Tag: novice

Coxing Novice Q&A

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Hi! I’m a sophomore girl who just finished her novice year as first boat coxswain. I began fall as a rower and started coxing half way through winter (after Crash-Bs). Due to several strokes (haha) of luck (for me) I quickly moved up from being my teams third and least experienced coxswain to my teams only, most experienced, and favored coxswain. We eventually gained two more coxswains but I remained my coach’s and rower’s favorite.

Point of this is that coxing novice first 8+ and first 4+ through several gold medals this season had given me a lot of confidence and I thought I’d be ready for varsity and that I might even be able to beat out some of their current coxswains. But, a couple weeks ago, I broke two riggers and and an oar on our best boat during practice in an accident that left the boat itself and my rowers in tact and ever since then I’m pretty sure the varsity coach–my future coach–hates me a little and no longer trusts me like he seemed to before hand. I apologized and took full responsibility for breaking the boat, the riggers and oar were replaced without too much hassle, and me and my rowers went on to place a close 2nd at Midwest in that boat.

The overall point of this whole story are my questions: do you have any tips on how to improve my coxing over the summer (during which I’m not doing any sort of summer rowing programs)? And, are there any specific things you think I should do to help gain the varsity coach’s trust back? I want to prove to him that I’m good enough for second boat or for the lightweight V8 even as a junior with only a year of experience because I really think I’m not that bad of a coxswain now and that any sort of improvement could boost that. Anyway, thank you so much for this blog and for whatever answer or advice you can give!

I’ll be totally honest with you, if I was your coach I’d probably be a little apprehensive of your coxing abilities for awhile too but at the same time, I’d probably chalk part of whatever happened up to you being a novice. I highly doubt your coach hates you though. Adults don’t really experience the same levels of satisfaction that come with blatantly disliking someone the way we did when we were teenagers so it’s likely that you’re just misinterpreting his frustration with the overall situation as something it’s not. I think you’ll agree with me when I say that he definitely has a right to be frustrated too. I don’t think you need to do anything specific to try and win back his trust and truthfully, I’d advise against trying to apologize again or make some grand gesture because it’s like … whatever, it happened, move on already.

That applies to anyone in similar situations too – two times max is really quite enough when it comes to apologies. Once when it happens and again (privately) after practice. After that I just don’t care anymore and will probably get annoyed with you, as I think most coaches would. Saying you’re sorry umpteen hundred times doesn’t actually mean you’re sorry or prove that you’ve learned anything from what happened. Doing something different at practice and upping your game is a much better way to prove you’ve moved on and have become a better coxswain thanks to the situation you were put in. That would do a lot more for restoring my trust in you than probably anything else you could do.

Related: Do you have any advice for a novice coxswain who just crashed for the first time? It really shook me up and I know I won’t be able to get back in the boat for a few days (due to our walk-on coxswain rotation) but I want to get over it.

As far as improving over the summer, if you’re not going to be doing anything rowing related I’d recommend listening to the occasional recording or two when you’ve got some free time (long car rides or flights are perfect for this), doing some research on anything you didn’t fully understand or want to learn more about, etc. Otherwise just take the summer off. There’s nothing wrong with that. If there are rowing programs near you, even if you’re not participating in them see if you can get in contact with one of the coaches and ask to ride in the launch with them for a practice or two. I always liked doing this when I could in Boston because every coach is so unique with their approach that I’d ultimately come off the water having an entirely new perspective on something that I thought I understood pretty well already.

Coxing Novice Q&A Rowing Technique

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I’m brand spanking new at coxing. I’m an indoor rower instructor, where correcting form and giving cues is based on having a good view of body position. As a cox, I don’t have the body cues of my crew to help me (beyond my stern seat.) I know paddle height and timing should be telling me what I need, but I’m having a hard time interpreting what I’m seeing into form correction. Any thoughts you could share are appreciated!

Kayakers use paddles, rowers use oars. “Stern seat” is called “stroke”.

As a coxswain, in general you should be less concerned with correcting the bodies and more focused on the things you can see like bladework, timing, puddles, etc. Anything specific regarding the bodies will most likely be individual in nature and come straight from the coach since they have an easier time seeing those kinds of things. You should pay attention to what they’re saying to the rowers or crew as a whole so you can make “reminder” calls as necessary but the majority of your “body calls” are going to come from things you’ve heard the coach say, observations you’ve made on land, etc. and less so from direct observations while you’re coxing.

