Tag: calls

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 15, 2013

What do you mean by “calling things with a purpose?” I took it to mean call things you know will be effective to the speed of the boat. Is that what you meant? I’m still confused about what to say during race calls.

Basically what I mean is that everything you say to your crew should be said with the goal of achieving some kind of result in return. You shouldn’t be talking just to talk because you assume that’s what a coxswain’s job is. You want to make calls that are going to get something out of your crew.

Think about when you’re writing a paper. There’s two ways to write it. The first is when you know nothing about the topic or it’s something that you’re completely uninterested in but you’ve got to find some way to meet that five page minimum. What do you end up doing? Rambling, dragging things out, and sounding like you have no clue what is even coming out of your mouth. The second way is when you understand the topic you’re writing about. Your sentences are clear and concise, your arguments are well thought out, and the delivery is confident and assertive. You sound like you know what you’re talking about. That’s how coxing should be.

Everyone can interpret it how they want but in essence you’re correct in that part of making purposeful calls is to say things that will help the boat move. “10 to walk two seats…” has more meaning that “power 10” because you’re attaching a specific, tangible goal to it. “I want to see us move on that crew” means absolutely nothing if you don’t tell them how you want to see them move. “Set the boat” is another one. Set the boat … how? Why is it unset? Where is it unset? What side is it leaning to? Who needs to do what? The bottom line is this: the more vague you are, the less you’re helping your crew. The more specific you are with what you want, the more of an asset you are to them.

College Coxing Racing Recordings

Coxswain Recordings, pt. 5

By readyallrow February 14, 2013

Rochester Institute of Technology Liberty Leagues 2012

Right off the bat, I love her “get us out ahead” call. Obviously that’s always the goal but making this call right at the start gives the crew an immediate objective.

At 1:20 when she says “they’re probably at our four seat”, you want to tell them where the other crew is but you don’t want to say “probably”, “maybe”, “might be”, etc. That gives the rowers the opportunity to look out and see if the other crew actually is where you think they are. Even if you’re not 100% positive, act like you are. Instead of “probably at our 4 seat” just say “they’re sitting on 4 seat”.

When she says “they’re dying, we got ’em” at 3:51, that would have been a great spot to make a move and really break that other crew.

At 4:24 she says “gotta go right here and now, comin’ up on 500m … gonna be close … you can see it, you can taste it”. That’s a great call to get them pumped for the sprint and let them know it’s going to be a close fight. Immediately after that would have been a great opportunity to take a 10 or 20 to make a move and really hammer the message home (to her crew and the rest of the field).

Other calls I liked:

“They know we’re out for blood…”

“You want that fucking banner? Let’s see you get it now.”

“Punch it, let’s move…”

“Fuck them, let’s GO!” Definitely – definitely – a call I would make. Reminds the crew to focus on themselves and, well, fuck that other boat.

UCLA 15 on, 15 off

This is bordering on a little angry with her tone of voice but overall the intensity is good. The only thing that could have made this better (and maybe justified her almost-angry tone of voice) is if she’d been sharper with the counting instead of drawing out each number. This is a good example though of why it’s important to project your voice rather than yell – it’s easier to stay sharp with the calls when you’re using your core to make yourself loud vs. just yelling from your throat, which doesn’t give you same amount of control.

UCLA W4+ Drills + steady state

Between 1:28 and 1:31 she did a great job of changing her tone to reiterate what she was saying about hooking the blade in. She also does a really good job of connecting the puddles to the crew at 2:12 and using that as a visual cue to get the crew to lengthen out and get the spacing back to three inches of open. Another thing she does well throughout the recording is calling out the rowers for individual corrections.

Other calls I liked:

“Swing and run…” Great call to make during cut the cake.

University of Washington V8+ 2012 IRAs Grand Final

This isn’t actually a recording, it’s a video montage of some of the footage from IRA’s last year overlaid with some of Sam Ojserkis’s audio. I can’t embed it here so you’ll have to watch it over on Vimeo. Since Washington is easily one of the top programs in the country, I thought it was worth sharing. “No one’s going to hold our pace” – that’s confidence. I like the definitive “OVER!” at the end too.

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

College Coxing Racing Rowing Teammates & Coaches

“Baseball bat!”

By readyallrow February 13, 2013

A few weeks ago I went to the What Works Summit coaching conference at CRI and one of the main things I was looking forward to was hearing Kevin Sauer of UVA speak. He was a huge reason why I looked at UVA in the first place when I was applying to schools so to get the chance to hear him talk was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss.

