Tag: coxswain

College Coxing Q&A Recruiting

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I’m being heavily recruited to a few top tier men’s rowing programs (UW, Cal, Princeton) to cox. I’m obviously really incredibly thrilled but I’m also so nervous and afraid that I’m really not good enough to do well on that level. Do you have any suggestions for boosting self confidence when it comes to the whole recruiting process? I know they’re recruiting me for a reason, but I just don’t know if I’m that good.

UW? Cal? Princeton? You’re good. Those programs don’t mess around and like you said, they’re recruiting you for a reason. What I’ve learned over the years though is that there’s really just no point in thinking you aren’t good when you have people around you telling you that you are. They wouldn’t be saying it if they didn’t believe it and if you weren’t giving them some reason to think it.

I’m reading “Boys in the Boat” (highly recommend) and there was something I read the other day that describes coxswains much more eloquently and soulfully than I ever could.

“From the moment the shell is launched, the coxswain is the captain of the boat. He or she must exert control, both physical and psychological, over everything that goes on in the shell. Good coxes know their oarsmen inside and out – their individual strengths and vulnerabilities – and they know how to get the most out of each man at any given moment. They have the force of character to inspire exhausted rowers to dig deeper and try harder, even when all seems lost. They have an encyclopedic understanding of their opponents, how they like to race, when they are likely to start sprinting, when they like to lie in wait, etc.

Before a regatta, the cox receives a race plan from the coach and he or she is responsible for carrying it out faithfully. But in a situation as fluid and dynamic as a crew race, circumstances often change abruptly and race plans must be thrown overboard. The cox is the only person in the shell who is facing forward and can see how the field is shaping up throughout a race, and he or she must be prepared o react quickly to unforeseen developments. When a race plan is failing to yield results, it is up to the cox to come up with a new one, often in a split second, and to communicate it quickly and forcefully to the crew. Often this involves a lot of shouting and emotion.

In short, a good coxswain is a quarterback, a cheerleader, and a coach all in one. He or she is a deep thinker, canny like a fox, inspirational, and in many cases the toughest person in the boat.”

You would not be being recruited by some of the top programs in the country if you didn’t do and embody every single thing in that paragraph. You just wouldn’t so stop doubting yourself. You’re not jumping straight from high school into the varsity eight. You’re not expected to be that level of amazing yet. You have plenty of time to soak up as much information as you can, learn from every practice, race, and experience you have, and get to that level. Right now you’re at the level that they want for their freshmen program and given the schools you listed, you know their standards are pretty high. They wouldn’t be pursuing you if they didn’t think you met and have the potential to surpass those standards.

You have to believe that you’ve got some talent otherwise why would you have applied to those schools, academics aside? Whenever you’re starting something new there’s always going to be those seeds of doubt that pop up and make you question everything but the key is knowing how to shut them down immediately by reminding yourself of all the positive attributes you have that have gotten you this far and will continue to take you places in the future. You’ve got them, it’s just about reminding yourself of what they are. Stop questioning yourself and start believing in yourself.

College Coxing Q&A Recruiting

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Hello! I also am a senior who is looking to cox in college, and I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate your extensive replies to all the others’ questions about recs and things. I do have another question though: if I were to not try to be recruited, and instead “walked on” a college team, do you think that could still happen? Would I still have a chance to cox or do you think all of the spots would be taken already? At my HS we never have enough coxes, but maybe it’s different?

Definitely! I’ve said this a couple times but you don’t have to be recruited in order to be on the team. Rowing is one of the few sports where walk-ons are heavily encouraged and relied upon, so you would definitely have a spot on the team if you decided coxing was something you wanted to keep doing. The fact that you already have a few years of experience will be great too.

Either right before or as soon as you get on campus email the head coach and find out when the team is having a walk-on meeting and where it’ll be. Assuming you’re going to a school with a varsity program, if you say that you’re interested in coxing in college and you’d like to walk on to the team they might include you in with the recruits since you’re an experienced coxswain. It doesn’t hurt to talk with them and say that you’re considering coxing in college but aren’t sure if you want to fully commit yet. They know it’s a big commitment so just ask for some info on the team and go from there.

College Coxing Q&A

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I’m going into my first year of coxing at the university level and have a training camp coming up. Any recommendations for what to pack for the five days? A kind of obvious question I know, but my OCD self feels the need to ask anyways. Thanks!

I’m the same way and yet I still inevitably always forget something, no matter how many list I make.

Personal stuff:

Enough clothes for at least two workouts a day just in case you get gross during the day and want to change.

Casual clothes/team gear for team dinners or other events/activities outside of the rowing bubble

Tennis shoes for running

Shower stuff, towels, etc.

Eye mask and/or ear plugs if you have trouble sleeping (since you’ll probably be in a hotel room with 2-3 other people)

All the chargers and USB cables you’ll need for your phone, laptop, GoPros, recorders, CoxBox, Speedcoach, etc.