Just to clarify, I consider “body calls” to be about 99% related to posture and nothing else. Things such as handle heights, for example, are straight technique calls for me because I don’t need to see the body to know what the hands are doing since I can see the oars right in front of me. If something relating to posture is resulting in poor handle heights then I’d normally rely on the coach to make that call before I start postulating from several seats away what the exact issue is.

Now that I’ve been coxing for awhile I can typically make those calls on my own and be right or at least in the ballpark the majority of the time but when I was a novice I’d wait for my coach to make the call and then eventually incorporate the things he said into my own calls during practice, pieces, races, etc. once I had a solid understanding of the issue. Usually he’d go over with me after practice what he saw, why he said what he said, why this is the correction he had them make, etc. and then give me a day or so to process everything before asking me (spur of the moment) to explain it all back to him.

Most of the time it’d be on the water and he’d say “Kayleigh, if you were me, what would you say to Abby in order to correct the problem she’s having with missing water at the catch?” or something along those lines. When I could explain it back to him on the spot, in detail, and in front of my teammates proficiently enough, that is when he’d allow me to start making calls and corrections relating to that issue on my own. This demonstrated to him (and to an extent, my teammates) that I wasn’t just wildly guessing at what might be causing the problem, rather I was making a fairly certain educated guess on what was happening based on what I knew about the stroke, what I knew the rower’s tendencies were, and what the typical corrections were for that or similar issues. When making any kind of calls for the body, having the memory of an elephant helps a ton.

Poor timing is less about body position and more about just being too slow or too fast on the recovery. It can be because of other things but those are the more common reasons. Oar height is related to handle heights. If the blade is up in the air (known as “skying”) then the hands are too close to the legs on the recovery and/or feet at the catch. If the blade is barely off or dragging on the water then the rower most likely didn’t tap his hands down at the finish, meaning the hands are too high. The collection point for the finish is around the belly button/bottom rib so pulling in to this point should give you a solid couple of inches to tap the blade out. When they come away on the recovery the blade should be about six inches off the water to allow for a direct catch with little to no missed water. (If you have more specific questions – i.e. you’re seeing this, what does it mean, how should it be corrected, etc. – feel free to email me.)

Have your coach take a camera out on the water with him and try to get some video of the crew rowing if you want to learn more about what the rowers bodies look like and the corrections they need to make. Also ask if you can ride in the launch one day if you’ve got another coxswain who can switch in for you. I would say though that if you’re just coxing recreationally or as part of a learn-to-row program and not as part of a competitive team, don’t over-think things and try to find a solution to every problem right off the bat or think that every technique error is strictly related to something going wrong with the bodies. (I wouldn’t recommend doing that even if you are coxing competitively…) Just go out, have fun, and steer the boat. Let your coach do the coaching and just listen to what he/she is saying until you become proficient enough to make the calls yourself.

I went out a couple times with some of the adult classes when I coached at CRI and there were few things more irritating than trying to coach a boat with this one rower who knew pretty much nothing about rowing but thought they knew everything because they’d just recently been certified as an indoor instructor. Whenever they’d get in the coxswain’s seat they’d try to make all these grand observations and corrections but all it did was confuse the other rowers, waste time, and piss the coaches off. Input and communication between the coach and coxswain is great and pretty crucial but when you’re just starting out, the best thing you can do is just listen and develop a better understanding for the stroke before trying to make corrections on your own. One of my coaches used to say “you coach the blades and I’ll coach the bodies” and that worked well for us because I coached what I could easily see and he did the same without either of us interfering with the other. We’d both listen to what the other was saying and factor that into the calls we were making but for the most part, I was responsible for coaching/correcting the bladework and he focused on coaching and correcting the body positions.

Coxing High School Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Hello!! First I just wanted to say that I am a high school novice cox and your blog has helped me so much. But I have a problem. My varsity/head coaches are so supportive and nice, but my novice coach isn’t. She has missed practice almost everyday for 3 weeks, and she flipped when I missed practice one day for an appointment that I had scheduled months in advance. She’s a good athletic coach who knows a lot about rowing and sports injuries, but not about feelings. At our last regatta my dad was talking to her. Today at practice in front of my whole team she blamed for the team’s loss. Considering the fact that she hasn’t been a real part of the team and then just shows up out of the blue, I think that’s part of what messed up the team. She came in and changed our start sequence and everything that we’ve learned. She kept knocking me down in front of the team. It got the point that I came home and cried for two hours. Everyone on my team calls her “a hero” because of how much she knows. I agree that she knows a lot about rowing, but not about coxing. What should I do?

