Tag: coaching

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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What do you find the most difficult thing about coaching? Besides money issues/weird hours…

The most difficult thing about coaching for me, disregarding the money and hours, is working with people who are less dedicated than I am. When I commit to doing something, I commit 100%, not because I’m trying to be that person who is overly enthusiastic or a suck up or whatever but because to me, that just seems like the “normal” thing to do. I think it probably just comes off like that because most other people appear to be OK with settling whereas I’m not.

If you commit to participating in something, why wouldn’t you show up every single day? Isn’t it like, oh I don’t know, assumed that you need to be at every single practice? It pisses me off when people say “oh, well, it was cold so I didn’t think we had practice” or “it rained this morning (for ten minutes) so we didn’t bring clothes or tennis shoes because we didn’t think we’d be going out (eight hours after it stopped raining)”. In that same vein, I have zero patience for people who half-ass the workouts, especially the easy stuff like calisthenics. Complaining about every single exercise, making no effort to do it properly, and then complaining even more because you’re sore and/or hurt yourself … why are you even there? You’re wasting everyone’s time and making me question whether or not you actually want to be there. If you’re not putting any effort into practice, where is my motivation to put any effort into coaching you?

People act like saying things like that is taboo or whatever, like it’s not something coaches should ever think or say, but I disagree. If you’re going to make it apparent that you don’t want to be there or you’re less dedicated than your teammates and coaches, I’m not going to hide my lack of interest in coaching you. I’d rather focus my attention on the people who show up and do what needs to be done without acting like they’re having their teeth pulled.

Novice Q&A Rowing

Question of the Day

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My coach has enlisted the help of the rowers who’ve finished their last season at school to help with a learn to row program for the new recruits. We’ll be taking them out in quads for a couple of weeks. Do you have any advice on how to teach them to get the basics down? My learn to row experience is just a big blur now!

Start small … and then back up from whatever you think “starting small” is and start even smaller. The first few times you go out, I would do nothing but catch placement from each position (just tapping down from the finish to start, moving to arms, arms and body, 1/2 slide, then all the way to the catch). Teaching them to tap down first and figure out what their hands have to do to in order to get the blade to respond will help you out a lot, and at the same time will demonstrate how important it is for the boat to be set. Make sure you spend some time going over that as soon as you get on the water, preferably before you even start rowing if you can. Have the ports push their hands all the way down, then have the starboards do the same. Make them figure out what they have to do in order to set it up instead of you telling them. I find that makes the concepts stick better, even if in the moment you feel like an asshole for not just telling them what to do. Once they understand that concept, move into tapping down, figuring out how the oars work, etc. Once they’ve got that figured out, start doing pause drills. Start with a double pause, then go down to a single, and then to straight rowing. I’d stick with just pairs for all of this to start until everyone is reasonably comfortable before you move on to having all four row.

Biggest suggestion is to just be patient. It’s what I have to remind myself every time I’m with novices because at this point, this stuff is so “auto-pilot” for me that I don’t even think about it anymore. You’re going to think that getting the hands away before the legs come up is like, “duh!”, but they don’t get that yet, so you’ve got to take the time to explain it while not going too crazy.

Have a plan of what you want to do before you get to the boathouse. Don’t be overly ambitious either. Think about their skill level and the amount of time you have. If you notice you’re not going to get through everything you had planned, don’t worry about it. Don’t suddenly start trying to rush through things because that’s when people get frustrated and accidents happen.

Crack a few jokes, throw in a few analogies and metaphors, and just make it fun. Obviously the environment in serious but you can still keep the mood light and relaxed. Have a good time with it and don’t take anything that happens too seriously.

Q&A Teammates & Coaches

Question of the Day

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As a coach, how do you approach the quiet ones? You know, those kids who always just kinda smile and nod? I can figure out almost all my rowers personalities but I don’t know how to make the one open up. She’s a hard worker and listens, I just feel like she tenses up around me. Perhaps I frighten her? Or is she maybe just a quiet kid?

I’ve coached and coxed a few people like that. One of my “things” as a coach is that I try to not act any differently around the kids than I do with anyone else. I feel like some coaches put on a front when they get to practice and act as though they have to make it known that they’re in charge, which tends to put a lot of people off, especially the shy ones. I don’t change how I act or my personality or anything like that – in my experience when coaches or professors have done that, it makes them way less approachable, so I just try to avoid doing that. I have a really dry, sarcastic sense of humor too so I tend to make a lot of jokes and stuff when we’re on the water that ultimately ends up loosening everyone up pretty quickly – even the quiet ones.

Over the summer when I was coaching new people every two weeks, I’d try and spend some time the first day getting to know everyone and assessing their personalities. I knew almost immediately who the tough ones to crack were going to be so when we’d do stuff on the erg or when we’d get out in the boat, I’d ask them questions or point out something they were doing well and get really enthusiastic about it if they answered or demonstrated whatever we were doing correctly. Not like, fake enthusiastic, but genuinely excited. Sometimes hearing or seeing that they’re doing something right was all they’d need to break out of their shell.

On the other hand though, maybe being quiet and shy is just an inherent part of their personality, which means it’s something you’ve just gotta roll with. If they’re quiet and reserved to the point where it concerns you, I’d pull them off to the side after practice and ask them if everything is OK. I had to do this once over the summer and it was honestly so heartbreaking because the kid (almost to the point of tears) said that they didn’t want to be there, they wanted to be at a math or physics or … something like that … camp at MIT, but their parents said they had to play a sport so they’d been shuffling them to all sorts of sports camps all summer. The kid was absolutely miserable and there really was nothing I could do to make them enjoy being there so I just had to be as polite and upbeat as possible and accept the fact that this wasn’t something they were interested in. The only thing that really helped in that situation was if we were just standing around waiting to go out I’d ask them about what they were actually interested in. That got them talking and semi-happy, at least for a few minutes.

Another thing you could do if you know who her friends on the team are or if you see her parents regularly before/after practice is talk to them and ask if she’s normally this quiet. Getting some insight from people who know her well can help you get to know her better and figure out the best way to interact with her. That helped me over the summer – normally it’d be the parents approaching the coaches instead of the other way around, but either way it helped us a lot in getting to know the kids. The biggest thing is that you treat her like you do everyone else – don’t pay less attention to her just because she’s less outgoing than her teammates. Eventually/hopefully if she sees you’re making an effort to get to know her, she’ll open up.