Any other medicine you regularly take, plus extra Ibuprofen just in case

Rain jacket + pants, because it always ends up raining on the days when the forecast says “0% chance of precipitation”

Chapstick, particularly one that has SPF in it

Pillow + blankets if you’re staying in dorms rather than hotels

Snacks (Clif bar, raisins, granola, etc.), although you’ll usually get per diem to spend on food once you get there

Rowing stuff:

Notebook + pencil (or two)

Recorder

Multiple wrenches in all the sizes (7/16, 10mm, 13mm, etc.)

Cox box and/or SpeedCoach

Band-aids, tape, etc.

Extra nuts, bolts, spacers, etc. for the boat*

Water bottle(s)**

A backpack or fanny pack of some kind to carry all this stuff on the water with you

* When you get to camp you can ask your coach/boatman if you can raid the toolkit and grab extra parts for at least a rigger or two, plus maybe two extra spacers or so. It’s always good to have this stuff on hand if you have to make adjustments on the water and lose something (like spacers).

** I’ve found that having a spare water bottle on hand during practice is good, especially on hard days when rowers go through their own water pretty quickly. The benefits double when it’s really hot and/or humid out because it helps prevent the rowers from becoming dehydrated.

Coxing High School Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Last season (my junior year) I coxed the JV boat all fall and most of spring and a week before championships my coach handed out ranking sheets to the rowers and they chose who they wanted as their coxswain. Half of the girls in the JV boat wanted me and half of them wanted another girl who has a year less experience than me. My assistant coach made an “executive” decision to put the other girl in the JV boat. This summer I had lunch with one of my close friends who was a rower in that JV boat, she told me that after the ranking day some of the other rowers texted her and talked about how they didn’t pick me because they didn’t like me as a person. I asked her what that meant and she said they meant that I was “too sassy and demanding” with them. Now this fall season it’ll be me and the same girl going after the varsity boat and I really want that spot. What do I do about the fact that the rowers don’t like me as a person? Do I just kill them with kindness or what? I honestly have no clue what to do. I’ve had several people come up to me and tell me personally that I am a much better coxswain than the other girl so I don’t understand why people have to use the fact that they don’t like me against me. How should I approach this season?

Ranking sheets? Is that the same or different than coxswain evaluations? Straight ranking sheets sound like … a bad idea.

Here’s the thing with coxing women … anytime you’re in a position where you’re giving directions or telling other women what to do you have to watch how you do it because the slightest hint of anything in your voice is going to be mistaken as you being a bitch. There’s nothing wrong with being demanding, especially in the position we’re in, but you have to make sure that your demands are realistic and actually achievable by the people you’re working with. If you have varsity heavyweight men’s 8+ expectations of a JV women’s 8+ then yea, that would be too demanding. If you have varsity women’s 8+ expectations of a JV women’s 8+ and their abilities indicate that those expectations are reasonable then that’s fine. If you’re constantly pushing them harder than they can reasonably tolerate, physically or psychologically then that would/could cause problems.

How you give direction is another thing you’ve got to be aware of. There’s always got to be some sense of self-awareness on our end as to what we’re saying, how we’re saying it, how it could/is being perceived, etc. so that we can be sure we’re building the rowers up and not tearing them down. Think about how you say things and ask yourself how you’d respond if someone said the same thing to you in the same tone of voice. Would it rub you the wrong way or would you not think twice about it? Try to be objective and not biased towards yourself, if that’s possible. Basically, don’t just assume you’re not doing anything wrong and that the rowers are just being bitches for no reason. If you’re brave enough you should talk to the ones that don’t like you, for whatever reason, and ask what you can do better this season with regards to communicating with them. They don’t have to like you and it shouldn’t be your goal to get them to like you. That isn’t your responsibility. I doubt every soldier liked George Washington but they respected him enough to follow him into battle. That’s the mentality that you should have. Rowers don’t have to like their coxswains but they do need to respect them enough to follow them into battle. That goes for coxswains as well – to earn respect you’ve got to give it. Making an effort to figure out how you can improve as a coxswain by getting feedback from the people you’re working with is a good way to start earning it. In return, you should take their feedback and actually use it to help you going forward.

Should you be nice to them? Yes, because that’s just common courtesy. Should you kill them with kindness? Eh…my personal opinion is no because ultimately what’s that going to do for you? Granted it could work out well but it could also come off as really, really fake, which will just piss them off even more. There’s a big difference between liking you as a coxswain and liking you as a person and my theory on why rowers use how much they like you as a person “against” you is because with the amount of time you’re going to be spending together, why wouldn’t you want to be with someone you genuinely like? I don’t necessarily agree with it but I do understand it. In a perfect world all coxswains would be chosen based on their abilities and not on popularity but that is never going to happen. Popularity is always going to play a small part, especially in high school, especially when you’re coxing women.

In addition to talking to the people in that boat and doing some self-reflection on your own, talk to your assistant coach. Ask her if she can share why she ultimately chose the other coxswain and what she based her decision on since it seemed like the votes were evenly split between you and the other girl. I wouldn’t straight up say that some of the girls prefer you because you’re the better coxswain but I would just say that you want to know what you can do to improve because you want the varsity boat, obviously, and as the senior coxswain with four years of experience you feel like you deserve a shot at it because of X, Y, and Z. There’s nothing wrong with saying you feel like you deserve a certain boat as long as you’ve done the work ahead of time and actually do deserve a shot at it. Seniority alone isn’t a reason, as much as we’d like to think it is. Your cohesiveness with the rowers, how likely it is that they’ll listen to you, your ability to control things on the water, etc. are all things I think any good coach would look at.