Whoa. Personally, I automatically lose a lot of respect for any coach that calls someone out like that in front of the team, especially in a sport that is as team-oriented as rowing is. That’s just not cool. I can’t really even understand her frustration with you missing practice due to an appointment that was scheduled months in advance. If you’re a novice how likely was it that you knew you’d be doing crew when the appointment was made anyways? Regardless, it’s pretty hypocritical for her to be upset that you missed one practice if she’s not even consistently there.

If you’re not comfortable talking directly to her, I’d say that if you’ve got a good relationship with your head coaches, talk with them since that’s obviously who she’d report to hierarchy-wise. You could also have your dad there if you wanted since he talked with her at your regatta and might have addressed some of the issues you’ve been having. Explain the issue(s) to your coaches though and say that while it’s obvious that she knows her stuff about rowing, it’s coming across like she doesn’t understand much about coxing and it’s becoming very frustrating for you because instead of being coached you’re being blamed for team losses, etc. Hopefully from there either they can talk with her or have a group meeting with you and her. I would say outside of just ignoring the negative things she says, talking with them and hoping they can address things with her is probably your best/only option.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Hi! I’m a Novice Coxswain (who use to be a varsity rower until I told my coach I wanted to cox cause I’m 5’0″) and I cox a men’s Novice 8 (I’m a girl) . Lately they’ve been disrespecting me and ignoring my commands. I’ve told the coaches and other coxswains (we are a small team and only have 5 coxswains) and my coaches always remind everyone to “respect your coxswains or you’ll be kicked off the team” besides them being mean and rude to me. We haven’t won a race all season and they are starting to blame me – but I feel like it’s not really my fault much? And last regatta my stroke seat hurt his arm picking up the boat at the regatta and according to a friend of mine they were all blaming me for him hurting his arm. They also got mad at me for saying “C’mon I’ve seen you row harder!” which I understand but they were getting up on me for ‘hurting their feelings’ (like them harassing me and picking on me isn’t hurting mine??). Not only that but another coxswain who had to cox them while I was out said meaner things to them and the same exact thing – but they never got mad at her and I think it’s because she flirts with them and stuff. At this point I don’t know what to do and I love the varsity rowers so much but I’m thinking about retiring early this season so I don’t have to deal with them…

I don’t get why coaches threaten to kick people off the team if they disrespect their coxswains (or anyone else). It’s not like anyone ever follows through with that. The day a coach kicks their best rower(s) off the team for being a dick to their coxswain (or hell, vice versa too…) is the day I start working for NASA.

I think that when things go wrong and there’s no one specifically to blame, it’s easiest for people to blame the coxswain because “it’s not like you do anything” and the rowers are bigger than us so there’s that whole thing where they think they’re intimidating us when in reality, they just look like assholes. With the exception of a few special cases, I really do believe that no one person is ever to blame for a loss. Everyone is responsible though because you’re a crew and that’s how it works. There’s always something that everyone can do a little bit better.

If your stroke hurt his arm … how is that your fault? Unless there’s some major details you’re leaving out, like you hired someone to Tonya Harding him out of spite or something, then just ignore it because they’re just looking for someone to blame and you’re an easy target (or so they think). I can understand why they’d get pissed at you for saying “I’ve seen you row harder” but at the same time, that’s a necessary and legitimate call sometimes. Of course there are better ways to phrase it but sometimes you’ve gotta be blunt about it because you know they’re capable of more than they’re doing right now. If saying that somehow hurt their feelings … wow.

If I was their coxswain I’d tell them to shut up, suck it up, and oh, I donno, row like they’re capable and then maybe I wouldn’t have to make calls like that. I take serious issue with rowers who think that their power output is directly proportional to how good (or bad) they think a coxswain’s calls are, like if the coxswain isn’t making good calls then that somehow makes it OK for them to row with the power of an eight year old. You can still row at 100% if the coxswain is making shitty calls. A coxswain is supposed to enhance your rowing but at the end of the day, you are still in control of your oar. You’re the one that decides how hard to push off and pull through the water, not the coxswain. Don’t interpret that as me taking any responsibility away from the coxswains because I’m not, I’m just making sure you guys are aware of your role in this. You can’t put all the blame on the coxswain when things go wrong because you bear some of the responsibility too. You are the ones with the oars in your hand.