He gave two presentations, one on how to make the boat move and then another as part of a roundtable discussion on championship programs. During the roundtable he told this story that, even now, just kind of blows my mind because it’s so awesome.

So, a bit of background to start. UVA won the 2012 NCAA Championship led by the 1st Varsity 8+, which was the first time they’d accomplished that. They’d won NCAAs previously but never with a V8+ win too. After graduating a good class the previous spring (2011), they were now tasked with putting together a boat that could match or exceed the skill level of the rowers they’d graduated. When they came to Head of the Charles in 2011 and won (in a time of 16:11.519, eight seconds faster than 2nd place Radcliffe), he was pleasantly surprised. They weren’t going against the national team since they were training for the Olympics, but they beat the other college teams, which is obviously who they needed to beat. Then, when they went to Princeton Chase and won there too, he started to realize this boat had something.

Now, looking at the competition, Michigan was solid last year. They killed it all season, basically just blowing the other crews they raced out of the water. They only lost twice on their way to a Big 10 Championship and 2nd place finish at NCAAs. When Coach Sauer was telling us this, he started talking about this race that Michigan had against Princeton.

Michigan got out hard and controlled the entire race, winning with a length of open over Princeton and two lengths of open over Brown. He called a team meeting and played this video for the girls, without saying a word from beginning to end. They silently watched it and at the end someone asked, “So, how are we going to beat them?”, to which he replied “I don’t know.” They started throwing ideas out there on what their race plan and strategy was going to be, how they were going to train for this, etc. Everyone’s contributing ideas and he just kind of blurts out “baseball bat”, to which the girls were all … “what??”. And he said “Baseball bat! We’ve just got to keep hitting them and hitting them and hitting them.” At the time, and still now, he said he had no idea why that was what came out of his mouth because it didn’t make sense to anybody, including him.

Part of their strategy was this move that they make at the 1000m mark but because they knew Michigan’s tendencies, he told his coxswain on race-day that if she needed to take it right at the beginning of the race to avoid letting Michigan get away from them, do it. The goal was to not let them get an inch of open water on them, otherwise it’d be all over. Coach Sauer and another coach were following behind the race in the launch and saw that, like they’d predicted, Michigan got out hard and fast. They started to walk, seat by seat, until they were six or seven seats up and he said he was thinking “come on, make the move, gotta go, don’t let them break away, gotta make it now…” and then all of a sudden they started seeing UVA walk until they were even with them.

The other coach in the launch said “You’ve got it. They (UVA) won.” and he said he was thinking this guy was crazy because they were only 750m into the race. BUT, they had won at that point because by making the move and walking on Michigan, they broke them. Michigan couldn’t and didn’t know how to counter it, presumably because it wasn’t something they’d had to deal with all season (which you can look at as either a good thing or a bad thing). UVA ended up winning and the rest is history.

When they got back to the dock, Coach Sauer went up to the coxswain and said “What did you do, what did you call? What’d you say to them to make that move?” and she said “All I said was ‘baseball bat‘.”

That is like … wow. This random thing that he’d blurted out during a team meeting, something that meant nothing to anyone at the time, is what they all internalized to help them win a national championship.

My point with this story goes back to what I was talking about in the question I answered this morning (linked above) but it also touches on a lot of other things too. The moves you plan aren’t always going to happen when you want them to – sometimes you’ve got to do something spontaneous to reap the maximum benefits. The calls you make are important, which is why I try and stress to you guys to say what you say with a purpose. When you’re talking with the coach or your crew, pay attention to what people say – you never know what is going to resonate with people. Baseball bat?? I mean, come on!! That’s such a basic, meaningless term but it became the rallying cry of sorts for this boat. It is your job to figure out what it takes to get your boat to move, so always keep your ears open – you never know when you’re gonna hear the call that changes everything.

Image via // UVA Today

Coxing Ergs Q&A Racing Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 13, 2013

When do you call power 10s, both on the erg and the water? Would it be like when you see a girl’s split dropping and staying down on a 2k or during a race if you’re close and want to pass another boat? Or could it be any time just for a burst of energy? I don’t really know the strategy, I just know at some point I’ll have to sound like I know what I’m doing and call a few.

On the erg, I don’t call a power 10 unless the rower has asked me to beforehand. A lot of rowers don’t like to be bothered during 2ks so they can get/stay in their zone and randomly popping up behind them to give a power 10 can sometimes do more harm than good. When they’ve asked me to give them one, they usually say to do it whenever it looks like they need one or they’ll say “I want a 10 at 1500m, 20 at 1000, 10 at 750m, 10 at 500m, and 10 at 150m.” If they say to call it whenever I’ll try and do one at each of the major meter marks and/or within the last 100m. In between there if it looks like they’re falling off a little I’ll give them a quick 5 instead of a 10 to get them to refocus.