For me, I’d also be looking at how much drama I’d be setting myself up to deal with if I knowingly put you in a boat where there’s friction between you and some of the rowers. Drama in some instances is inevitable and that’s fine. Everyone is equipped to deal with it to an extent. It’s part of the game, so to say. But, as a coach I don’t want to have to deal with a mutiny in the middle of the season simply because there are a million other things that I need to worry about. Whoever I ultimately chose as coxswain would need to be able to make it work with everyone in the boat, regardless of their friendships or lack there of off the water. Looking back on the previous season and seeing that there were personality clashes, no respect being given or received, etc. it would take a lot of convincing for me to put that coxswain with those same rowers, regardless of their skills. Their skills could be amazing and they could be a great coxswain but I’d be delusional to think that personality doesn’t play a part in being a good, effective leader. Like I said, they don’t have to like you but they do have to respect you and there can be no question as to whether or not that will happen.

In this order, look at how you’ve handled things in the past and how you’ve interacted with these women previously, then talk to your coach, then talk to the rowers. Start thinking about your goals for the season and use them and the feedback you get from everyone to help motivate you to make some improvements throughout the start of the season. I won’t lie to you, it sucks having to making adjustments to your attitude, personality, etc. just to avoid pissing people off but I will promise you this: in the end, it’s worth it. All those stupid situations in school where your teachers are like “oh, working on this group project is going to teach you how to deal with people in the future”…no. We all know they don’t. What teaches you how to deal with different personalities in the future is having conflicts with people and figuring out the best way to interact with them going forward. Sometimes that requires changes on our end and it requires taking the time to figure out what you’ve done in the past that you could do differently, more effectively, or just plain better going forward.

Coxing How To Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Okay. I know you have gotten questions like this before but how do I get people to respect me as a coxswain? I mean I’m fairly knowledgeable, I know how to correct people’s technique and how to work with them to improve. I do most of the workouts with the team but I feel like there is something about me that makes them not respect me. I’m a camp counselor over the summer and I feel like the campers don’t really respect my authority either.

There are two ways to approach this. Do you think they don’t respect you because you’re not authoritative at the right times or do you think they don’t respect you because your attitude rubs them the wrong way?

Making an effort to get to know the rowers, being friendly with them, etc. is a good thing but it can end up hurting you a bit if you are too friendly with them because they’ll see you more as “one of them” instead of someone in a leadership role. I’m not saying you can’t be friends (or even best friends) with your rowers but you have to be able to separate yourself from those friendships when practice rolls around. If the rowers see you as their friend all the time it’ll be harder for them to take you seriously when you’re telling them what to do.

Related: RESPECT and the follow-up email to that post from a collegiate men’s coxswain

The flip side is if you’re too authoritative all the time and try to throw your weight around just because you’re in a position that has some degree of power, all in an attempt to make the rowers respect you. One of the things that can be tough to master with coxing is telling someone what to do without being bossy or bitchy. This is where your tone of voice comes into play. Think of how you say things and then put yourself in the shoes of the rowers. If someone was saying to you what you’re saying to the rowers in the same way you’re saying it, how would you interpret it? Would you take it as someone who knows what they’re doing and is trying to help you improve or as someone who is trying too hard to get people to respect her, overstepping her authority, and not being an effective communicator?

Related: How NOT to piss off your rowers

I don’t have the secret to earning someone’s respect. It’s going to be different with every person you meet and every crew you cox because there are different personalities to contend with. The first step towards gaining the respect of your teammates though is to make an effort to figure out why they don’t respect you. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt since I obviously don’t know the entirety of your situation and say that it’s possible that they don’t disrespect you but they don’t fully respect either because they don’t know you that well. Make an effort to get to know them, figure out why they’re there, what their goals are, what they need from you, etc. and use all of that to not only work on the respect thing but to also improve yourself and your boat.

Definitely check out the “respect” tag too, there are tons of questions in there that you should be able to pull some good advice from.

Coxing Q&A Rowing

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As the summer comes to an end and fall season comes up, I’ve been a little rusty on my coxing. While there have been some rowers that go to the local aquatic center and have been rowing, I’ve realized that I’ve been spending my summer primarily on school work and I haven’t been able to get out there and practice. But now that the summer is ending and in the last few weeks there are rowers planning on going over to the AC to take out some eights, I was thinking about joining them. My only fear is that this is my first year on varsity and I’m a tad nervous. I want to practice my steering but I’m afraid that if I’m getting rowers that have been rowing all summer long in my boat, that they’ll want me to throw in technical calls and whatnot. Any advice?

