Tag: documentary
Video of the Week: Winter training with Henrik Rummel
This is Episode 3 of row2k’s video-doc series “The Training Center”. It focuses on Henrik Rummel and his winter training regime, which involves training with the national team while holding down a full-time job as an associate with an investment bank in Princeton.
Video of the Week: The Drive Documentary
If you’re a fan of rowing documentaries, here’s another to add to your watch list. It was put together by a rower on the Ohio State club team and has a lot of cool footage in it, along with some really great interviews with rowers (including national teamers) and coaches from all over the world.
Racing Rowing Video of the Week
Video of the Week: A Fine Balance
This is a must-see documentary on the USA men’s team training for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It’s 90 minutes long and well worth the time spent watching it.
Related: Interview with 2004 M8+ gold medalist coxswain Pete Cipollone
In addition to all the Teti-isms and solid life/rowing lessons, there’s a lot of good audio clips of the coxswains from inside the boats so you should be able to get a couple good calls out of this to use in your boat or pass along to your coxswains.
High School Rowing Video of the Week
Video of the Week: “The most important thing about rowing to take away from this documentary is that it’s not kayaking.”
We’ve all done the junior rowing thing (or are doing it now) so none of this is new to us but for someone who might be new to the sport I think this is would definitely be one of the better videos to show them if you’re trying to explain what rowing is (and isn’t).
Video of the Week: NAAO Documentary on the 1979 Men’s 8+
I’m such a sucker for rowing documentaries so I was really excited when I came across this one. It was made by the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen (one of USRowing’s predecessors) and goes behind the scenes with Harry Parker as the national team’s men’s eight trains for the 1979 World Championships in Bled (when Yugoslavia still existed). He talks about the workouts they do (3 minutes at 37spm – ow), the equipment they use (wood vs. fiberglass shells, kevlar vs. wood oars, etc.), his system for record-keeping and logging his practices/workouts/observations on the rowers (coxswains, this would be beneficial for you), why he doesn’t do technical drills very often, etc.
The last nine minutes shows footage from the 1983 sculling camp that Harry ran in Boston, with several of the attendees being the subjects of “The Amateurs”, which was written two years later.
Video of the Week: Row Like Pigs
In case you’re unfamiliar, “Row Like Pigs” is a student-made film about the 2003 Dartmouth men’s team and is considered to be one of the better rowing documentaries out there.
Here are some of my favorite parts:
Chicken vs. pigs, contribution vs. commitment. Took me a minute to get it but when I did … mind blown.
“In reality, it’s pretty simple. You just have to work phenomenally hard, get phenomenally fit, phenomenally tough, and when we race, lay it all out and you’ll do alright. In fact, you can even win it all. It’s that simple.”
“Refuse to be beaten.” (Imagine that as a call in the a bow ball to bow ball race coming into the last 250m…)
Winter training = football camp, works two things: fundamentals of the sport and fitness; great way to explain it.
“At first you’re just like, are you kidding me but then you’re like ‘I can do this! And not only can I do this, but I can do it well.'”
“Bring the assassin out of the closet.” That’d be a great call.
“When it’s time to go, the Dartmouth guys go. They’re not scared, they don’t hesitate, they walk into the valley of the shadow of death and they do not fear evil.” Replace Dartmouth with your team name and “evil” with your competition’s name. Break this out around 1000m in. Good call for toughness, both physical and mental, when they need it during that middle thousand.
“When you feel the splash, when you hear the splash, that’s when you jump.” Anticipate.
“Seat racing’s maybe one of the hardest things about this sport. You go all fall and winter and then you get this one shot after six months to make the boat, you know, and if you don’t, it’s hard to not look back and have regrets and doubt yourself. And also, one week you’re helping your friend through an erg test, you know, he’s your best bud in the world, and then the next week you got switched across the gunnels with him for a seat race. It’s hard to keep emotions out of it. It’s hard to not make it personal. In the end I guess you gotta just make whatever boat you’re on go fast and just train again for next year’s one shot to make it. Making the first boat isn’t everything. You’ll have more opportunities to do it but if you let that shit distract you for too long, you’ll miss the opportunity to just race boats and have fun.”
“I want that fucking bow ball, push them the fuck away. Put them under your footboards and stomp on them.”
48:42, I like the “40 seconds Dartmouth, now GO!” call.
58:27, honestly if you don’t laugh at this just leave.
It’s an hour long so whenever you’ve got free time or you’re getting an extra workout in, put this on.
Video of the Week: Gold Fever
This video is from a BBC documentary series called “Gold Fever”. It was filmed over the course of the four years leading up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent, Tim Foster, and James Cracknell all had personal video cameras that they used to record video diaries during those four years. You see Steve dealing with his diabetes diagnosis, Tim dealing with all his surgeries and the possibility of not making the final lineup, and many other things.
One of the things I love most about this series is how intensely they take the sport but also how vulnerable they are to the same things that HS and collegiate athletes are vulnerable to. These guys hate getting up in the morning just as much as we do sometimes, but they still get up and do what needs to be done. The way they attack those erg pieces and just fall off the ergs in exhaustion afterwards…that’s dedication.
In the end, the four ended up winning the gold and Steve Redgrave won his FIFTH straight Olympic gold medal.