On the water, I always have a strategy ahead of time that I try and stick to. Nearly every burst I call is called with a purpose – I very rarely call a burst just for power but if I do it’s usually because I’m not feeling the power or because I want to get up with or past another crew. During sprint races in high school I was always trying to listen to the other coxswains and when I’d hear them take a 10 or 20, I’d wait for them to get about halfway through it before I’d start my own burst. Not only would that counteract their move nearly every time but it’d also put us a little bit more ahead at the end of it. Sometimes those spontaneous calls would interfere with my planned calls so I’d either go straight into the planned call or I’d skip it if we were far enough ahead that I could afford to do that. For head races, using the course map to find the landmarks, mile markers, etc. will help you a lot in figuring out where to make calls.

In sprint races, I don’t deviate too much from “the plan” each week since 1500m or 2000m courses are the same everywhere. They’ve all got 1500m, 1000m, 500m, and 100m to go marked along the course and since those are major points where I tend to call strategic bursts, I don’t change it up very much.

Normally my crew would also have a “special move” thrown in outside of my usual spots, usually to counteract another team’s move or to just open some water on the other crews. This was typically a 20 where we’d build for three, bump the rate up a beat or two for 15-18, then settle back into our regular pace over the remaining couple of strokes. These moves always had code words associated with them so that the other crews wouldn’t know we were making a move. “POWER 10” is really, really obvious (and easy to exploit by other coxswains), especially when you’re yelling it into your mic, so we’d talk during practice the week before and figure out what they wanted me to say. Usually it was something simple like “fire ’em up” and they would just know, without me saying it, that the move starts on the next stroke. They’d make the move and I’d cox them as normal. Even though I wasn’t calling it I could see it happening because we’d either be walking on or away from a crew and I could see the stroke rate change on my cox box. (We practiced this a lot to ensure everyone knew when to bring the rate up and when to bring it down too. Doing it on the fly I think would have been a mess.)

At bigger regattas where sprints were a bigger deal we’d take 5 to build into the last 250 but before that burst we’d take a build into the build that was purely for power. My senior year when I used the build-into-the-build nearly every race, I’m convinced that it’s what put our bow ball ahead in the few races we didn’t win by open water. I don’t remember what I’d say to start that build but it was always something synonymous with “power”. I think one of the things I said most often was “bend ’em”, meaning to hang on the oars so hard that you’re bending them as they go through the water. Going into the 5 to build into the sprint, the call was always “light ’em up” and then the start of the sprint was “afterburners”.

The best thing you can do is to sit down with your coach, your crew, and a course map. Figure strategic spots along the course to make a call then figure out what that call is going to be for. If you’re going to use a code word, discuss that with your crew. Make sure everyone knows what the word is and what means. Once you’ve got the strategy down, figure out your “special” move, what it’s going to be, where you’d ideally like to call it, and then make sure you practice it throughout the week so the crew gets used to hearing and feeling it.

Coxing Q&A Racing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 7, 2013

I never know what to say at the beginning of a head race. I know what to say once we get going but not before, any ideas/tips?

This past season with my eight, I think the only thing I consistently said to them while we were staging was “we’ve got a plan, let’s get after it” or something like that. I tried not to talk too much before the starting line (with the exception of telling people to row) because I wanted them to focus in and not be distracted and I needed the quiet time to focus on getting us lined up in the chute.

Coxing Q&A Racing Training & Nutrition

Question of the Day

By readyallrow February 1, 2013

I was talking to one of my rowers today who said what’s scary about rowing is that when you get tired, it’s not like another sport where you can just run slower. You all have to just keep rowing together. What do you think is a good call to motivate them to power through? I don’t want to just be like “you can do it!”

When we were doing Head of the Charles pieces in the fall, my boat would always start to really feel the fatigue right after the Eliot turn, when there’s about 750 meters to the finish line. One thing I constantly said to them coming out of that turn was we’d made it 2.5 miles down the course and we’re gonna keep pushing through that last half-mile.