I was talking about this same topic through email with a coxswain the other day – a collegiate coxswain, actually. They just finished their first season and will also be coxing with their team’s varsity program in the fall. Here’s what I said to them:

” … Your expectations of yourself should be realistic as well – don’t overwhelm yourself trying to impress everyone or prove you should be there. Just go out there, do what you did in the spring, and let your actions speak for themselves. Coxing is like riding a bike, once you get in the groove of it you never forget how it’s done. There’s no real way to “fall behind” or anything, especially because so much of what makes coxing what it is is based on inherent stuff, like your personality, drive, intelligence, etc. Other than continuing to educate yourself and learn about the sport, there’s not much to do in the summer. Not everyone has access to a boathouse or anything when school’s not in session so it’s OK if you take a couple months off. I think it’s important to do that anyways just so you don’t get burned out.”

If you’re going out with rowers that have been rowing over the summer, chances are they probably have a list of things that they’ve been working on with their own technique, which means they should ideally be able to give you a list of things that they’d like you to focus your calls on. Have your notebook on hand and ask them individually if they’d mind giving you a couple things things that they’d like you to watch for with them, such as washing out, their timing, etc. Whatever they’ve been working on this summer should be the stuff you try and focus on because that’s where they’ve been focusing their efforts, thus getting feedback on it is pretty important. Take that information home and start thinking of what calls you can associate with each thing. I’d say have at least three different calls for each thing that way you can vary what you’re saying and keep the rowers engaged instead of just saying the same thing over and over and having it lose it’s effect.

Tell them also that you want to practice your steering so that’s going to be your technical focus while you’re out. They’ve got theirs, you’ve got yours. The best time to practice your steering is during longer pieces, not drills, for obvious reasons, so tell them ahead of time that for the first few minutes you want them to internalize their strokes, think about their seat, feeling the boat move, etc. and then after that you’ll start bringing it all together, making some technical adjustments, bringing up the power, and taking some harder strokes. So for example, if you do a 10 minute piece you can break it down like this:

0-3:00 || No talking, just rowing. To keep things interesting you could have them row eyes closed, feet out, or eyes closed and feet out. During this time you should be focusing on your steering, since that’s your “thing”, while at the same time paying attention to the bladework. Remember – you want to make minimal adjustments with the rudder. Small changes when necessary but that’s all. Pick a point and every 3-5 strokes check where you are. Eventually you want to get to the point where steering is an auto-pilot response so pay attention to where you are and where you’re going but don’t focus 99.9% of your brainpower on it.

3:01 – 6:00 || Technique – what did you notice during the first three minutes? Talk to each rower equally and individually, point out something they’re doing well and something they can work on. Give each rower at least 5 strokes so before moving on to the next person.

6:01 – 8:00 || Once you’re through each individual look at the whole package. What do you see? How does the boat feel? Are you getting a good amount of run or is there some check happening? How’s the rhythm? Talk to your stroke about this – communication with them is crucial, for on-the-water and off-the-water purposes.

8:01-9:00 || You’ve spent a good amount of time working on finesse stuff, now it’s time to start putting some power behind the blade. If you were rowing at 75% pressure, take it up to 90%. Low stroke rate (20spm or so), powerful drives. Less calls about technique, more about power now. Leg drive, connection, posture, etc.

9:01-10:00 || You’ve got technique and power, now add in speed. Every 20 seconds take the stroke rate up 2 beats while maintaining the same good rowing you’ve held for the last nine minutes. There should be a shift in intensity here, both with their strokes and your calls. Remind them to move the boat, not the water.

This entire time you should have been focusing on steering and holding your point. Doing pieces like this where there’s a “focus” throughout it forces you to multi-task and learn how to juggle doing two, three, four, five very important things all at the same time. Don’t let it overwhelm you, just go with it. To improve with something as finicky as steering you’ve got to push yourself out of your comfort zone a little. In the end it’s always worth it though.

Don’t be nervous. Easier said than done, I know, but you truthfully have no reason to be nervous. The summer is the best time to make mistakes because there’s zero pressure from anyone. Go out there confidently, communicate with the rowers, have goals for yourself, execute everything to the best of your abilities, and reflect on every practice once you’re off the water. What went well, what did you improve on, how did that improvement happen, what do you need to do to maintain that change and make it a habit going forward, and what do you want to keep working on in the future? Keep a notebook handy so you can write all of this down.

Don’t think that just because you’ll be with the varsity in the fall that you’ve got to start commanding them now like you will be in two months. Stay relaxed and have a good time. You’ll have plenty of time to be super disciplined in the fall. For now, just enjoy the water and getting to know the guys you’re rowing with.

Coxing Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I graduated this past spring and I was recruited to cox in college. I was always the top coxswain at my high school club and the coaches now look at me as a mini-coach. They want me to pass on as much knowledge as I can to the other coxswains before leaving but I’m having a hard time reaching them. I’m not sure if they’re intimidated by me (I’m really not scary…) or they really don’t know what the heck I’m saying. Tips? Thanks!

That’s pretty cool you got asked to do that. It’s possible that they are intimidated a little, not by you necessarily but by your experience and the fact that you’re coxing in college, but it’s also possible that they might just not be around and/or are busy with jobs, family, etc. Try reaching out to them on Facebook and invite them to go get ice cream sometime next week. Keep it short and simple and just say that before you leave for school your coach wanted you all to get together to talk about the upcoming year, coxing stuff, etc. If for whatever reason you end up not being able to get together, write everything down and make a how-to guidebook for them.

