Before you click out of the video after 10 seconds because you realize there’s no commentary … don’t. Not only will you miss a pretty sick finish, you’ll also miss (what I can only assume is) the best “fuuuuck, are they walking, nooo…” reaction from the Italian coxswain at 4:30ish (and lasting for at least the next 20 seconds).
Tag: world rowing
Video of the Week: The rowing race explained
If you’re new to the sport, this video gives a good overview of what each 500 of a 2k is like. This is good for coxswains to watch too so you can get an idea of how the athletes are feeling throughout the race and plan/strategize your calls and moves accordingly.
Video of the Week: M8+ Final Lucerne 1995
This was another race that Michiel talked about this summer at the Sparks camps. The second 500 wasn’t a good one for the Dutch – they fell down to fifth – but they came back in the second thousand, mainly in the last 500, to finish second behind the Russians. Less than a second separated 2nd through 4th place at the end.
Video of the Week: “Our reasons to row differ but the sport remains the same…”
“Rowing is a sport where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and teamwork is embedded in our soul.”
Coxswain Recordings, pt. 37
Marcus McElhenney USA Men’s 8+ vs. Oxford University Boat Club
The first thing you hear is Marcus getting the crew set before the start. I like that he says “stern pair, hands only” because the “hands only” part isn’t something a lot of coxswains do. When you’re trying to get aligned, unless you’re several seats back (and even then…), the rowers don’t always need to be taking full-slide strokes. Sometimes hands only, arms only, etc. will get the job done. Awareness of the distance you need to move and the amount of manpower it’ll take to get from Point A to Point B is a crucial skill that you’ve gotta learn so that when you’ve gotta make small adjustments like this, you can do so quickly and efficiently with no hesitation.
At 0:41 you also hear him say “my hand is up, do not go…”. Rule #1 of racing – if you’re not ready, don’t go. This would be a good habit to get into with your crews as you’re getting your points at the start so that if you find yourselves in a situation where you’re actually not ready, the crew won’t flinch when you say “don’t go”.
An important part of coxing when you first start out is learning the role motivation should play in your race plan (it’s literally one of the lowest priorities) and how to incorporate it without sounding like a cheerleader. A call that Marcus makes at 2:35 that I love is “use your 5:50s now!”, which is a great call for power but it also serves as a solid motivational call. (I can see it being used a lot with men’s crews.) Many of his “motivational” calls are team related too – use your 5:50s, show Mike Teti what you can do, you’re the USA Men’s 8+, etc., which should give you a good starting point if you’re trying to come up with some calls of your own.
At 6:47 he says “if you can hold them now, we can take that turn.” I like this because it shows he’s thinking a few steps ahead of where he’s at now. He’s taking the information he’s getting from what’s around him, looking at the distance between where they are and the turn, and assessing the situation … and he’s doing all that in the middle of the race without letting it impact any of the other stuff he’s doing. This is also a good call to make to your crew, especially for a head race when you’re jostling for positions.
“I’ve had enough of this sittin’ around shit!” – pretty sure Marcus has said that to coxswains who weren’t hustling fast enough at camp. I’ve made similar calls when we’re just sitting on a crew and the change in words helps, obviously, but it’s the change in tone that makes the biggest impact. You can just sense that there’s a different sense of urgency when he says this compared to what he was saying before this call. In this call you can hear that he’s demanding more of the crew even though he’s not specifically saying “give me more”.
Last thing – at 8:40 he says “you know these guys can sprint, you know they can sprint!”. This is smart because it reminds the crew that even though they’ve taken the lead now, it’s in no way secure yet and they can’t underestimate Oxford just because their (USA) bow ball is in front. This is why it’s always a good idea to have an idea of what the strengths/weaknesses are in the crews you’re racing against. I don’t think you need to get all stalker-ish and scout the hell out of them but if you hear things like Columbia has a strong sprint or Washington takes a move at 750m and leaves everyone in their dust … you’ll know that if you somehow get up on them, you can’t take that position for granted because these other crews might still have something in their back pocket that they’re waiting to break out and use against you.
I also like how at the end he keeps them focused on rowing well at the end of the race. I hear a lot of coaches really harp on not being dramatic after a piece and immediately getting them rowing inside arm only, maintaining some semblance of timing, etc. is a good way to avoid that.