As far as the other coxswain goes, I donno, as a fellow coxswain that’s just a non-issue for me. Not that you’re doing this but just a word of caution to all the women out there: don’t be that female coxswain that gets pissed off because another female coxswain is getting along well with a men’s crew. Just don’t. If you want to come off as a super petty, immature bitch then go for it but don’t assume that she’s flirting with them or doing anything else to/for/with them just because the guys are listening to her and she’s having a good time with them. Maybe she’s just a good coxswain who has found a way that works when it comes to communicating with them. Instead of making assumptions or spreading rumors you should talk to her and say “hey, I’ve been having a hard time trying to work with these guys but you’ve seemed to figure out how to get them to respond to you – what’s your secret?”. I can’t say that I really stay on top of the rules of feminism but I’m pretty sure that tearing other women down because of how successful they are or questioning how they got where they are isn’t one of them.

Coxing Novice Q&A Racing

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Hey! I’m a novice coxswain and yesterday we had our first race which we lost by a lot. I struggled with trying to motivate my boat when we really didn’t have a chance of coming back. I could tell everyone felt pretty defeated and I didn’t know what to say to keep them working hard. Do you have any advice on what sort of calls I can make if this happens again? (Fingers crossed it doesn’t)

Check out the two posts linked below. The first one is a video from the Harvard, Penn, and Navy race from last spring and the second is a question about coxing off of other boats when you’re doing pieces at practice. Both touch on similar issues of one boat being way ahead of the other(s) and ways to deal with that as the coxswain.

Related: VOTW: Harvard, Penn, and Navy

The toughest thing is not letting what you’re seeing come across in your tone of voice. If the rowers start to detect any sign of defeat in your voice it’s going to change the entire attitude of the boat. It can from “yea, we’re in this!” to “screw it, why bother” in a very short period of time if you’re not careful. Don’t start getting overly-motivational because that just makes it obvious that you think they have no chance but on the flip side, don’t get completely dour or silent either.

I was fortunate enough that I was only in this position maybe two times that I can remember and the thing that I told my crews both times was that regardless of where we finished, we were going to cross the line looking, acting, and rowing like a first place crew. Being down in a race is no excuse for letting your technique get sloppy or your attitude to become “woe is me”. Losing a race and having a bad race aren’t synonymous – you can lose and still have a good row. The crews that are ahead should always be just the tiniest bit afraid that you could come back on them at any given second. It doesn’t matter if you’re in first place or fifth place though, you should finish the race rowing as hard and as well as you can.

Related: My girls really like when I cox off of other boats, even if we’re just doing steady state. I’m in the 2V boat so they all want to beat the 1V at ALL times. I find it easy to cox when we’re next to another boat/in front of it. However, I never quite know what to say without being negative and annoying when we’re CLEARLY behind another boat. Yesterday afternoon we were practically three lengths behind the v1, and we STILL didn’t catch up even when they added a pause. What do I say at times like these? I always end up getting rather quiet since the overall attitude of my boat is pretty down. I feel like whenever I call a 10 or get into the piece at this point it does absolutely nothing, since my rowers have practically given up.

This is where intrinsic motivation is so important because, like you said, it’s easy for a coxswain to just run out of things to say to keep their rowers going. The rowers should have their own personal reasons for being out there (that their coxswain doesn’t know about) that they can rely on for motivation when they need a reason to keep going. I would try to remind the rowers in close races or races where we were down a few seats (particularly in the 3rd 500) to think about why you row … what do you do it for? … and then we’d take a BIG refocus 5 for that. I wanted to be able to feel their motivation in those five strokes. This would always gain us back a couple seats and from there, I’d cox them like normal until we crossed the line.

The best thing you can do is to find something that will put a bit of energy back in the boat and then capitalize on that. There is no “magic call” for this and it’ll very rarely be the same thing between boats – it’s gotta be completely unique to each crew, something that you only know because you know your rowers and what drives them. They key is remembering that all you’ve gotta do is ignite a spark and let the fire follow. Once you see the fire in your rowers, fuel it like you would during any other race.

Another thing I’d say to them is something our coaches said to us after a particularly rough practice and before all of our races: who do you row for? They’d ask us two to three times, louder and more aggressively each time, WHO DO YOU ROW FOR? My interpretation of that was that they were always reminding us that what we’re doing is bigger than any one individual. You’re rowing for each other, your teammates, and for the pride you have in your program. Pride and dignity should be two huge forces that drive your crew and you want to be able to cross the line with both of those things intact regardless of where you finish.