If they’re smart, they’ll take advantage of your offer but don’t feel like you’re obligated to go out of your way to meet up with them. Like I said, they might be busy or they might just not care … which sucks, I guess, but ultimately isn’t your issue to deal with. Put together some notes and give it to your coach and if they want to read through it in the fall, it’s there for them to do that.

Note to all the coxswains out there, seriously, reach out to the coxswains from your team who are coxing in college or who just graduated and pick their brains on anything you can think of. They’ll most likely be willing to share their tips and tricks with you but you’ve gotta ask first.

Coxing High School Masters Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Hi! I am a coxswain who has coxed on my school’s team for 5 seasons. I seem to do better when put in a boys boat (I’m a girl). In the past, I have attributed this to the fact that the girls on my team are incredibly immature and difficult to deal with. It’s gotten to a point where no cox on my team wants to cox a girls boat. How would you approach this? Also, I have recently gotten an opportunity to cox for a local club’s masters women’s boat. How would you adjust to a such a different group?

That’s rough. It sounds like something your coaches need to address (or should have) rather than something the coxswains should be forced to put up with/suffer through or handle on their own. Have you guys tried talking to the coaches about the issues you have coxing them? Are they difficult to deal with because they don’t listen, are unnecessarily combative, and just straight up bitches or are they difficult to deal with because they’re teenagers and doing typical annoying teenager stuff? Regardless of the reason, I think it’s worth bringing up and discussing with the coach so that they can do something about it. It’s also possible that they might not know what’s going on or that the coxswains feel this way so they never realized there was a problem needing addressing. Until then though, if you get put in a boat with them try not to get frustrated. Avoid displaying any outward signs of being irritated that you’re coxing that boat because that’ll either piss off the rowers and give them even more reasons to make things difficult or it’ll just amuse them and give them a reason to antagonize you.

Regarding coxing a masters boat, the biggest difference for me in going from coxing people my own age to coxing people who are closer to my parents’ age was coxing them with the same amount of intensity. It felt weird coxing them like I coxed college or high school crews because they’re so much older than me but once I talked to them about it they said they want to be coxed hard like that, so that’s what I started doing. After a few practices it didn’t feel weird any more. I’d suggest just talking to them and finding out what they look for in their coxswains. Are they a competitive team who expects to be coxed as such or are they just out there to have a good time and get away from the stress of daily life, so they don’t need to be coxed as hard? Don’t be intimidated by them and don’t feel like you can’t call them out on any technique problems like you would a normal crew. They want to be corrected so they can improve just like rowers your own age so make sure you’re talking to them and giving them the same feedback that you’d give your regular crew.

Coxing Novice Q&A Rowing Technique

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I rowed for three seasons and I have been asked to help cox a crew for a race thing in the beginning of September. A lot of the people haven’t rowed much/before and we are allowed 12 on-water sessions before the race. The coach has said that I need to coach more since I can sometimes see more from the coxswain seat than they can see from the coach’s boat, except I’m not experienced enough with coxing to know what to look for other than obvious timing issues etc. Do you have any tips?

First thing I’d do is go talk to your coach about what she specifically wants you to look for. Ask for two or three things and then talk with her about what you should be noticing about each of them and what it looks like when it’s right vs. wrong. Bring a notebook so you can write down what she says instead of trying to remember everything. (Trust me, you’re not going to remember, especially if you’ve never coxed before.)

Second thing is to talk to your coxswain or other coxswains at your club and ask them about some of the basic things they look for. If they say something different than what your coach said, ask them the same follow up questions you asked your coach about what you should notice, what it should look like, etc.

Related: So, what did you see?

My suggestions of things to look for are timing at the catch, like you said, catch angles, and how clean the finishes are.

Timing

This is the easiest thing to notice as it’s fairly obvious when someone is catching before or after the stroke. Instead of making an ambiguous call like “watch the timing” to the entire boat, be specific about what needs to happen and who needs to do it. “Bow pair, you’re a little early, let’s match the hands away to stern six and swing together…” or “4, you’re half a stroke late, get the body set a bit sooner on the next one…”. Make sure that if they get off with their timing to wait at the finish and come in on the next stroke instead of waiting at the catch or the middle of the slide, which some novices will do. (Why the finish instead of the catch? Because the boat is more stable when people are at the finish and less stable when they’re compressed at the catch, so it’s less likely to throw off the set of the boat if someone comes in at the finish.)

Catch angles

It can be hard to diagnose the bodies when you can’t see them, especially as a novice coxswain, but looking at the catch angles is a good alternative. You want everyone’s angles to be relatively the same and matching the angles of stern pair to ensure that they’re fully compressed and maximizing their leg drive. If a rower isn’t fully compressed the shaft of the oar will be more perpendicular to the boat whereas if they’re over compressed their oar will be more parallel to the boat in comparison to the stroke’s oar. You might have to turn your head to look at stern pair’s oars since it’s easy to look directly over them and only see bow 6’s. If you see someone either going too far or not far enough, you can point it out by reminding them to get to where their knees are over their ankles and no further.