Another thing I’d say is “bodies over brains”. Rowers of all people should know this, but I think we often forget how much our bodies are capable of and the amount of discomfort they’re able to endure. A lot of the time when we react to pain, it’s our brains reacting, not our bodies; our brains make it out like it’s worse than it is. When I know they’re starting to feel it, I tell them “bodies over brains” or “don’t let the brain defeat the body”. It reminds them their bodies are stronger than they give them credit for and that they have the ability to push through the pain, all they have to turn is block out the voice in their head telling them to stop. A friend of mine used to say that to his boat a lot so I started incorporating it into my calls too.

Related: Words.

One time I got really pissed at a boat I was coaching because they weren’t putting in the effort I wanted and I stopped practice for a few minutes and said something to the effect of “would you rather experience a little bit of pain now or would you rather experience a lot after the race is over?” Somebody asked what I meant and I said that whatever pain you’re feeling now is insignificant. It makes you better, it makes you stronger, it teaches you things. The pain you feel after a race you should have won or after an erg piece that you gave up on, that is the kind of pain that can defeat you because it weighs on you for a long time. You keep going over and over in your mind what you could have done differently or better or how maybe things wouldn’t have happened this way if you’d just given it your all during practice. People that accept that pain during practice or on the erg don’t normally ask themselves those questions after a race is over.

Another time a kid I knew in college was talking about how he hated pieces like 8x500s at 100% pressure because they’re absolutely brutal when you’re going for 1:30ish splits. I laughed and said “don’t lie, you know you like it” and he smirked and said “it’s true”. At the time rowers hate the pain but I guarantee you afterwards, secretly, they like it because they know they’re making progress. Remind them of that – they hate it now, but they’ll appreciate it later.

Then there was that other time (in high school) when my boat was whining about how they were tired and sore and didn’t want to do another piece and blah blah blah … I was getting so irritated listening to it that I just blurted out “suck it the fuck UP!” Everybody stopped talking and my coach, who was in the launch beside us, said “OK … are we ready to do some work now?” Up to that point in the season, that boat was undefeated and I was determined to finish the season undefeated. After practice we had a quick meeting with our coach and I apologized (although to be honest, I didn’t really mean it…) but he said no, don’t apologize, if you guys want to finish this season with a “0” in the loss column, you’ve got to embrace the pain and suck it up. For the rest of the season, no one complained about being sore or tired or wanting to “not do any more pieces”.

Coxing Drills How To Novice Rowing

How to Call a Pick Drill (and Reverse Pick Drill)

By readyallrow January 29, 2013

Previously: Steer an eight/four

The pick drill

A pick drill is a fairly basic warmup (probably the most basic) that involves transitioning through each part of the stroke. It helps to isolate the recovery and the drive, as well as help the rowers with body preparation. The goal is to build one upon the other until you eventually get to full slide, where you can feel all four parts of the stroke flow together.

To start, have the rowers sit at the finish, blades squared and buried. The first part of the drill is “arms only” so if you’re doing the drill by 6s, you’d say “Stern 6, sitting ready at the finish, blades buried … arms only, ready row” and then have them row with arms only for however many strokes you choose. The standard number is 10 but with short, choppy strokes like this, sometimes I’ll extend it to 15 or 20 when there’s time. If you were doing 10 strokes, on stroke 8 you would make the call for the first transition, which is to arms and bodies. The reason it would be on stroke 8 is so that when you’ve completed “in two”, you’ll have rowed ten strokes. 8+2…get it? Don’t be that coxswain that says “10 strokes each” and then ends up doing 12 or 15 or 32. Believe it or not, rowers can count too and if they start to catch on that they’re doing more strokes than you’re telling them to do, that can lead to some not-positive feedback on your coxswain evaluations.

When I make the transition to arms and bodies, I usually say “alright, let’s add the bodies in two … that’s one … and two, on this one“, where “one” and “two” are called at the catch and “on this one” is called at the finish of “two”.

After arms and bodies comes half slide. Same call as before – “half slide in two … one, two, on this one“. Some coaches will have you do 1/4 slide after arms and bodies but more often than not this is skipped in favor of going straight to half slide.

Following half slide is full slide, which is the last part of the drill. When we go to full slide I remind the rowers to lengthen out and not shorten the slides up since the previous three parts of the drill involve either no slide or shortened slides. “In two, let’s lengthen out to full slide. That’s one … and two, on this one, stay nice and looong, catch send…” By drawing out the word “long” it almost forces the rowers to utilize the full length of their slides before they get to the catch. “Catch” is short and annunciated so that they don’t liken the long slides to a sluggish catch. Similarly to 1/4 slide, sometimes coaches will throw in 3/4 slide before going to full. Again, it’s up to you.