Talk about the importance of mental toughness with them too. Remind them that just because there’s a voice in your head telling you there’s no point in continuing to row hard doesn’t mean you have to listen to it. Also remind them that the other four or eight people in the boat aren’t giving up, which means they can’t either. The only time you should ever assume anything during a race is that you’re the only one doubting yourself. Always assume that the other four or eight people are 100% confident in your abilities as individuals and as a crew. That should be enough to change your mindset really quick.

Related: Words.

Finally, talk to your crew about your race and find out what they were thinking, how they felt, and what you could have said to keep them going. Get their feedback and use all of that to help shape your calls for next week. Whenever you feel them starting to slip off the pace (this applies to practice too), use what they said to you about your last race to keep them going hard in this race.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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I’ve been having problems with one of the assistant coaches. Overall, his attitude towards me has been one of dislike/disappointment. Part of this may be due to him not knowing I’m a novice cox and expecting me to be at the level of an experienced one (I’ve been with the varsity a lot #coxswainshortage), but most of it is definitely due to a few bouts of incompetence earlier in the season.

Now, however, I’ve improved significantly, but he still has very little patience for me (compared to other coxes) when I ask for clarification on the water and is very reluctant and disdainful when I ask for advice (on land). In addition, there’s significant communication issues, as he (and the other coaches) use plastic-cone megaphones, and whenever I can’t hear clearly and ask for clarification (or can’t hear at all), they always interpret it as me not paying attention, which further reinforces his bad image of me.

Today especially was a terrible practice, as all these elements and more were at play. My boat and one other were under his sole supervision the entire time we were on the water. He was pissed at one of the other boats not with us at the time, and he was quite clearly projecting that anger onto us. Due to various factors (seaplanes, head coach not present, pointed his megaphone at other boat) the communication issues were at an all time high, and his short fuse made me afraid to ask for clarification. As a consequence, I felt quite helpless, especially as he seemed strangely angry whenever I did manage to do what he wanted. In addition, it seemed as if he were merely along for the ride, as said NOTHING other than the drills and pieces we were supposed to be doing. Help!

Dear coaches, you wanna know who can hear what you’re saying when you use those stupid cone things? NOOO ONEEE. No one knows what you’re saying because your words are muffled and not in any way whatsoever louder or clearer than if you just shouted them from across the river. Those cones suck. Stop using them, particularly if you’re the type of coach who gets pissed and/or irritated when your coxswains ask you for clarification or to repeat your instructions because they couldn’t hear you the first time you said them. And again, just to reiterate the point, the reason they couldn’t hear and/or understand is because – say it with me! – THOSE. CONES. SUCK. Seriously, just save everyone the frustration and buy a megaphone.

Have you talked to your head coach about this? I could tell you how to deal with each of these problems individually if it was like, a one-off situation but it sounds more like the issues you’re having with the assistant have turned into habitual problems. When it gets to that point, that’s when you need to consult whoever’s above them (in this case, your head coach) and bring to their attention what’s been going on. If you haven’t brought any of this up, I would try talking with your head coach privately and explaining the situation. Since he actually knows your assistant he might be able to give you some advice on how to work with him or what the best ways are to go about communicating with him. At the very least, hopefully he can talk to him and point out the fact that what he’s doing isn’t effective for anyone (and that he’s being an asshole).

If he doesn’t know that you’re a novice I would definitely point that out to him so that he does know. I can understand expecting you to cox at a higher level if you’ve been working with the varsity crews (that’s understandable and pretty reasonable, regardless of why you’re with them) but you’re also going to make mistakes simply because you aren’t experienced enough yet to know better. That’s to be expected of any novice coxswain, provided you learn from the mistakes you make and make an effort to not repeat them in the future. He should be making an effort to teach you how to avoid making those mistakes too instead of getting annoyed at you if/when it happens.

Whatever “bouts of incompetence” you had before really doesn’t matter now, particularly if you’ve stepped up your game and improved your skills. If he seems reluctant to give you advice when you’re just talking face to face, honestly, I feel like I can pretty much guarantee that it’s because he doesn’t know what to tell you. I’ve had plenty of coaches do that before and the older/more experienced I got, the more I realized it was just a way to avoid saying “I don’t know”.