USA Women’s 8+ 2010 World Cup III Final
Similar to Marcus, whenever her hand goes up or comes down, she tells her crew. The start of the race is typical Kaitlin, just like all the other recordings I’ve posted – she’s super chill but still being very direct, very focused, and very in her boat.
At 0:45 – 0:47 when she says “we’re gonna take our first lengthen in two … one, send it … two, now…”, you can hear that nothing changes with her volume, the only thing that is different is the inflection in her voice and that naturally lends to a more aggressive punch behind “two, now“. If you’re trying to work on maintaining your composure and being calm while also still being intense … that’s a perfect example.
There are a thousand and twelve things to take away from all the recordings I’ve posted of hers but if there’s one thing you get out of them, it should be how good she is at using her tone of voice to communicate with the crew. Her words are on point but it’s her tone that makes them effective. Another example is at 5:15 when she says “In two we lengthen and go with legs, ready? One … two, TONE CHANGE NOW. Boom, that’s it … Boom, Katie! YES, walking!”. Not only was there a tone change in her voice, there was an actual physical change in the tone of their race. This was their move and she did an incredible job of facilitating that by being relaxed and focused up to this point so that when she said “tone change!” not only did they hear it in her voice but they felt it too.
Other calls I liked:
“Trust the plan, trust your rhythm…”
You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.
Video of the Week: “You are gonna fucking beat them, you hear me?”
This week’s video isn’t embeddable so click here to check it out. Whenever the “which race is the best race ever” conversation pops up, everyone always talks about the men’s pair race from 2000 (I think) when the French pair started sprinting at like, 750m, but this race puts that one to shame.
Related: Katelin Snyder coxswain recordings
Make sure you’ve got headphones or are somewhere quiet so you can listen closely to Katelin’s calls, particularly around the 6:15ish mark.
College Coxing Racing Recordings Rowing
Coxswain Recordings, pt. 34
As most of you know I got to coach at the coxswain camp that Sparks hosted in Tampa the week after Christmas. One of the other coaches was Katelin Snyder, current coxswain of the USA women’s eight, and she graciously offered to send me a bunch of her recordings to put on the blog. I’ve been obsessing over these things for the last week so I’m really excited to finally share some of them with you guys. The three I’m posting today are all in a playlist on my YouTube channel that I’ll keep updated as I share more of her audio in future posts.
University of Washington Opening Day 2008 vs. Navy and Poland
This is from Katelin’s junior year at UW, her second year in a row coxing the varsity eight.
Right off the bat you can hear how she calls the start isn’t like how a lot of coxswains call it. There’s some punch behind her words but for the most part she’s very calm and relaxed. One of the big concepts that we’ve talked about with coxswains at the Sparks camps is not losing your shit at the start of the race and instead remaining composed and keeping your focus on steering straight through the first five or so strokes. This is a perfect example of what that should sound like.
At 0:45, I really like how she called their stride – “we’re striding in three strokes, increasing boat speed in two…”. She says what she wants (stride) followed up with an objective (increasing boat speed), and says it all as succinctly as possible.
When calling something like a minute move like she did at 1:17, it’s easy to think that in 60 seconds you can take a handful of seats on the other boat(s) but I like that she kept it simple here by going after just one seat and calling out the guy in her boat whose seat they were targeting (and then told him when they’d got it).
In between her calling “inches” you can hear her stroke say “length!” at 4:13, which she immediately follows up with on the next call by calling for more length through the water. That’s a fairly common question that I get, how to communicate with your stroke during the race and this is a good example of how simple it really is.
University of Washington vs. California 2009 Duel
OK, so for some context watch this video of the race that was taken from the launch. Turn your volume up too and prepare yourself for the single greatest move that I think I’ve ever seen at 1:41. (TBH I’m kind of excited to hear from inside the boat how this move played out because we saw Washington do something similar several times at IRAs last year, including when they were in our race in the V4+, so … it’s nice having some insider knowledge now of how they do it.)
I really like the “lengthen and increase boat speed” call she makes out of the start at 0:40 as a reminder to not let the power fall off as the stroke rate starts to ease out into their base pace. Also saying “hold the knees” instead of something related to the slides is a good alternative; it’s a more active call than just “slow the slides” or whatever we normally say.