With the pick drill, it’s important that the rowers actually do each part of the stroke that you’re telling them to do. It’s broken down for a reason. I’m very hypersensitive to this because it is such a pet peeve of mine but there are few things in rowing that piss me off more than when I or another coxswain calls for “arms only” and you see the rowers rowing with arms and bodies. Drives. Me. INSANE. “Arms only” means “arms only”!! In the boat this is difficult to see from our vantage point but on the ergs it is definitely something we have the power to put a stop to. Don’t let the rowers cheat and use their shoulders either – on the first stroke of the drill to get the boat up and out of the water, fine, acceptable, but after that … arms … ONLY!!!

The reverse pick drill

A variation of the pick drill that your coach might have you do is called the “reverse pick drill”. This is a great drill for isolating each part of the drive and teaching rowers to not do one thing before the other (i.e. don’t bend the arms before the legs are down, etc.). Although it can take some time to explain, this is a great drill to do with novices due to their penchant for trying to open their backs while still on the drive and so on.

This drill, like the regular pick drill, is best done by 4s or 6s but you can do it by all eight if you want – just make sure the rowers keep it balanced otherwise it’s gonna be tough to execute. Starting with whatever group of rowers you choose, have them row with JUST the legs. Just the legs, contrary to what some rowers think means rowing with just. your. legs. No arms, no back, just. the. legs. This means that your upper body should still be reaching forward and your arms are still extended. The ONLY thing that happens between the catch and the first part of this drill is that your legs go down. The call to start this would be “Stern 6, sitting ready at the catch, blades squared and buried … starting with just the legs, ready row.” When I do this drill, for legs only I tend to do 10-15 strokes total.

Following legs only is legs and back. After the leg drive, you’ll open the back but keep the arms extended straight out – the arms are the final part of the stroke, which we haven’t gotten to yet. When you see it, this part of the drill tends to look very rigid due to the fact that the arms are still straight. When calling for the addition of the backs, say “in two, let’s add the backs, that’s one … and two, on this one, legs swing…”. Occasionally I like to say “swing” just to remind the rowers to pivot from the hips and open the backs up. After doing however many strokes without the backs, sometimes they’ll not lay back as much as they normally would; saying “swing” just puts the bug in their ear so they’ll do it from here out.

The final part of the reverse pick drill is to add in the arms and row normally. Up to the point, the arms have been extended straight out, so the call will go something like “in two, let’s add in the arms, we’ll go in one … and two, now accelerate it through … accelerate through, that’s it…”. Legs and legs + backs reiterates hanging off the handle and not breaking the arms early so once you do add the arms in you wanna make sure they’re accelerating the weight through the drive and all the way into the finish.

Below is a video that gives a good demonstration of the reverse pick drill and what it should look like.

Image via // @mahe_ld

Coxing How To Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 28, 2013

One of my coaches was a coxswain and I got switched out the last third of practice to be in the launch with her. OMG BEST TIME EVER. Every time I had a question she’d answer it so well! More coxes should become coaches! One thing she was talking about was watching the wind patterns – like the dark patches in the water to let the crew know. I understand the concept, but I’m not really understanding why. Like, I tell them that a wind/wake is coming to prepare them?

The type of wind that you’re encountering will determine what you tell the rowers and how they should adjust their technique.

Headwind

Lay back just a little bit more than you normally would. If you look at a protractor and visualize that sitting straight up makes a 90 degree angle, your normal layback should be about 110 degrees (roughly – don’t overthink this). In a headwind, you want to layback just a little farther, to about 115-120 degrees. The reason why is because if you think about rowing into the wind, it’s going to slow you down regardless, but if your body is up high, it’s essentially acting like a brick wall and slowing the boat’s movement even more. When you layback a little more than usual, you’re allowing the wind to flow over you, which results in the boat not being slowed down as much.

Tailwind

The tailwind is going to push you along so you’ll be moving faster than you otherwise would, which can give the rowers the sense that their blades aren’t gripping the water like they should. Quick catches and maintaining connection will be important technical focuses here. The boat might be a little tougher to set up too so you can also make general reminders for that as well.

Crosswind

Crosswinds are the worst, in my opinion. Depending on how strong the wind is, it can actually push the boat into another lane or into the shore, regardless of how hard you steer. Crosswinds can also knock the boat offset so if I can see a gust coming on starboard I’ll say something like “gust on this next stroke, ports hands up…”, that way the “push” the boat will get from the wind will actually keep it even.