I’ve definitely had days where stuff outside of crew has pissed me off enough that I’ve brought it to practice with me but I do try really hard to not project that on to the people I’m coxing or coaching. It’s just not productive or fair. If another boat does something that makes me mad or makes them worthy of being made an example of then I’ll try to explain to whatever boat I’m coaching why I’m mad, why what they did was wrong, and what they should have done instead. That’s a much better use of your time as a coach because at least the rowers will learn something.

The best thing you can do as the coxswain in that situation though is to keep your boat under control and not do anything to aggravate his already short fuse. Having to tip toe around your coach is pretty shitty but sometimes it’s the best thing for you and your crew to do. It might and probably will be very tempting to back talk him and just blurt out “dude, what is your problem” when he’s treating you unfairly due to something completely unrelated to your boat but you have to resist the urge and just keep your mouth shut. By no means does that mean you have to accept it, just don’t engage it at that moment.

One thing you should never be afraid of though is to talk to your coach about something and if you are, that’s when you need to go over their head and talk to the head coach about all of this. Feeling helpless as a coxswain is quite possibly the worst feeling you can experience (been there, felt that, it sucks), especially when you already feel like none of the coaches have your back or are willing to help you out when you need it. The best advice I can offer you in this situation though is to talk to your head coach, either on your own or with a couple guys from your boat, and let him handle this. It sounds like it’s gotten to the point where it’s more of a personnel problem that he needs to handle than anything else.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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Hi. So I am one of 4 coxswains on my team. We primarily have 3 boats: 1 V8+, 1 N8+ and 1 V4+. I have the second most experience coxing of the four of us, yet my coach is putting me with novices. Over the last few weeks I have only been coxing the V8+ and V4+. Our first race is on Sunday, and I have only been in the Novice boat one time since we got back on the water. The coxswain who has the least experience is practicing with varsity this week, but I feel like I should be there since I’ve been working with them the most, and we seem to have found a good rhythm. I want to talk to my coach about it, but I don’t want to sound like I think I’m entitled just because I’m older than the other coxswain. Thanks!

I’ve been in that exact same position before, as the novice coxswain and the experienced one. When I was a novice my coaches put the new coxswains with the 1V, 2V, and JV8s and the varsity coxswains with the N8+, F8+, and whatever fours we had. The purpose for doing that was to give the novice coxswains an opportunity to learn how to steer, practice the basic commands, etc. with people who already knew what they were doing. (Novice coxswains + novice rowers = the deaf and blind leading the deaf and blind, leading to verrrrry frustrated coaches). Learning to steer is infinitely easier if you can practice with people who can already row reasonably well and know how to maintain the set.

Practicing the basic calls is easy too because if you make a mistake the coach doesn’t have to worry about everything going to hell as a result. In most cases, the stroke can talk the coxswain through the warm ups or drills and answer any questions they have, which is also really helpful. It also gives the coach peace of mind that if they somehow get in a bad situation (on the wrong side of the river, stuck in some branches on shore, coming into the dock wrong, etc.), the rowers can talk themselves out of it while the coxswain absorbs what is happening so they know in the future what they should do instead (alternatively, the stroke can tell the coxswain what needs to happen and the coxswain can repeat those calls to the crew, thus learning what they need to say and who they need to say it to).

As the varsity coxswain in the novice boat, this is really for the coach more than anything else because it gives them the chance to work directly with the rowers without having to worry about the coxswain not knowing what to do and/or steering them off a cliff. They can also have you go through the drills with the rowers without having to explain every detail of how it’s done first, which allows them to concentrate their focus on developing the rowers’ technique. Having really good communication skills and lots of patience are also qualities that would entice the coach to put you with the novices. My patience was never that high but I made up for it with my ability to explain what we were doing, how it was done, etc. in a way that new rowers could understand.

Since it seems like a couple of the coxswains are switched around and not just you, I would maybe wait until after this weekend to say something if your coach maintains these lineups through the end of the week. My assumption would be that he wants both the novice eight and the novice coxswain to get a race under their belts without being hindered by one another, meaning the novice eight can focus on rowing their race while being coxed by someone who knows what they’re doing and the novice coxswain can practice steering a straight course with a crew that has good enough technique to not get in the way of that. That way when they eventually get in the same boat, both will know roughly what to do thanks to having the opportunity to first work with people who actually do know what to do. This will also give you the opportunity to work on your communication skills and introducing the novice crew to what racing is really like, in addition to explaining some of the things that you learned as a novice that the coach might not be able to explain.

