, in which case I’ll say something like “We’re down at a 26, let’s bump it back up to a 28 on this one…”. Usually when we do have a specific rate we need to be at I won’t say anything unless we go +/- one beat, just because being that hyper-focused on the rate can lead to rush in the boat as they try to make up that half a beat. Ultimately though, all you’re doing is shifting your eyes down and back up over the course of like, a millisecond, and then reporting what your cox box says so again, it doesn’t take much effort to do this alongside everything else.

What makes your job easier is having a stroke who makes it a priority to stay consistent. I had a stroke in high school once who I went off on during practice because she, for the life of her, could/would not hold a steady pace. The crew obviously has a part to play in this, the stroke can’t do it entirely on their own, but it starts with them. The rest of the rowers were already super frustrated because they were trying to follow and couldn’t because the rate was so inconsistent and I got pissed because I was trying to watch so many different things and our coach kept yelling at us that he knew we weren’t at the stroke rate he wanted because he had his SpeedCoach out and why wasn’t I telling her to be at a 24, blah blah blah. The next time we stopped I said something along the lines of “This is your responsibility to hit a certain rate. Either make the effort or switch with 6-seat because I’m getting sick of telling you to get the rate where it needs to be and you not making the effort to change anything.”

If your stroke is having issues with holding a consistent rate, find out why. Is the rest of the boat rushing her or can she just not maintain the pace? Once you determine the cause, help her figure out a solution. If it’s the boat rushing, make calls that address moving out of bow together (the hands coming away, bodies swinging forward, etc.) and starting the wheels together. If your stroke is having problems on her own, one thing I do is when we’re doing steady state or something, I’ll take my mic off and tell her the stroke rate every … single … stroke for at least 10 strokes or so, that way she’ll know what range she’s in and can try and tighten it up to whatever rate we actually need to be at. One of my coaches had me do this a few times and it took a lot of time and was super annoying for both of us but it actually did help a lot.

So, circling back to your original question (sorry for going off on tangents), you have to tell yourself “these are my responsibilities, this is what I have to do, and I’m going to do go do it.” You’ve got to commit 100% to multi-tasking, which sounds almost like an oxymoron, but you have to commit 100% to each thing and then do each thing at 100%. It takes a lot of practice, focus, commitment, and patience on your end but once you get the hang of it you’ll wonder why doing all this was ever an issue in the first place. If I’ve had a bad practice because something went wrong or I just got overwhelmed by everything, when we go out the next day, I just take a deep breath and think “Get your shit together. Do not get overwhelmed. You know what you’re doing, you’re in control.” Usually I say that to myself in my head but there have been a few times where I’ll say, in a mildly frustrated voice, “Get your shit together!” out loud, which usually elicits a laugh from my boat.

One piece of advice I can give you though is to never let an overwhelming situation affect your mindset after you’re off the water. If something during practice overwhelmed you, instead of dwelling on it figure out what the situation was, what caused the stress, why it caused you stress, and how you can fix it so that doesn’t happen the next day.

Coxing How To Novice Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 21, 2013

One of the varsity rowers told me about a certain race move/call-10 for pairs? Like having all 8 take a 10, but emphasis for specific pairs. I’m not sure how to call that, can you help me out? I was thinking maybe ” Alright, we’re all 8 we’re going to take a 10 by pairs.. in two… in ONE.. on THIS one, stern pair let’s see what you got! That’s one… two… 5 and 6 right here 3… 4..” and so on..” I don’t know if that’s how you call it…

Yup, I know exactly what you’re talking about. I use this frequently with my boats, usually in the second thousand of a sprint race or during the final 30ish strokes of a head race. I like to do 5 “hard” strokes per pair + an all eight power 10 so that I’m not making the crew do a straight power 40 or something. I usually say something like: “OK, coming into the last 30 strokes, let’s feel it – stern pair 5 … give it to me, on this one… (5, 4, 3, 2, 1) … 5 + 6, now, (repeat down to bow pair) … and all eight, 10 to bring it home, on this one…”.

I like to use each pair’s five strokes as “focus” strokes to get them to maximize the stuff they’ve been working on … like, they’re obviously still power strokes but I’ll usually say something like “grab those catches, bow pair”, “5 + 6, let’s see that jump!”, “squeeze the finishes 3 + 4!”, “Stern pair, work that rhythm now...”, etc. At the end when I call the final ten I’ll say something about driving across the line just to remind them how close we are to the finish and to give that last little bit of “oomph” to get us over.

Coxing Q&A Technique

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 16, 2013

How do you call a ratio shift to control and stop the rush without lowering the SR? Is it even possible?

Well, with ratio shifts you’re not actually doing anything to the stroke rate even though it feels like the stroke rate is going down. All a ratio shift does (or is supposed to do) is shift the ratio from being something like 1:2 (recovery : drive) back to 2:1. What you have to communicate to the crew and help them understand, particularly if you’re coxing a younger crew, is that all you’re doing on a ratio shift is slowing down the recovery and powering through more on the drive.

If the boat feels rushed, what does that mean? It means that less time is being spent on the recovery than the drive and there’s no slide control, so you and the stroke need to communicate and determine if a ratio shift is necessary. If it is and it’s not something your crew has done before or they’re not used to doing them, explain that the amount of time that they’re spending on the recovery is too short so they need to lengthen out and slow the slides down with the stroke while keeping the drive solid and quick through the water. To help them understand, give them the numbers – standard ratio is either 2:1 or 3:1. If you’re rushing, the numbers will be reversed. Call for the shift “in two, that’s one … and two, on this one.” Remind them to swing out of bow together, start the wheels together, roll into the catch at the same controlled speed, and maintain a powerful push on the drive.

When I call for a shift, I use my voice to help them sense the ratio. Right after a shift to ensure the power doesn’t drop, I always tell them to make that first stroke the most powerful stroke we take so that’s usually when I’ll throw in a “BOOM” call at the catch. The “boom” reminds them not only to have a strong catch but to make the drive powerful. If the drive is powerful, the blade has to move fast through the water. In order for the boat to benefit from that powerful stroke the recovery has to be controlled, regardless of the stroke rate.

If we’re drilling or doing steady state and it feels rushed, I’ll call the shift and say “Let’s take a ratio shift in two, that’s one … and two now, catch looong.” The “catch” part stays aggressive and direct but the “long” call is drawn out to the help guide them through the recovery – basically I want them to match the length of the recoveries to the length of time that I’m holding out the call. I’ll also use my voice to enunciate what I want if I’m coxing novices and counting out the timing. “One – two – three – catch, push. Controlllll – two – three – catch. Move together and send. Let’s keep this run – hook through, smoooth now on the slides.” Recovery calls are drawn out, catch calls are short and staccato, and drive calls are aggressive.

The experience of your crew will also play a factor into how little the stroke rate changes when you call for a shift. The majority of the crews I’ve coxed in the last several years have been experienced enough that when I call a ratio shift, regardless of whether we’re at an 18 or a 30, the stroke rate hardly ever changes. It’s something that comes with concentration, experience, and practice.