Clean finishes

If the finishes aren’t clean and people are washing out you’ll see a lot of white water splashing forward, almost like a mini tidal wave. It’ll also be kinda noisy. If the blades are buried too deep on the drive they might get stuck at the finish, especially if the boat isn’t set, which could lead to a rower catching a crab. If you see someone washing out, tell them to accelerate the blade through the water (meaning the stroke should get stronger as you approach the finish), hold the blade in for the entire stroke instead of tapping the hands down before you’re all the way to the finish, and pull all the way into their body before tapping down (thumbs should just brush their stomach before the hands go away). Before you start rowing make sure you remind everyone to bury the blades too. If someone’s blade is only buried halfway instead of entirely when they go to take a stroke they’ll wash out.

Don’t try to look for everything the next time you go out with your boat. Pick one or two things to focus on during practice, then the next practice pick two more things, and then two more after that. Once you’ve got an idea of what everything should look like, start to focus on all of it in the practices leading up to your race. If you get overwhelmed, go back to just watching one or two things. Don’t just watch whatever you think is the easiest to spot though because that won’t help you or the rowers. Make an effort to look for all the little details that you might not otherwise notice. Take notes on what you see either when you’re not rowing or once you get off the water and review them the next day before you go out. Communicate with your coach too about what you’re seeing, if you have questions, etc.

College Coxing High School How To Novice Q&A

TED Talks, body language, and … coxing?

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I was going through Reddit the other night and came across this talk from last October given by Amy Cuddy, a social psychologist who currently teaches at Harvard Business School. It’s really interesting and a lot of what she says can easily be related to coxing.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions asking “how to do I become more confident”, “will I be a good coxswain even though I’m shy and quiet”, etc. and that made me realize how big of an issue this is for those who are new to the sport (and for some experienced coxswains as well). I get asked a lot how I developed my confidence as a coxswain and I don’t ever really know how to answer that other than to say “I just am/was”. Good coaching, support from my family and friends, and my natural personality all play(ed) into it but it was never something I had to teach myself to be.

That isn’t the case for a lot of coxswains out there though and is really more of a “pick two” situation. You can have two of the above but not the other one and what sucks is that the one you don’t have tends to affect you more than the two you do have. When you’re just starting out in something new, especially something as feedback-based as rowing, that can be the make-or-break thing that helps you decide whether to stick with it or not. I’ve said multiple times that to be a good coxswain you have to be confident in your skills, your decisions, and yourself as an individual and I stand by that wholeheartedly, but how do you teach yourself to become that, especially when there’s no one telling you the process step by step?

One of the things that Amy talks about in the beginning of her talk is how your level of confidence is communicated in your posture, what your body language is communicating to other people, and what your body language is communicating to yourself. If you think about how you approach any given situation, what do you think your body language/non-verbals say about you? If you’re a coxswain, think about yourself when you’re at practice. Do your non-verbals give off an air of “I know what I’m doing” or, as Amy said, “I’m not supposed to be here”? Do you stand up front by the coaches, hands on your hips, waiting to be told what to do or do stand near the back or in the middle of the rowers playing with your cox box hoping no one notices you’re there? What about when you’re on the water? How do your coxing non-verbals make you look? Think about that for a second and honestly ask yourself how you think your non-verbals have affected you so far, either positively or negatively.

A little bit further on she talks about how there’s a grade gap in business schools between men and women and they can’t figure it out because coming in, they’re all on equal footing so you’d think that gap wouldn’t exist. What they attribute part of it to is one’s level of participation in class. Based on personal experience I know that in classes and situations where I’m confident in what I know, I’m a willing, avid participant in whatever’s going on. I’m one of those people that “spreads out”, has their hand high in the air, etc. When I’m not confident (i.e. every math class I’ve taken since elementary school) I don’t say a word and tend to make myself smaller in the chair I’m sitting in with what I can only assume is a “I’m not supposed to be here” look on my face.

When I started thinking about this, we do this at crew too. We all come in on equal footing, not knowing anything about the sport, but the ones who participate more by engaging themselves in the beginning during winter training, talking to the coaches, interacting with the rowers, learning about the sport on their own time, etc. are the ones that (initially) succeed. Those that stand around not doing much, are nervous or afraid to talk to the coaches, are intimidated by the rowers, and don’t do anything to engage themselves other than show up tend to get looked over in favor of those who are displaying more positive non-verbals. That all has to do with confidence. The more confident you are, the more risks you’re willing to take at the beginning to put yourself out there in an unfamiliar situation. That confidence is an inherent thing too that has nothing to do with how much you know or don’t know about crew or coxing. So, how do you become more confident and project those positive non-verbals?

The next minute or two of her talk really justified something I’ve felt and been saying for awhile now. “Is it possible that we could get people to fake it and would it lead people to participate more? … Can you experience a behavioral outcome that makes you seem more powerful?” You all know that one of the things I’ve consistently said, especially to novices, is “fake it ’til you make it” because the more you fake it, the more you start to actually become it. But, as she goes on to say, do the non-verbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves? I say definitely. If you’re awkwardly standing somewhere in a “powerless” position, chances are you aren’t feeling so great about yourself whereas if you’re standing somewhere with your chin up, shoulders back, etc. you probably feel pretty confident … or do you? Maybe you’re faking it. Who knows! That’s the beauty of it. “When you pretend to be powerful you are more likely to actually feel powerful.”