When I’m out I’ll watch the ripples on the water to see if a gust is coming or which direction the wind is blowing and then alert my crew and adjust my steering as necessary. If they’re going side-to-side or at an angle, it’s a cross wind, if they’re going in the same direction as us, it’s a tailwind, and if they’re coming towards me, it’s a headwind.

Drills Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 25, 2013

Since my 8+ rushes so much and doesn’t row together, I thought that rowing with closed eyes might help them. I talked to my coach about it today (like you suggested!) and she said it would be best incorporated in the warm up or rowing back to the dock. How should I go about calling this for my rowers? Like I don’t want to freak them out or make them hate me. What if they cheat, open their eyes, and it won’t help them? I mean, I won’t be able to see if they do….

I like to do this as part of my cool-down as we row back to the boathouse. Sometimes I’ll do it in between pieces too to get the crew to focus on feeling the boat, particularly if the previous piece felt rushed.

They’re definitely not going to hate you and it won’t freak them out. As long as you explain what you want to do, they shouldn’t have any reason to worry. If you just randomly call out “OK everyone, close your eyes” then yea, they might wonder what you’re talking about but if you explain ahead of time why you want to do it, what the benefits are, etc. then they’ll be more open to it. I’ve been with experienced crews long enough that I just tell them we’re going to close our eyes and row for a bit and no one says anything about it.

When I first started doing it in high school, I told my crew either on land or during the warm-up that I wanted to try something new that might sound unconventional but I thought it’d help with the various things we’d been having trouble with. They all trusted that I knew what I was doing, so I didn’t encounter any resistance or anything. When I call for it now, I usually say something like “OK, so we’re gonna close our eyes and row back to the dock … everyone take a deep breath … and let’s close our eyes on this one. Keep the bodies loose, relax, and just feel the boat.” It all sounds very meditational but it really does help the boat flow better.

If they cheat and open their eyes, honestly, that’s their problem. You’re not there to be their babysitter (although that’s what it feels like sometimes). There are times when you have to just go with the flow and trust that your coach and/or coxswain is telling you to do this because there are benefits to it, even though up front you might not see what they are. I’ve encountered people like that they think “oh this is stupid, I’m not doing it.” I’ve been that person too. When I’ve had them in my boat and they make it known that they think whatever we’re doing is pointless, I just say to them “Look, everyone else is going along with it. If you want to be that person that doesn’t do it, fine, but know that you will be known by the rest of us as the person in the boat who only does what they want instead of what is best for the crew.” It definitely gets you a pissed off look in response but no one wants to be that person so eventually they’ll get on board. It’s not your job to go down the line and make sure everyone’s eyes are closed. If they trust you, they’ll go with it.

Coxing Q&A Rowing Technique

Question of the Day

By readyallrow January 24, 2013

Today our novice boat was SO rushed! No matter what the stroke, they’d hit it for like 3 secs before flying 3 or more SR than was supposed to be. Stroke told me that she and 7 seat were trying to control it but middle 4 on back kept rushing. I tried to say “lengthen, ratio shift, control, etc.” while still saying their SRs. Nothing I said changed it, if anything SR went higher. I gave up by the end of it, since they weren’t listening. Coach didn’t help, just said follow stroke. Help?

Ugh, I’ve been in this situation before. I will try and correct it 99.9% of the time but then my impatience kicks in and I just say “screw it” and let them figure it out on their own. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I’ve also had that coach that is totally useless and says things like “follow the stroke”. You’re the coach, can’t you come up with something a little more helpful that that?

If you know that the middle four were the ones that were initiating the rush, don’t be afraid to directly call them out. When I’ve had this happen in the past, I’ve directly called out the people that I know are causing the rush and I’ve asked them a) do they know what seat they’re in, b) do they know who the stroke is, c) do they know how to control their slides, and d) is anything that either the coach or I said unclear? Normally the answers go something like yes, yes, yes, and no, to which I reply “then what are you doing??” They don’t normally have an answer for that but by that point they either realize that they are the problem or that when I was telling people to slow down the slides I wasn’t just talking to test my brain’s ability to formulate sentences.

After I’ve had that conversation with them, we usually take a break from whatever we’re doing for so everyone can refocus. Once we get started again I remind them that the slides need to be controlled, they need to follow the person in front of them, and they need to not assume that they’re not the one causing the problem. Incorporating in calls that focus on getting everyone’s body motions matched up right out of the finish usually helps too (i.e. matching the hands away, timing the swing of the shoulders, starting the slides together, etc.) but at some point you do have to just stop talking and let them row in silence for a bit so they can focus on implementing the changes.