After this weekend if your coach doesn’t switch you back to your normal boats, then you can approach him and ask if the lineups you’re in now are permanent or if they’re just temporary. I feel like that’s a pretty normal thing to want to know so I don’t think posing that question makes you appear entitled at all. As long as you don’t come off all “WTF this is BS, I’ve been here longer, I deserve the top boat” and get all whiny about it, you should be fine. I asked my coaches the same question two years in a row and they answered it pretty casually both times.

Coxing Novice Q&A Teammates & Coaches

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The cox on our boat (novice 8) is annoyingly unfocused a lot of the time – she doesn’t listen to our coach about our drills, she complains a lot which wastes our water time, she always has the wrong cox box or attachment, and she always chats to stroke seat instead of leading us. The boys’ team said they had similar problems when she coxed them last term. Should I speak to her or our coach and what should I say?

This is one of those situations where you have to tread lightly because you never know how the other person is going to take it – they can either accept the feedback and do something different, ignore it, or run to your coach and say you’re ganging up on or bullying them. If you have team captains I would first bring it up with them, say what you said up above, and ask if they would mind saying something to her and letting her know that the rowers are getting frustrated so she needs to start being more attentive and focused. Since they have slightly more experience than you do it might be easier/better for them to address it first than for someone of equal standing (aka you) to bring it up. Plus, you’re each others peers and no matter how harsh you’ve gotta be, its always better to hear stuff like this from your teammates than from your coach(es).

If you don’t have team captains I would ask maybe one or two other rowers from the boat to come with you when you talk to her. Try to pull her aside after practice one day and let her know that her behavior is distracting to everyone else in the boat and it’s becoming more and more apparent that she’s not as focused as she needs to be. Having the wrong equipment, not listening to the coach, calling drills wrong, talking to the stroke when she shouldn’t be, etc. is frustrating to you guys because its not possible for you to do what you need to do if the person who’s supposed to be leading you is giving off an “I don’t care” attitude. You shouldn’t be afraid to be frank about that either – you have every right to be upset if your coxswain’s not doing what he/she needs to do. I would avoid bringing up anything about knowing how she was with the guys because that’ll make it seem like you’re all talking about her behind her back, which will just make the situation worse.

If after talking to her nothing changes (I’d give it at least a week), then I would go to your coach with the same two or three people you originally brought with you and tell them what’s going on. Let them know that you’ve talked with her or asked the team captains to say something to her and nothing changed. It’s likely that they’re frustrated as well with her not listening to them, having the wrong cox box, etc. so hopefully none of this would be news to them.

Novice Q&A

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I joined my university rowing club with the intention of rowing for them, however, as the club is very small and I coxed a little in autumn, I find myself being asked to cox, both for my squad (novice women) and the two senior squads. I’m 5ft10 and 125lbs, so really quite big for a cox. I really don’t want to lose my place in the main novice eight if I’m never going to be a decent cox, but equally, I’m not the strongest in the boat (probably around 4th based on technique and ergs) so coxing might be a good way to go. I don’t know whether to dedicate myself to coxing, and accept I’ll be on the large side, or stick to rowing. Could you shed any light on the frequency and success of coxes who aren’t pocket sized? Thank you.

I personally don’t know too many non-pocket sized coxswains but the ones that come to mind were all lightweight rowers that switched to coxing due to an injury. They didn’t do too bad with it, the only problem they had was fitting in the seat since they were several inches taller than the average coxswain. Even though coxswains usually are pretty tiny, it’s the weight that matters more than anything else. A good number of men that cox are in the 5’8″ to 5’10” range (Zach Vlahos, the senior men’s coxswain, is 5’9″…) so it’s definitely feasible if you wanted to keep doing it.

If you’re fourth on the ergs you’re in the upper part of the the middle of the pack which leads me to assume that if you trained hard enough you could probably be one of the top people in there. Only time can tell whether or not you’re a good coxswain unless you do something so egregious right off the line that your coach decides that it would take more time and effort than it’s worth to teach you to cox than it would to just coach you towards being a stronger rower. I would talk with your coaches and see what they say but if you’ve got the option I’d probably stick with rowing. I would tell your coaches too that you don’t want to lose your spot in the novice 8+ and let them know that your preference is rowing so that they know and can either find someone else to cox or make sure that you’re at least getting an adequate amount of training time with your own boat.