Related: “Fake it till you make it.” Do you believe in that for coxswains? Because of today’s terrible practice I wouldn’t have been able to fake anything for the life of me.

This transitioned into what she was saying about how powerful and effective leaders have high testosterone and low cortisol levels, testosterone relating to dominance and cortisol relating to stress. As she says, when you think about power you tend to think more about testosterone and less about cortisol but the thing with power is that it’s not all about how dominant you are over a situation or group of people, it’s also about how you handle and react to the stress of being in that position. Tell me that isn’t exactly like coxing. As she goes on to say, think about the kind of leader you want to be — do you want to be a dominant leader who is also very reactive to stress or a leader who is dominant and not very reactive to stress? I know there are a fair number of rowers out there cringing as you recall situations where your coxswain was freaking out about something on the water and you spent the next several minutes wondering if he/she was gonna have their shit together at any point during practice. That’s not the kind of coxswain you want to be. You want to be the kind that manages stress effectively by figuring out a solution to the problem rather than outwardly reacting to it. Why? Because the non-verbals you display in situations like that let your rowers know you’ve got things under control and their confidence in you ultimately translates into confidence in yourself. See how that works? (On the flip side though, the exact opposite can also happen…)

Moving on to “primate hierarchies”, think about when your coach decides to make a change by randomly and all of a sudden taking you out of your novice 4+ and putting you in the varsity 8+. You’re probably nervous, questioning your abilities, and thinking “oh shit, what if I mess up”, right? You’re replacing an “alpha” coxswain -someone who is most likely more confident, more experienced, and more skilled that you. But, after a few practices with the boat you realize it’s just like coxing any other crew with only minor differences. You start to worry less about how you’re doing as you settle into your groove and become more comfortable with the rowers. This demonstrates what she’s saying about your testosterone going up and cortisol coming down. As you continue working with them you gradually become more and more confident with yourself, which is what she’s saying about how role changes can shape the mind. On that same line, the more confident you become, the more positive your body language becomes, which in turn circles back around and increases your confidence. Body shaping the mind. Bam. Science.

Hopefully by this point you get how big of a role your body language plays in that. The trick is to do it in small doses like she says (starting around 10:19). For two minutes stand in a “high power pose” like one of the ones from her PowerPoint. Obviously you don’t have to do this somewhere where people can see you if you’re worried about looking silly. Do that and see how it makes you feel. Do this every day before you go to school, before you go to practice, etc. and after a week or two, see if you notice a difference with yourself. If what she says is right, the more you do it the more confident you’ll feel and see yourself becoming.

I have a great story to tell about “having the opportunity to gamble”. So, about two weeks or so before I left for Penn AC I was basically in the midst of a full-on quarter-life crisis. Fellow millennials will probably know the feeling – messy personal life, feeling stuck in our jobs, and freaking out about our (lack of) finances. I went out to breakfast one morning with one of the women in my boat and she said to me, dead serious, “you look like you’re going through life like you’re in the middle of surgery with no anesthesia”. That was a serious wake-up call because I knew how shitty I felt and I had been trying really hard to keep it to myself but apparently I was failing (miserably). What had given it away was how I was carrying myself. I wasn’t carrying myself confidently like I normally did; instead I just looked defeated all the time, including when I was on the water, which had never happened before. Ever since I started coxing this boat they’ve all consistently said to me, with wondrous amazement, that I’m a completely different person on the water. I’m a much more reserved and quiet person than I used to be but when I’m on the water, my true personality really comes through. I’m the person on the water that I wish I still was on land. How they knew something was “off” though was by how I was acting whenever we’d go out for practice. Up to this point I was always 100% in command, 100% focused, and never once questioned myself. Now though, I just wasn’t into practice, I couldn’t concentrate, and my mind was always on other things. They didn’t know any of that but they read it all through my body language, which was giving them the sense through my non-verbals that I didn’t have an ounce of confidence in my body.

For the first time in a long time I questioned myself in the middle of a race piece. I haven’t done that since I was a novice and didn’t know any better. Looking back at my non-verbals I know I was giving off the “I don’t belong here” vibe because in that moment that was exactly how I felt. We were doing race pieces with another boat and we were coming up on the last 400m or so. It was close between the two of us and I wanted to call a move to put us ahead once and for all going into the final sprint. I was already not 100% mentally into practice, in addition to being nervous about how close we were to the other crew. I debated for too long about whether or not to make the move, whether it would hurt our speed during the sprint, etc. and missed the opportunity. We lost the race by about two seats. I was furious with myself, which then made me feel even less confident and more defeated. It also just went to show how irrational I was being because it was just a practice piece — there was literally nothing riding on it whatsoever and my boat was happy because it was a good piece. My coach asked me afterwards what was up because he’d never seen me like that in the boat before. He said his first clue that something was off was as soon as we crossed the finish line I buried my head in hands and started crying, which is really unlike me, especially on the water.