I like that they take their move at 650m in. Calling moves at the 500m, 1000m, etc. is fine but these moves taken at relatively unconventional spots are what gets your bow ball in front. Starting at 1:52, I’m obsessed with this chunk of calls, particularly the “get outta here!” one. I’ve looped it so many times because even without watching the video, I can feel California’s souls getting crushed and as a coxswain there are few better feelings than seeing that moment when the other crew realizes they’re about to get dropped. After you make a successful move on another crew, the next thing you have to do is watch them for the counter attack because it will happen and you don’t want to be caught off guard when it does. I like how she stays calm at 2:25 and reminds them to defend it by completing the strokes (nothing fancy, just relying on flawless execution of the basics) before calling that ten at the thousand to “end it”.
Lengthening out at 1250m is a really solid strategic move. It’s not necessarily a move to gain anything, rather it’s an internal move to get the bodies ready for the last 500m. By 1250m – the middle of the third 500 – this is probably the peak of pain before the rowers catch that second wind leading up to the sprint. Reminding them to breathe, stay long, etc. eliminates any tension that could otherwise shorten the strokes and decrease the boat speed.
At 3:55 you can hear the stroke say “They’re going!”, which is Reason #875 why stroke-coxswain communication is important. If you’re far enough ahead that you don’t have a clear view of the other boat in your peripheral vision, you’ll need to rely on your stroke seat to alert you to when the other boat starts to move on you.
Team USA Women’s 8+ 2010 World Cup III Heat
This is my favorite of these three recordings. Note how, similarly to the other two recordings, she has a very focused calm in her voice during the start. It isn’t until about 60 seconds into the race where her coxing voice really comes out.
At 4:48 when they’re approaching 750m she makes this call: “…5 more and we lengthen back out. I wanna do it by sending … now send through the back end.” Similarly to the “lengthen and increase boat speed” calls, I like this one because the objectives are clear and she’s calling for them to do it by calling on her knowledge of the stroke and by emphasizing their swing and acceleration (which if that’s something you know your crew does really well, you should incorporate that into calls like this and work the rhythm that comes from it). I also love how her voice is pretty chill at the start of this and then there’s that kick in her voice when she says “fuck yea” – the excitement there is motivating in itself but the contrast in her tone would for sure make me drop a split or two if I were rowing.
Similarly to the lengthen move at 1250m in the previous recording, I like this “breathe for 5” move that they take at 6:45 coming into the last 500m. This has always been one that I do too with my crews just as another way to get them to stay fluid and loose and refocus before we make the final push to the line. The thing to remember with calls like this (that Katelin does really well) is you have to match your tone to the intensity of your call – a call like this can’t be said in the same tone as the “we’re gonna send a fucking message to Canada” call.
Side note, one of the many amusing stories that the guys told me last year about our V8+ coxswain was how during a race he was trying to get the crew to relax and because he was getting progressively more frustrated with how the boat felt, eventually he yelled “JUST. FUCKING. RELAX!!!” which obviously accomplished absolutely nothing. Don’t do that. If you’re gonna make a call that falls under the “relax” umbrella, your tone has to be a little more subdued that it is during the more intense parts of the race.
One last thing I want to point out is the swearing, which I’ve talked about on here a few times (most recently in this post). These recordings are some more good examples of how to swear and how to make it work without sounding like a try-hard. If you’re a junior coxswain and even less so as a collegiate coxswain, very few people are ever going to actually care that you said “fuck” during a race if you use it to punctuate your calls like she does. It’s when it gets gratuitous that coaches get annoyed because it’s just unnecessary and can be borderline unsportsmanlike.
Other calls I liked:
“Hold your momentum…”
“Third 500 is crushing … base … speed!”
“We’re gonna send a fucking message to Canada!”
You can find and listen to more recordings by checking out the “Coxswain Recordings” page.
Video of the Week: 1997 M8+ World Championships
This week’s video isn’t embeddable so click here to go watch it on World Rowing’s website. I’m not sure why I had this specific race bookmarked but it’s a good showdown between the United States, Romania, and Australia.
If for whatever reason it doesn’t load – the website can be SUPER slow sometimes at loading videos – just search “1997” on the video archive page and you can find it from there.
Video of the Week: Rowing footage you don’t normally get to see
Most of these shots are pretty standard but the coolest ones are of the shots of the blades going through the water (shot underwater) and of the bottom of the boat where you can see the fin and rudder.
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.