Fast forward about three weeks to Penn AC. The guys were doing 4x2ks and I ended up coxing the last one. Up to that point I’d been having a great week so I was feeling pretty good all around. Seeing how well the guys had been doing up to this point just sent my enthusiasm levels through the roof and having the guy at stroke say to me “let’s go fuck this other boat up” before the start just totally did it for me. Thinking back on it, I was willing to take the risk I did because I was feeling good about myself and the boat, which was translated to my body language (I was in a “high power” stance, or as close as you can get in the boat), which then translated how I felt to those that were watching us. Compared to the piece I did with my own eight, my testosterone and cortisol levels were probably the exact opposite of what they were before. I felt completely in control and wasn’t stressed because I knew that no matter what I said the guys were gonna go with me.

I called for a move with 750m to go that took the other crew by complete surprise and helped us get even with them after being about a length or so down — something we should not have been able to do given the difference in size and experience between the two boats. It was a risk and as one of the coaches later said, a ballsy one at that. It could have backfired and killed the momentum we’d built up but in the moment that wasn’t even something I was thinking about. Later on I ended up talking with another coach about that piece and they said that they had a feeling that I was going to do something “crazy” just based on my body language. He said that he told the rower that was riding with him to watch our boat because “she’s gonna do something … I don’t know what or when but she’s gonna do something and they’re gonna move.”

That definitely ranked in the top 5 compliments I’ve gotten on my coxing and it really boosted my confidence even though I had no real reason to need a confidence boost. It’s not like I needed any kind of validation on my coxing skills (but when has something like that ever hurt…). Put yourself in that situation though or go back to a time when something similar happened to you — how awesome would/did you feel immediately afterwards? What would/did that do for your confidence? And now think that it has nothing to do with your coxing, it all came straight from what your body language was communicating.

There are a lot of different connections to be made here which can get confusing trying to put all the pieces together, so, to recap:

Non-verbals communicate to other people as well as to ourselves

Positive non-verbals = “happy” feelings; negative non-verbals = “sad” feelings

Happy/sad = confident/not confident

“Fake it ’til you make it” = mind shaping the body

Confident/not confident = dominant/powerless, indicated through testosterone and cortisol levels

Feelings of confidence or lack thereof displayed through “high power”/”low power” body stances

“High power”/”low power” stances = higher/lower risk tolerance, higher/lower testosterone, lower/higher cortisol

Non-verbals govern how we think/feel about ourselves

Bodies change our mind

This video from the Harvard Business Review also gives a good, quick overview in simple terms of what’s been talked about so far.

Back to the Ted Talk, fast forward to 13:50 where she’s talking about what you’re doing before a job interview. Translate this to race day or right before your first practice of the season on the water with a group of people you’ve never coxed before. Instead of making yourself small and finding ways to distract yourself from “the big moment”, you should be making yourself big by spending two minutes in one of your power poses.

Fast forward again to 15:10. It’s not about what you’re saying, it’s about your presence. This is something I really want the novice coxswains to pay attention to. You can listen to as many recordings as you want and borrow as many calls as you want from all the great coxswains out there but if you lack presence, what you say isn’t going to matter. What you say is not what makes you seem more confident or like you know what you’re doing, it’s how. you. say. it. and the vibe you’re giving off as you do it.

When she’s talking about her car accident, going to Princeton, and feeling like she didn’t belong, that’s intense stuff but it’s something that in one way or another we can relate to because we’ve all felt that way at some point. Some of you have said that you don’t feel like you belong at crew because you’re just not confident enough, you don’t think you’ll ever have the personality for coxing, etc. and that you want to quit. I’m going to say to you what her professor said to her:

You’re not quitting. You’re gonna stay and this is what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna fake it. You’re gonna cox every boat you ever get asked to cox, you’re gonna do it and do it and do it, even if you’re terrified and paralyzed and having an out of body experience until you have this moment where you say “Oh my gosh, I’m doing it. I have become this. I am actually doing this.”

Don’t fake it ’til you make it, fake it ’til you become it. There’s a saying that says “don’t practice until you do it right, practice until you don’t do it wrong” that is along the same lines. Don’t fake it and practice your skills until you’re confident in yourself for one practice, practice until you’re confident in your skills every practice and you don’t have to fake that confidence anymore because you’ve actually become confident.

Do I have all the answers for how to become a more confident coxswain? No, but what I do have is a way that you can become more confident as a person which will hopefully translate to you becoming more confident as a coxswain. Win-win, right? And don’t gimme that bullshit of “oh, *scoffs* that’s lame, that’s silly, it won’t work, I’ll look pretentious, this is just smart people talk about smart people stuff that only smart people do, etc.” Don’t knock it before you try it. I fully admit that I am one of those people that definitely thought stuff like this was ridiculous until a time came when I needed stuff like this just to make it through the day. Try it for a week and then tell me you don’t feel just a little bit better about yourself and that your coxing isn’t improved by your new-found positive attitude towards yourself.

As she says at the end of her talk, try the power posing and share the science. I shared it with all of you so now I want you to share it with someone else. Forward the link to a coxswain on your team that you see struggling with his/her confidence because like she said, those without resources and power are the ones who need it most. Novice coxswains tend to lack both. This also goes for coxswains who are moving up to varsity. Hopefully they’ve found a few resources that have helped them learn the ins-and-outs of coxing but they might still be lacking when it comes to power so share this with them too.